anika in mexico

10:30am! It seemed like it was maybe 8am at the latest. What a shame to sleep in so late in such a beautiful place. I got up and at ‘em right away. We had a simple and tasty breakfast of toast and eggs with ham and cheese with chocolate milk.

I walked around the house and took a few photos, and took one last dip in the pool. I took a quick shower and got all packed up (most of my stuff had already gotten home with Anne in my suitcase that we shared).

Back in the car we headed back to Mexico City. On the way I saw a small part of a larger work of grafitti that I liked the look of. It inspired and interesting new pattern that I’m not entirely sure I like, but not entirely sure I don’t like either.

As we came over the hill that overlooked the city, we could actually see it! Mexico City! The sky was really clear. You could still see a bit of the haze of pollution, but really it was a remarkably crisp sunny scene. Even all the native Mexicans traveling with me (meaning everyone in the car but me) exclaimed at the view of the city. They pointed out to me the main areas that I was familiar with. It looked so small and simple from our vantage point, but soon we were in the thick of it. It was still a gorgeous day, and the traffic was very light. Siggy mentioned, “It’s really a beautiful city without the traffic and pollution.” We all heartily agreed.

We dropped off Fernando near his house, then drove back to Saskia’s where we managed a ride from one of their drivers back to my house. I then let Siggy take my car to school since she was running late and was a bit frantic. She ended up dropping the container of lunch that Reina had given her, and it splattered all over her, so I let her borrow one of my shirts as well.

I had lunch with Sigrid, and then went upstairs to “rest”. I fell asleep until 9pm, when I was stayed awake for a while, reading and working on my new pattern. I eventually got a little hungry, so I stole downstairs and had a bowl of honey nut cheerios with part of a banana (the part that wasn’t brown and mushy).

Back upstairs, I read some more and at some point Siggy came in and gave me back my keys, and thank you note scribbled on a post-it, and a little bag of foil wrapped chocolate bunnies (conejos).

Surprisingly, I was able to go back to sleep pretty easily.

I slept again soundly and comfortably. It was Sunday and I was pretty much prepared to go home, but hoping that we might stay another day, as Siggy had mentioned we might the day before.

My wish came true! Siggy, Saskia, Fernando and I were going to stay an extra night.

We spent and equally lazy, wonderful day, soaking up the sun, swimming in the pool, reading, chatting, and bidding farewell to everyone else who was heading back.

We had some snacks (tomato and cheese and sausage) and some beer.

We decided to go out for dinner to have fondue. At the fondue place we sat at one of the patio tables (the whole restaurant was open to the outside, but we sat at a table that was just under the eves of the protruding roof).

We placed our order. One cheese fondue, one mixed meat fondue. The sky got gray and the wind kicked up. We decided to move back one table.

We got our drinks and it started raining. A sprinkle at first, then harder, with more wind. We moved back another table. Finally we were somewhat settled and our food arrived. The cheese was salty but good. The meats were tender and the dipping sauces flavorful. We made short work of everything in front of us.

We ordered a white chocolate fondue for dessert. It really started to rain hard, thunder and lightning all around. We moved back 2 more tables, and feeling safe, we were able to fully enjoy our dessert fondue.

It was raining so hard, that the only real choice we had for our next move was to dash over to the nearby movie theater and get tickets for “License to Wed”. Before we decided on that movie, I had never intended to see it. I was not drawn to it at all. I thought it looked stupid, trivial and potentially infuriating.

I was right. It is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The premise is pretty lame to begin with, but add in zero character development, zero chemistry between any of the actors, cheesy one liners, unlikely situations and setups, predictable actions from all parties involved in the sub-par plot, and a desperate attempt at the end to tie every minute detail together for a happy ending, and well, what you get is one big disaster. I’d call it a disappointment if I’d had any hopes for it at all, but I’m afraid my intuition was correct.

