my last day of being a teenager

Well, I´m posting from an internet cafe, and so far I haven´t had much luck with that, so I hope this works out. Also, I don´t have long left before my time´s up, so I´ll try and make this brief.

So the weekend before school started, Damien and I finished our holidays by taking a bus to a town along Lake Chapala. We didn´t realize how big the lake was (I think it´s the biggest lake in Mexico, in fact) so we ended up riding a bus for a long time, although Sahuayo´s only about a 15 min ride away, but we were trying to get to a nice town our travel guide book had recommended. Anyway, we got off and decided to stay where we were, instead of trying to catch yet another bus to the town of Chapala. We walked a LONG WAY to get to the lake, and it ended up just being a marshy edge, instead of a beach, but oh well. We had a nice bask in the sun, and read our books, and watched herons fishing. It was a nice way to end the holidays.

The first week back was pretty good. Damien put in his notice awhile before the break, because he decided he wasn´t cut out for teaching, so he´s headed back to Canada on Wednesday, and he already has a job lined up treeplanting for a couple of months this summer, which starts fairly soon after he gets back. Anyway, that meant the courses have been re-arranged a bit. I have one of his classes, instead of my own, because the grammar is more challenging in this new class, and the new teacher they hired is from here, and her grammar isn´t that good I guess. Anyway, it´s going to be a real challenge for me, because my grammar is quite basic as well, but my boss assumes I know it because I´m a native speaker. I actually think people who learn English as a second language probably have a better knowledge of grammar than a native speaker, because for me, I understand how sentences work, but I couldn´t tell you WHY they worked that way!! Anyway, so far my courses have all had fairly straightforward grammar, so this will be a good challenge for me!

So today, being the day before I leave my teen-hood, I had a little breakdown. I know it´s crazy, but lets say I live to be 100 (optimistically.) That means I´m already a 5th of my way through life!! Stupid, I know, but I can´t help feel like I wish I´d done soooo much more by now!! Anyway, I guess I am doing cool stuff, being here, but I am finally starting to feel some serious homesickness... I miss Canada, and all my favourite people up there!!! I like it here, and the hot weather is nice, but I am really starting to feel the homesickness now. I think right as most people feel it, Damien arrived, and now that he´s leaving, I think it´s going to kick in more, because I will no longer have someone who loves me close by. Anyway, Friday was exactly half way through the semester, so I´ll be on my way home before I know it! And I´ll enjoy the time I have in the meantime.

Ok, well I just went over my time limit, so I should skidaddle. I´m feeling much better now. Damien´s been really nice, trying to cheer me up and all. I would love to hear from any or all of you if you feel like splurging and calling Mexico!! Just ask me or my mom for my phone number if you don´t already have it!

Love, Hanah
p.s. happy earthday!!

Damien & Hanah's Magical Mystery Tour (through Mexico)

Hi all!

Sorry for the delay! I really tried to post on my blog while I was travelling, but the internet cafes didn't like my blog website, and weren't cooperating, so could never sign into my account. So here I go! I'll post each day, starting at the end and posting each day seperately as so not to overwhelm you! You don't have to read it all at once this way!! Alright, sit back, relax and come with us on "Damien and Hanah's Magical Mystery Tour!"

P.S. Missing Canada so much!! I can't wait to see all of you in another 2.5 months!!!!! Hope everyone's doing well. Send me lots of e-mails, and don't forget my birthday is on April 23rd!!!! I'll be 20, which is soooo scary! No longer a teenager!!

