anika in mexico

I woke up and made my way to class through some tricky traffic, but still had a few minutes to kill before my professor arrived.

She got there just as I was in the middle of a very interesting conversation with Nic, but it’s one we can continue another time.

My prof and I talked a bit, and just as we were starting the test, the terremoto (earth quake) alarm rang. It was just a practice alarm because today is the anniversary of the big earthquake of ‘85 that devastated the city. I think the purpose was lost on the “crowd” because it’s mostly high school students who took the “break” as an opportunity to chat and smoke cigarettes. I couldn’t hear the voice on the loud speaker enough to even try to understand what it was telling us.

After a few minutes, we were allowed back into the building, and I started the exam.

It really wasn’t difficult, but I took my time, careful not to make mistakes. My technique worked, as I earned a 95% overall. She also gave me a 95% for my oral skills which I thought was rather generous. Although I talk a lot, I’m sure I’m not very accurate, and probably say lots of inappropriate things, with inappropriate tenses, etc.

After the test I just wanted to jet, but my professor carried on for quite a while, wishing me a good time while I’m in Mexico, telling me that I can call her if I need anything, telling me how well I’m doing with the language, etc. It was nice, but I just found it a little awkward, and I was glad when I could finally just go.

When I got home, I hung out with Sigrid a bit, but she was off to make 3 different types of cookies with her friend Susie, so eventually I just went back up to my room. I had enough time to finish my pattern before I had to go meet Karin for lunch. We ate and chatted a bit. She showed me the information for the school in San Miguel, but I don’t think that one will work out. Their courses require a full month, plus if you take the intensive course it’s 6 hours a day! I’d say that’s definitely intensive! After having a tough time with a 3 hour class, I’m not sure I want to dedicate 6 hours of my days to further education. Since I also don’t have a full month to attend the school, I think instead, I’ll look for another option.

Siggy arrived when Karin and I were already done with lunch. She had her friend Jimena with her, and soon after, her other friend Christine showed up. We chatted a bit, and then we all went our separate ways–them to go buy supplies for their group project, me to go get ready to see Bloc Party!

Chucho was going to pick me up at 6pm, but at 6:40 he called to say that traffic was awful and that I’d better drive myself to Polanco where we were all meeting. To get to Polanco, it only takes about 10 minutes tops without traffic. Today it took me almost 2 hours. I arrived at my destination at 8:30! The same time the concert was starting!

I sat down in the bar and had a quick beer, and within 10 minutes, Carlos, Chucho and I left Pollo and his girlfriend at the bar to walk over to the Auditorio Nacional to catch the show. It was pouring down rain. Earlier back at the house it had actually hailed enough so that the green grass looked white.

We all got very wet. I was absoluted soaked from mid-thigh down to the tips of my toes. But I was really happy and excited to get to the concert hall.

We had really great seats, thanks to Siggy. We were in row T which was perfect because we had a clear view of the stage, and could actually see what was going on.

Neither Chucho nor Carlos really knew the band. I suspect they went along either because it was a chance to go to a free concert, or Siggy asked them to go so I wouldn’t be alone.

I don’t think either of them really got into the music, but I sure did. I had so much fun dancing, clapping and screaming my head off. I got to hear all the songs that I really wanted to hear including Blue Light, Like Eating Glass, She’s Hearing Voices, This Modern Love, Pioneers, and of course Banquet among others. It was really a great show, and when we left the rain had stopped!

Chucho went back home right away, but Carlos was really hungry, so I agreed to take him to McDonalds. I had a Cuarto de Libre (Quarter Pounder with Cheese) which was really awful. the fries also seemed a little undercooked. At least they didn’t put ice in my coke.

I was going to drop Carlos off at the metro in Polanco, but he insisted that we go to another one so that he could drive with me and make sure I wouldn’t get lost. So I dropped him off at the station right on Reforma in front of Auditorio.

My shoes were still sopping wet when I got home, but I was totally happy.

Tooosday. School annoyed the crap out of me today. I suppose that’s fitting for the last actual day of class. Tomorrow’s just the test, then I’m done!