The only funny part was at the mention of a scenario involving bears, but that was only funny because of something that had happened earlier that day that had nothing to do with the movie. The night before Fernando had dreamt that he was the talk show host and all the guests were bears, and he’d interview then and they’d just growl or snarl or roar back at him. He awoke to discover that the sound of the bears was contributed by the real life Chucho who was soundly asleep and snoring loudly, if not peacefully. The bear dream had become kind of a theme all day. No one else in the theater thought was funny at all, but we laughed like maniacs, so the other 5 people in the theater giggled along nervously, attempting camaraderie.

After the movie we all felt a little dazed and abused. We piled back into the car and headed home. We were all ready to turn in early. I watched 5 minutes of the L word with Fernando, but it ended quickly and we all then went to bed. This time Sigs and I stayed in Saskia’s brother’s room since the princess room had already been dismantled and cleaned up. The bed wasn’t as comfortable as the futon, but it was ok.

The futon I slept on last night was soft and squishy, and yet firm and supportive. The perfect combination. I slept soundly, and woke up feeling refreshed. I moved about tentatively, but I soon realized that I had a lot more mobility, and a lot less pain. I was by no means healed, but at least each step or turn wasn’t excruciating.

We had a breakfast of barbacoa, which I’m pretty sure is bar-b-qued sheep. You take bits of the meat and wrap it in a tortilla with salsa and cilantro and onion with, of course, a squeeze of lime.

Soon I was back in the pool, one of the few places I could be comfortable.

It was a sunny, lazy day. I swam, I started reading Jitterbug Perfume, I chatted with people, I snoozed, I watched some of the boys play tennis, I swam some more, I ate some snacks, and read a bit more. Dinner was ready while I was swimming, so I ate while I was very wet, and it got a bit chilly. I decided to take a shower and get into some warm clothes.

I felt very shiny and clean and cozy. I kind of wandered around amongst the different groups, but I was feeling lazy, so I just lay down on my plastic couch, and enjoyed the evening. Eventually Anne came over to join me and we had a very interesting conversation about cultural differences between Germany, Mexico and the US.

We both agreed, that as outwardly friendly as people are in Mexico, we can’t help but feel that it’s a bit of a facade, and it’s one that seems very difficult to break through. We’ve been invited and included in everything that’s been planned, but somehow, we both have the sense that we’ll never really be part of the group, even for the short term. Not that it matters in the long run if I make life-long friends here or not, but still, it was interesting to notice and discuss.

I thought about not going into the hot tub that night since I’d showered and gotten dry clothing on, but eventually my resolve whithered, and I hobbled upstairs for my bathing suit, and was soon soaking in the steaming waters again. That night it boiled down to me, the german girls, Chucho and Pancho in the jacuzzi. I admit, we were all drinking “special” lemonade. It was special because it was so delicious, but also because there was a lot of vodka in it that was difficult to detect.

At one point Anne exclaimed, “oh I know what we should play,” as she grabbed a beer bottle and spun it in the water. It pointed squarely at Chucho. I laughed and said, “you know you have to kiss him now.” She looked verifiably shocked, and said, “no, now I ask him ‘truth or dare’.” I responded, “no, if you want to play truth or dare, you just ask him, ‘truth or dare?’ and then he chooses. If you spin the bottle, you have to kiss him.” She really looked flustered at the prospect. The two Mexican boys agreed with my version of the game. Anne still was rather shocked, but we didn’t make her kiss Chucho. Instead we decided to play truth or dare. It was a fairly tame/lame, even slightly boring game that was basically just “truth or truth” since no one would go for a dare. Maybe we all got bored since eventually we decided to just play “dare or dare” with 2 possible dares for each turn, so that we still had some kind of choice. Even the dares were kind of tame/lame. Or at least one of the 2 choices was usually pretty un-daring, so the chosen one was usually the easier of the 2. I suppose the best dare was when Pancho chose the dare that sent him streaking around the tennis courts. There wasn’t much danger of being caught by anyone, but we thought it was hilarious that he actually did it.

I went to bed that night at 5 in the morning.