D&H's MMT- Monday

- caught a bus from Sahuayo to Zamora, and then to Uruapan.
- checked into the Park Hotel, right across the street from the National Park
- wandered around the Easter Week market in the main plaza, with lots of crafts and pottery, all hand made
- had some yucky nachos at a little restaurant

D&H's MMT- Tuesday

- went to the Uruapan National Park which is kind of like a jungle (I had been there before with Sarah Adam and Lauren)
- went to the restaurant that overlooks the park and ate a delicious lunch! Fish, which was JUST caught in the fish farm at the park (the fish hadn't even arrived when we got to the restaurant, so we had to wait for about 20 minutes until they brought it up the the restaurant,) and this amazing fried cheese, which I forgot to ask the name of, but which really reminded me of the Greek cheese called saganaki, which they light on fire and yell "OPA!!"
- caught a bus by the side of the highway at the edge of town (after consulting the amazing Lonely Planet guide book, as well as numerous shop owners along the way, and figuring out exactly where to wait) to the little P'urepecha town of Anagahuan. We got off the bus after a winding up the mountain ride, to horses waiting for us by the side of the road. We decided we would star our holiday off with a bang, and go for the horse rentals, as the tour guide convinced us that it was worth it, and that the town was quite a ways down the road from the bus stop. So we each climbed on a horse, and started out on our journey, stopping to check into a cabana where we would stay when we got home. We thought we'd ride all the way up to the Volcano Paracutin, but after about 5 minutes we realized that a 2 or 3 hour journey there and then back would be WAY too much for our little bums!! It was bumpy riding, and we explained to our tour guide that instead of doing the whole journey, we would just go to the church ruins and back. So he took us to the foot of the rocky volcano ruins, and we tied up our horses and started climbing towards the old church, which was mostly covered when the volcano errupted in 1943. We were able to climb all around the two parts of the huge church, and then headed back to the cabins. Saw an Israeli couple, but didn't talk to them (this will become relivant later in the journey)
- had a horribly freezing cold sleep, dispite layers of blankets, and woke up feeling cold, and fairly unrested

D&H's MMT- Wednesday

- went back to explore around the ruins of the church a bit more. If you'd like to see a few pictures, I found a website of another couple who made this journey, and you can find it here: http://wild-net.com.au/mexico/html/paracutin_volcano.phtml
- started walking back to the main road to get a bus back to Uruapan, but ended up hitching a ride all the way to Uruapan with a really nice girl and her father, who spoke quite a bit of English
- saw the Israeli couple who we saw at the volcano ruins again at the Uruapan bus station, and then caught the same bus from Uruapan to Tingambato (although they didn't get off there, but kept going on, presumably to Patzcuaro)
- shared a taxi with a really sweet woman and her daughter who lived in Tingambato, down the road, and continued on to the ruins of an old town built around 400 A.D. REALLY REALLY cool, including a small (but still pretty big, in my opinion) pyramid. It was especially interesting after watching the movie, "Apocolypto," which is about Mexican history, and mom, if you haven't watched it, please don't, because it's horribly violent, and you'd hate it.
- taxi then bus to Patzecuato
- checked into a ridiculously cheap hotel ($100 pesos/night which is about $10USD)
- had local whitefish, caught in Lago de Patzcuaro (Lake Pazcuaro)
- walked along the beautiful town after dinner, and AGAIN, saw the Israeli couple. At this point, we KNEW we had to say hi, so we did, and they invited us to sit down with them and have a drink. They were really nice, and spoke perfect English, so we had a good evening hanging out with them

D&H's MMT- Thursday

- went to the Folk Art Museum, after having freshly squeezed orange juice at a roadside stand (soooo much better than lemonade stands!)
- saw a gorgeous mural in the library, about Michoacan history. Very vivid and interesting
- wandered around the colour coordinated town of Patzcuaro (all the buildings in the historical center are painted the same shades of red and white) and saw more of the beautiful crafts and clothing that the Easter week markets had to offer
- had really interesting tacos for dinner, with toppings including whitefish, beans, prickly pear, beans, and other interesting vegetarian options

D&H's MMT- Friday

- had a great all-you-can-eat brunch at a hotel restaurant, and stuffed ourselves silly!
- took a bus to Tzintzuntzan to visit the really unique pyramid ruins, called yacatas, which are square shaped on one side with a circle shape on the other
- saw a live theatre production in a park outside a church, about Semana Santa (Or Easter)
- waited forEVER for a taxi or bus to take us back to Patzcuaro, but found out that we had to walk to the outskirts of town to catch the bus, so finally we figured this out after standing at the side of the road for at least an hour or more!