My professor went over a few last lessons in the last chapter, but to me they seemed like some of the hardest grammar rules, and I was surprised that they were left to the last day. I had a hard time not getting really snippy with my professor. She also reviewed a lot of stuff from previous chapters, and somehow I was left utterly confused by the end of class. Everything I’d learned over the 3 weeks seemed jumbled up into one confusing ball of grammar that was heading right toward me, it’s only purpose to squash me flat. At the end of class she said, “well we have 5 minutes left. Any other questions, or is something not clear?” I just kind of laughed and said that I think it would be better if I just went home and studied and tried to straighten everything out.

Sigrid and I went to Jenny’s for lunch. We had some odd pasta dish that was so so. We ate outside in the sun though. Sigrid and I went home after lunch, just ahead of a huge storm that was brewing.

Sometimes when a big storm comes in, I get really sleepy. That’s what happened this afternoon, so I went upstairs and lay down. I only slept for 20 minutes, but it was refreshing. As I was lying in bed, waking back up, a vague idea for a pattern popped into my head. I jumped up and started sketching my ideas. What I ended up with wasn’t exactly what I imagined while I was semi-awake, but it turned out nice.

Jenny came to pick us up to go to the healer that my family here all really like. Yup, I finally went. I figured I’d just go with the flow. I saw the guy give a healing to Sigrid, and it seemed ok, so I went with it too. He pinpointed my problem very quickly, even though I hadn’t told him anything. He gave me some exercises and other advice to try, and said that it should help a lot, and that if I wanted to come back, I could do that too.

I felt pretty good about the whole thing in the end. Not to say that I’m feeling incredible afterwards, but I did seem to have a bit more energy after the session, and a positive outlook. It’s good to have his suggestions for exercises, because now I feel like there is something I can do to start help myself.

Back home, I played a nice game of 4 aces with Sigrid, who re-taught it to me because she didn’t remember that we’d already played. It was a really fun game, and she won!

Afterwards I slinked upstairs to finally start on my homework (it was just a bit past 9pm). I went through the last three chapters, just reviewing all the main grammar lessons once. All in all I spent an hour studying, and then I was itching to finish my pattern, so I abandoned my Spanish books and continued my drawing. I didn’t quite finish, but I got a good start.

We had another meet and greet conversation in my Spanish class. It was with another level one class, and it was conducted entirely in English. It was kind of funny because one of the guys in the class is from New Zealand, and as near as I can tell he’s an artist, but he introduced himself as an alchemist, and my eyes glazed over a bit. He was totally loopy in that very artsy way, and very funny to listen too. When we were talking about what kind of transportation we preferred (I said driving was fun here, and everyone laughed), the New Zealand artist guy said that he absolutely loved the Metro because it is truly beautiful because you can see “real” Mexicans. How delightfully pretentious, and yet fully committed his ideas was he.

The other guy is from Australia and works for the World Bank, and seemed genuinely interested in practicing his Spanish, but the New Zealand guy would complain that he couldn’t understand what we were saying everytime we spoke in Spanish.

The professor of their class liked to talk about tacos and made a lot of poop jokes about the effects of chile on one’s system.

The whole thing was totally random, yet highly entertaining.

I think my up-tight, by-the-book professor was more than a little flustered, and as we left she said, “well, at least you got to know another part of the campus.” Ha.

The rest of class went by ok, if not very quickly. I talked a lot which is what I prefer.

After class it was a beautiful, sunny day, so I decided to go right to the Chapultepec park to go for a walk. I parked and started walking, and not 5 minutes later I saw Siggy’s car driving by, and she parked nearby. She had swung by my house to see if I had wanted to come to the park with her for a walk. She had her roller blades, and while she kept me on my toes, we were able to stick together for our walk/roll.

Peluches was with her too, and he is kind of dumb we decided. He can’t hear or see very well, but insists on wandering around all over the place, not caring if he gets lost. He’ll get a little panicky if he doesn’t see you, but the moment he sees you he feels secure, and then turns right around and wanders off in the other direction again.

We had a good time and after the first lap we stopped and got a fresh juice and a small fruit plate from the stand on the circuit. It was really good and the owner realized I was not from Mexico, so he practiced his English a bit while I practiced my Spanish. He lived in California for 8 years and was familiar with San Francisco as well as Southern California.

We did one more lap together before Siggy went to meet a friend for lunch. I did yet another lap around the lake, then drove home.