D&H's MMT- Saturday

- mangos for breakfast! YUM!
- walked around the market, spending way too much money...
- had a delicious lunch of tostadas (crispy big circular chips) covered avocado, tomatoes, onions, shrimp, cilantro, hot sauce, and hot peppers, as well as a shrimp coctail. SOOO GOOD!!!!!
- walked through a building that is translated to something like The House of 11 Patios, and I was amazed to see that there really were tons of patios! I didn't count 11, but I don't think we went through all of it
- went for a long walk up a big hill at the edge of town, up to the top at a lookout, and then back again. Took a few hours, but it was a beautiful day, and a gorgeous view at the top, which made it totally worth it!
- got back just in time for an Easter parade, which actually kind of creeped me out. Huge groups of people were dressed up in cloaks that looked way too similar to the uniforms of the Ku Klux Klan. Although I know they weren't supposed to look like them, I couldn't help feeling a bit on edge the whole time.

D&H's MMT- Sunday

- easter egg hunt in the hotel room. We took turns hiding chocolate for each other, and then finding them (and of course eating them!!)
- ate little camping cereal boxes for breakfast, with a borrowed spoon from a cafe near the restaurant (we returned it later, I promise!)
- took a bus from Patzcuaro to Morelia, which is the capital of Michoacan (the province in which I am currently residing)
- checked into a really nice hostel, called Allende hostel
- ate SUSHI for dinner!!!! I ordered one order of Kappa Maki, and one order of salmon roll, but we only ended up getting ONE piece of salmon sushi, although it cost close to the same as 10 pieces of the cucumber roll!! I guess salmon isn't big out this way!
- had some yummy and filling quesadillas, as the sushi wasn't quite enough to fill our bellies, and was too expensive anyway
- walked to the other side of the historical centre, and saw some little aquaducts (I guess they needn't be too big, as rain doesn't fall for very long, if ever, around here) beautiful walk around another nice city
- found a cool little bar, where we discovered 35 peso pitchers!!! This is amazing for two reasons. Firstly, there are no such things as pitchers as far as we've found so far, second because that equals about $4 back home, which is absolutely unheard of!! So we got one, and were sipping away, when this lady selling flowers came up to our table. Damien decided to buy one for me, so gave her a 500 peso bill, which is all we had at the time. She said she didn't have enough change, so went to get some from the bartender. I watched her for a bit, and when it looked like that was what she was truely doing, ignored her, and went back to conversation. After a few minutes, we started to grow uneasy, and Damien went to look for her. When he didn't see her anywhere in the bar, he came back and told me, and so I told him to go find her somewhere in the street. So he went off to track her, and I sat anxiously, worrying about how this nice little rose may have ended up costing us about 8 good meals worth! Damien came back, resigned, and said he couldn't find her anywhere, so we sat in silence for awhile, wondering what we could do, but finally realizing there was nothing we could do. So we sighed, and were just finishing our beer, when the woman returned!!! She must have gone way down the street to another store to find the change, and now she was back! She handed us a 100 peso bill, and asked, "esta bien?" (it's good?) And I was like, "uhh, NO!" Although she had returned to give us our change, she was actually trying to con us out of our money!! So she stood there, handing us one bill at a time, until I was satisfied that she had given us at least most of our money back (minus the flower amount, anyway) So I don't really know what we learned from that, but we were certainly more careful with our money after that point. I guess in one way it taught us that you can't be too trusting of people, however the fact that she returned showed us that there is still decency left in most people. What a relief anyway! We didn't go hungry, at least!

D&H's MMT- Monday

- while making breakfast, (huevos Mexicanos y pan- mexican eggs and bread) we heard about this international guitar festival, which was happening in Morelia starting the next day, and continuing on for a few days, and realized all the beautiful music we heard coming out of many of our neighbours rooms, was actually world-renouned guitarists practicing for their performances later this week! This convinced us to stay for another night and check out some of the music. Musicians included;
Manuel Barrueco (Cuba) who we got to hearArnulfo Rubio (Paracho ,Mexico)Giovanni MascelliRamiro Martinez (México)Cesar Lara (Mexico), Anton Vanderborght (Belgica) who lived across the hall from us at the hostel, and was absolutely amazing!!!Fabian Cardoso (Argentina)Daniel Olmos (Mexico)Carlos Dorado (Argentina)Maurizio del Fluvio (Italia)Rafael Padron (Cuba)Alexis Mendez (Cuba)Enric Madriguera (USA)Ruben Parejo (Espana)Victor Pellegrini(Argentina)
a bunch of the younger musicians were staying the Hostel Allende, so music filled the air throughout our entire time there.
- went to the state museum, and learned lots about the history of Michoacan, and saw all sorts of old artefacts and maps (all for free!!)
- had this really weird fruit salad which included; chopped mango, jicema, pineapple, chili pepper, black pepper, salt, crumbly cheese, hot sauce, orange juice, lime juice! MUY RARO!!! (VERY WEIRD!!!)
- went on a 3k walk to the zoo
- wandered around looking at animals, and was absolutely fascinated to the point of wondering if I should really be a teacher, or if I should change paths completely and study zoology, by the monkies! We spent ages just staring at them, laughing and laughing, and being absolutely amazed at how similar they are to humans! Lots of other really cool animals, including lots of wild cats and even a pair of Canadian wolves. We felt really sad for some of the time, as I always do when I go to zoos, as lots of them look like their soul has been removed completely by being trapped in a horribly small environment, and for many of them, in the completely wrong climate
- caught a bus back, and ended up being shuttled around to 3 different buses, in order for us to get all the way back downtown. It only cost us 5 pesos each though, which is awesome, because the reason we had to be shuttled around was because we didn't get off at the proper stop. Anyway, we ended up getting an hour or so, (instead of what should have been a 10 minute ride) tour of Morelia for 5 pesos each!!
- walked around for a long time, and had some mas-o-menos (so-so) dinner at a kind of greasy spoons restaurant
- saw an amazing hand drumming group outside in the street, who also had a really awesome, energetic dancer with them. That was nice to hear a good old drumming group again. It's been awhile!!

D&H's MMT- Tuesday

- had kind of a quiet day, as Damien was feeling sick. I walked around the town a bit on my own, and bought a pair of flip flops, which were desperately needed to go with my new yellow dress that I bought at the market in Patzcuaro. Running shoes just didn't quite match... I also saw a huge rally, which I believe was against the president of Mexico, but I can't be entirely sure. Just down the street there was a big van-load of army guys, all holding huge guns, and dressed in army-green attire. Kinda scary, but I don't think they ended up having to do anything. It looked like a pretty peacefully rally, with performers and musicians. I got to watch some traditional dancers who dress up like old men, in long wigs, who use canes and pretend to be all bent over, and yet they are so energetic!!
- made it out to one of the performances for the guitar festival, and saw an amazing Cuban guitarist, named Manuel Barrueco. It was really really good to see a wonderful musician again, because last year I was spoiled with all the great musicians at UofT and just in and around Toronto, so I was really beginning to miss good live music!

D&H's MMT- Wednesday

-fresh orange juice, freshly baked bread and some fresh fruit from the market down the street, then packed up
- decided to head back to Sahuayo, instead of heading to the beach as originally planned, as there were only a few days left of holidays, and decided it would be good to unwind for a bit before getting back into the old routine. Also, money was running very short, and it's a long, somewhat expensive bus ride to get all the way to the coast, unfortunately. Maybe some long weekend I can convince a student to drive all the way, because that wouldn't be nearly as far. The problem is the bus, and how it stops all the way to pick people up along the side of the road. That's what makes it feel like such a long way!
- arrived home in time to have some birthday cake of Lauren's, as her birthday was the day before. I guess we'll have to have a party for Lauren and myself, as mine is coming up in a little over a week as well! Maybe this weekend, in between people's last minute lesson plans.
- overall, a wonderful trip, and soooo nice to see more of Mexico, and to have a good long break (although it doesn't feel all that long, and I'm not quite at the point where I'm missing my students yet, but I'm sure it will be good to see them again, when Monday does roll around.)