I had a simple, but really great lunch with Sigrid. Some kind of thin meat with noodles and beet salad. Just perfect.

Afterwards I headed over to Starbucks to catch up with this here journal, and catch up with some email too.

I’m going to predict that I’ll go home, have supper and then do my homework and/or draw or get some more photos ready to upload, so I can post this journal entry early and not wait til tomorrow. I wonder if I’ll be right, or if I’ll have more to add.

Class was agonizing today. I didn’t want to do anything. Didn’t want to learn, didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to listen, didn’t wanted to check homework. Nothing. Se la vie. It was over soon enough I suppose, then I went over to Starbucks and checked email and so forth.

I had lunch with Sigrid and Siggy which was nice.

After lunch I worked on some patterns and eventually Siggy told me that her mom would pick me up to go to a the concert. I didn’t have an idea about when, so I just kept on working on my pattern, assuming I’d find out one way or another. Eventually Karin came in and asked, “shall we go?” I got ready in less than 10 minutes, but still looked rather sharp.

We met up with Pancho and Carlos, and we all went to a concert of Mexican music played by the Philharmonic Orchestra of the UNAM. It was really amazing. The concert hall itself was incredible. It was designed specifically and only for music performances. No dance, no theatre, just music. The acoustics were near perfect, and it was beautiful to boot.

For the concert itself, there was a guest pianist who was as mesmerizing to watch as to listen to. The audience kept on with the applause and he completed no less than 3 encores.

The second part of the concert was dedicated to contemporary Mexican composers. All 3 composers were present, and I particularly enjoyed the first and last of the three songs. The first was called “Pacifico” and it really captured perfectly the essence of the Pacific Ocean in music form. It was enchanting. The last was a fun Dance song with a lively beat that was just fun to listen to. Of course at the end of the concert, there was yet more standing applause, and at least 2 more encores. It was a long night of great music.

Afterwards we all headed over to a place that makes churros right near the restaurant where I had the crepas with Sigrid for lunch just the day before. This place wasn’t nearly as classy, and service wasn’t that great, but the churros were crispy and sweet, and the hot cocoa was good. I particularly liked dipping the churros into the hot chocolate as is customary. Afterwards we headed back home, and I was asleep a bit after midnight.

Class was class. Slow. Boring.

After class I met up with Sigrid at home and we made our way to San Angel for lunch with her friend Irmgard and her daughter, Kirsten. I didn’t know where I was going exactly, but we made it there, needing to take only one U-turn. We ate crepas (crepes) at Restaurante Cluny. It’s a student run restaurant, but both the service and the food is excellent.

I had the “Popeye” crepa. It had spinach, jamon, queso y crema. Sigrid ordered the “Bombay” with a filling of chicken curry. I think I’d try the “Bombay” next time. I also got a cappucino (finally a good one!) and a dessert crepa with 3 kinds of berries. It was all really good.

Kirsten and Irmgard are long time friends of the family. Irmgard is 93, but still very much “with it” and has quite a sense of humor, and is also very friendly. In Irmgard’s younger days, she documented indigenous weaving techniques, and took thousands of photos of indigenous woman and their weaving work. All the photos are in slide form, and Kirsten wants to work getting them scanned to have copies in digital format for archival purposes, and maybe compile them into a book. It sounds like a very interesting project, and I hope I get the chance to see the photos sometime!

I talked a lot with Kirsten who seems to live a very interesting life. She’s retired and right now she’s taking a drawing class, even though it’s totally against her nature, and as she put, she’s not very good, but she enjoys it, and that’s really the important thing.

I knew mum was coming back tonight, so when I got the chance I gave her a quick call. Coincidentally she’d just walked in the door, returning from her trip to New Mexico. She called me back a little while later.

We talked for such a long time, and finally decided that instead of October, she’ll come for a visit in November. I’m very excited about this. Since that date is firm, I could then confirm the dates when Jessica is going to come visit. She’ll get a passport and come to Mexico toward the end of October.

Things are starting to fall into place, and I think I’ll go to San Miguel de Allende for the first few weeks in October. There are still a lot of details to work out, but I’m sure I’ll be going somewhere else soon, which I’m glad about.

Today we started class off with another session of conversation with another class. This was another individual class, and the woman was in a much higher level than I. It was kind of cool though because her Spanish was very smooth, and while she was a lot more confident, it was simple enough that I really understood everything she said.

After that class went by really quickly, thankfully. I took Sigrid with me to have lunch at Karin’s. Siggy also joined me. Afterwards I stayed to edit some of the photos of the rancho that Karin and I had taken over the weekend, and Karin took Sigrid back home. The photo editing went by slowly. I finished just in time to go to Tai Chi with Karin.

The Tai-Chi was taught on the outdoor, covered, astroturf playground at a school. It was very small, but there were only 5 of us total in the class. It was ok, and by the end I was even a little sweaty. I did notice it was a bit of a strain on my knees, but maybe in a good strengthening way. I might go back next week.

I had some supper with Sigrid, but then I was pretty tired, so I just went upstairs, did my homework and went to bed.

I admit that I’m writing this entry about a week after the date (as I did for the last two entries as well!). I don’t remember too much that happened this day, which leads me to believe it wasn’t terribly eventful. What I do remember is that in class we had “guests” from next door. Three students in level one Spanish. One from Germany, one from S. Korea, and one from China. We talked about basic things like where they are from, what they do for a living, why they are in Mexico, and what they like about Mexico, and what kinds of foods they like/have tried here.

I was a little bored, but it was a nice change of pace, and the rest of class went by quickly.

The rest of the day is a bit fuzzy. It’s likely that I went to Starbucks to check my email, but it’s also likely that I went back home and slept or something since it had been a busy weekend.

I had a hard time sleeping last night, as I thought I might. First off, I just had trouble getting to sleep. Secondly, the other guests who are now staying here (a woman from Cancun and her niece) went out at night and didn’t get back until 3am, making lots of noise when they arrived.

I woke up at my scheduled time and made it to school in only 20 minutes! Karin had told me another way to go, and it was a lifesaver.

I wasn’t really looking forward to class, but I was there. My professor came in and I told her that I hadn’t done my homework, which wasn’t a big deal. So instead we went over my exam. I got an 88% on it. One thing was her mistake, so I actually got a 90%, but whatever. Honestly I didn’t care about the grade. What I did, and still do care about is her method for “correcting” me. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but she doesn’t correct my mistakes. Instead, she tells me which one is wrong, and then waits for me to miraculously come up with the right answer. If I’ve gotten it wrong, obviously there is something I don’t quite understand, and I’ve never suddenly been struck by the right answer under her pressure.

So it went on like that for each question. And then the questions I had about why it was wrong (to me some of them seemed ok, like not totally wrong, even if it wasn’t what she was looking for), she would get confused about, and just explain what she’d already told me, which was useless.

And so since I was tired, hadn’t been feeling well all week, include this morning, and was growing increasingly frustrated, I felt tears wanting to push their way through my tear ducts. I didn’t want to cry in front of her, and since I was growing increasingly testy, I suddenly, in the middle of an exercise in the work book, declared that I needed a break, and I went down to the bathroom to compose myself.

I blew my nose, and let myself cry a little bit for 10 seconds. Then I got myself together, and headed back upstairs.

My teacher might inadvertently be a bitch, but she’s not stupid and she’s not unfeeling.

She sensed that something was wrong. Then of course she asked me to talk about it, and then of course, I started crying right in class right in front of her. She said that she understood how hard it is for extranjeros in another country, and she knew that it had been a hard week for me–terrible traffic, not feeling well, the confusion about the classroom change, plus the fact that I’m the only person in the class which also can be stressful. She went on and on about the morning when the secretaries hadn’t told me that my classroom had changed, instead letting me sit in an empty room for 20 minutes. I think that incident really upset my professor more than me. So as she came up with all these reasons why I was upset, I just nodded along. In retrospect, I really should have just told her that it’s very hard for me when she doesn’t just correct my mistakes but drags it out waiting for me to self-correct. But my defenses were up, and my mindset at the time, and perhaps still, is just to get through the class as easily as possible.

The ultimate result of all this is that on Monday I get to have a half an hour with the other class to have conversation with some other “young people” which was one of her other reasons for me being upset–that I didn’t have other young people to talk to in the class. Whatever, at least it’ll be a change of pace. She also said that we can leave the classroom one day and walk around or have a coffee somewhere and just have conversation.

I was more than relieved when the class was over, and now there’s only another week and a half left! Actually less, only a week and 2 days! Plus I’m skipping on Tuesday to go see Siggy talk at a conference. So that’s only 6 more days of class!

After class I went to Gigante (a supermarket near my school) to look in vain for more Brita filters. I did get a few other necessities like cactus fruit, avocados, hair conditioner, and mini-coca-colas.

Then I came home and made a little collage while waiting for Karin to go have lunch at her house. She was already here at my house, but talking to Sigrid for a while. We left at 2:30–I followed her. She’s a whiz on the roads. Whenever there was the slightest bit of congestion, she’s swerve onto some side street where we’d be traffic free for a while.

We ate with Siggy too. We had corn soup and Mexican “fast” food–Fried chicken breasts, rice and beans. It was quite good. For some dessert we had Galletas Marias with Cajeta.

Karin had to go soon after lunch, but I stayed and hung out with Sigs for a while. Then we left to go look for a fondue set, check out a craft store, and get supplies for the fondue party later that night.

Saskia met us when we went to the craft shop. It really was very crafty, and almost entirely uninteresting for me. They are very into the fact that you can “make your own jewelry!!” here. There were aisles and aisles of silk flowers, christmas bulbs, papier mache forms you could “paint yourself!!”, wood blanks, sequins and sparkly things, gaudy figurines for a wedding, a quinceanera, a baby shower, etc. They also had a small section for halloween, which is growing in popularity everywhere it seems.

We were joined by Pancho who seemed about as interested in the store as I did.

I was grateful when we left to go to the bakery to get the brownies that Siggy likes so much. We ran into one of her cousins there from the Marquard family. She seemed rather morose, although she was friendly enough to me.

We headed back to the car, then to the supermarket, where we bought about 10 packets of fondue, 4 baguettes, liquor/beer/wine, soda, and some “Ranchero” flavored chips that I was skeptical about at first, but were actually quite tasty.

Siggy and I swung by my place to pick up another fondue set. Back at Siggy’s, we were met by Jabo, and we started some of the preparations. We had a few margarita-like coctails in tiny martini glasses. I cut up 3 of the baguettes into bite sized pieces.

The 5 of us hung out in the kitchen for quite a while before anyone else showed up. I ate a lot of ranchero chips with cheese.

It was an ok party, but the purpose of it was to introduce everyone’s new girlfriends/boyfriends to the rest of the friends. So it was pretty much couples, a few bachelors, and me. And of course, there was a lot going on, so everyone pretty much just spoke in Spanish very rapidly. I had my vodka cocktails to keep me company, but that was about it. I had a brief hilarious conversation with Fernando, and then a somewhat creepy conversation with this dude Hector who is a drummer in a band called “Candy”. Within the first 3 minutes he asked if I would a) take him with me when I return to the states, and/or b) marry him. Then he kept asking if I’d like to go out to this club called “Bulldog” tomorrow night, or if I would come see him play on the 22nd. When I said, “yeah, maybe, we’ll see.” He was like, “aw that means you’re not going to come.” Haha.

Overall it was a pretty boring party for me, but I did eat a lot of fondue, which was fun. I left at 1:30 and went to bed.

I had my exam in class today. I finished it up in about 20 minutes. My professor thought that was pretty fast, so she asked me how long I’d studied Spanish in school. I told her all in all it has been about 4.5 years, but it’s been 10 years since I’d studied it. I also mentioned that most of what I was learning was still review, but it was necessary because without it, I wouldn’t remember a lot of the vocabulary, plus it’s good to be reminded about a lot of the grammar rules.

We talked quite a bit today, which I enjoy the most because the time seems to go quickly, plus it’s where I need the most practice. We did some exercises in the book, learning about the future tense. Overall I’d say it was the best class I’ve had in this session so far which is encouraging. Though when we were checking homework I got a bit frustrated again with her method for correcting me. She’ll repeat back what I just said, making it a question. So then I know that I got it wrong, but I won’t have any idea what part of it is wrong, and I get a panicky feeling until she finally clears it up and just corrects the mistake. But until she does, she just looks at me expectantly and a little smugly, waiting for me to correct the mistake myself. sigh.

After class I called Siggy and we agreed to meet. She gave me some “Siggy” directions, meaning she would say, “ok, so you do down this road, then you get to a point where you go to the right, but make sure you don’t go under the bridge because then you’ll go onto the highway. Then you’ll come to 3 exits and you take the middle one, and then you go down a ways and eventually come to some stop lights and you take the third one to the left, and then you turn right, and you go down that road a ways, and when you get there, just give me a call and then I’ll tell you where to go after that.” The whole time she’s saying this, I’m trying to make sense of it in my head, but I work well with exit and street names, so usually I just say ok, and then start driving, and sometimes her directions make sense, and sometimes I’m glad to have a map.

I got there, figured out how and where to park, and then went into the radio station to meet Sigs. She was kind of busy, so I actually ended up having to wait for about an hour before we went out to lunch. We thought of getting sushi, but it was really crowded, so we went around the corner to “La Tierra Buena” which I really liked. It’s not exactly organic, but the serve a lot of healthy, fresh foods. I had a delicious mushroom soup and a panini with queso panuelo.

Saskia joined us partway through our meal. She’s taking an Italian class at Siggy’s school. I walked back to campus with Siggy and she showed me the store “Lumen” which has a decent amount of art supplies. Then I went with her to rent a couple of movies she needed. She thought of one that I should see and got it for me.

Then I headed back home, and traffic wasn’t too bad yet. I got back and Sigrid had a bunch of old ladies over for tea. I quietly went to the kitchen to make my own tea, then headed upstairs where I finished the pattern I’d started late last night. I was pretty beat though, and I just wanted to curl up for a while. I ended up snoozing until Karin woke me up. She wanted to tell me that the power was out in case I was on my computer or something. I got to chat with her a bit, and it was cool because I got the sense that she really understands why I’m here, and is ok with the fact that I’m taking it easy. She invited me to have lunch with her tomorrow.

I went downstairs and she helped me make a couple of quesadillas with spicy avocado sauce which I ate in the kitchen by candle light with Reina and her kids. I also made some tea which I brought with me to my room. Not much you can do in the dark.

I haven’t done my homework, but I’m not inclined to do it by candlelight.

I hope I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

I had a very normal day today.

School was boring again. I left very early and actually arrived early which was nice since I had some time to relax before class started. At one point I got on the edge of being snippy with my professor when she started to give me a grammar lesson about a homework answer that I had actually gotten correct, but she’d misheard me. She backed off quickly though.

I made it to the bank again after school. The atm was again broken! This time I was feeling well enough to walk a few blocks down to another branch of the same bank. Thankfully their atm was functioning, and their line to get to a teller was actually a lot shorter than the other bank! I’m glad to have that over with.

I came right home. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to go out to lunch with Sigrid and one of her friends. I would have told her that I didn’t want to go (I was really feeling exhausted), but I at least wanted to be home so as not to leave her hanging.

But we had lunch at home like usual. The lunch outing isn’t until next week, thursday. We had a delicious soup and fresh tortillas with avocado. I prefer tortillas with avocado instead of butter. Fish, mushrooms and rice was the main course. The fish was really good. Reina cooked it with tomatoes, onions, and green olives on top. Plus I think there was some kind of vinegar based marinade. Tangy and good.

Throughout lunch Sigrid and I talked in Spanish. She’s been trying to remember to speak Spanish with me so that I can get some good practice using it. I think it’s great, and she’s very patient, plus she knows English so well that when I can’t think of a word, she’ll let me know what it is. I actually did pretty well and didn’t just talk about the weather, but also about art and cultural topics. It was fun. She thinks I can speak very well actually, and so is encouraged about speaking more Spanish with me all the time.

After lunch I thought about taking a walk since the sun was making a rare appearance, but I got sucked into drawing one of my patterns. Good thing too because just about a half hour after I thought I’d go for a walk it started raining like crazy. A true “aguacero” (I just learned that vocab word, it means very heavy rainstorm). If I’d gone walking I’d probably just be arriving at the lake when the rain started.

I was supposed to go to Tai Chi with my aunts, but it was cancelled because the teacher’s car broke down. Maybe we’ll go tomorrow.

So I just kept drawing. I started and finished one pattern, and I got about half-way done with another one.

I also managed to get my homework done, and studied for my “midterm” tomorrow. I’m not worried about it.