life is full of wonders

Well my friends, much has happened since my post!
Last monday i went to Merida with my host family. it is the capital city of the yucatan. the car ride there and back reminded me of the car trips that I used to take with my family when i was litte...sitting in the middle, sleeping most of time, waking up with my head on someones shoulder. although i am much larger than my host sisters (and my host mom and almost my host dad...mayas are quite small) i was quite squished in the middle but i didnt mind. I only saw the central area of Merida in the car because it was raining a lot when we got there. It seemed pretty though. Then we went to 3 different malls...they were all looking for random things and i wanted to find a skirt, but after going to almost every store in 2 very large and 1 small mall, found that they only have very short or elegant skirts here, but wound up buying something i didnt like much just so my family didnt feel bad that i didnt find anything.

The rest of last week was spent doing a good amount of work and preparing for research. We were intensively instructed on how to write and then improve our research proposals and analytical questions which was difficult but very useful. Also, we got stuff ready for our plans for break.

Friday afternoon Matt, Evan, Lindsey and Brianna left Piste to head to the beach. Brianna got off in Tulum to meet her father where we'd meet up with her on monday and the rest of us headed to Playa del Carmen. We stayed at a place called Casa Tucan. It in an awesome location, was set in a jungle of sorts, had all kinds of murals everywhere, was very clean, had a nice pool, air conditioning! and we stayed in suite there with a kitchenette and patio area. Our room was called El Cenote (see last entry) so it was set down below. Very neat.
I spent as much time as I could on the beach all day. It was so so gorgeous. Playa is developed but nowhere near as much as Cancuna and was developed by Europeans so it is much more tasteful. There is a large mix of people from around the world that come and there is a large range of things to do/restaurants/hotels. On saturday at sunset time we all got massages on the beach. Ahhhhh so wonderful. we did it partially because it only cost 25 dollars for an hour. There were some neat bars and clubs right on the beach and many had rope swings instead of bar stools! On saturday night we had thai food, which wasnt so good but i am happy that i got to go to a thai place all the same! Sunday night we made a nice dinner complete with candles for the 4 of us.
We stayed in playa for 3 nights and then went to Tulum on Monday morning. Here we met up with Brianna. Tulum is beautifulll and much different than playa in that it is not built up. there are some hotels along the beach but where we were only had cabanas and nothing around it (as in restaurants or anything besdies the hotels). It is the perfect place to get away from everything. We just hung out on the beach, went to ruins but after being there for about 10 minutes, it rained quite intensely. We took cover under a tree. the rain would have been a lot of fun and we could have just gone swimming but unfortunately we had our cameras and other valuables so we had to huddle with our stuff. Luckily, it all survived the storm but unfortunately we didnt get to see everything and wasnt able to take many pictures. That night we went into the town for an awesome italian dinner. I wound up going to sleep at 330 and then waking up at 5 to see the sunrise over the ocean. After sunrise, i napped on the beach until it was time to leave at 8.
So, the trip was wonderful. I would love to go back! For me, it was a good balance of relaxation and activity/meeting people/dancing. In true Sarah-ness, I was the last one asleep and first to wake up each day because i didnt want to miss a second of the beach or the sun.

We got back on tuesday afternoon, all pretty exhausted. Yesterday we took our first all together trip to Chichen Itza (oh yeah i went briefly last sunday with my host sisters). We wound up spending 6 hours there and didnt even wind up seeing everything in part because its huge and in part because everyone knows Quetzil and we know a lot of people there too (the vendors) so we stopped constantly to talk to people. it was a lot of fun to be there and know so many people working and to have a tour fromm Queztil who knows so much information and background gossip on everything. 21 years of experience there has created a lot of stories!

So after 6 hours in the sun, I came home, helped Yli with her English exam, ran around town a little then got ready to do some work when Juan (im using fake names cause it needs to be anonymous) came to my house and told me that he found out that i cant go to his AA group but that there was a public event in the park for the worldwide anniversary of the founding of AA, NOW. i was in a bit of frenzy and was quite tired but i got myself together went over there.
the event wound up being very helpful for my project. i made some reat contacts and have plans to go to my first meeting on saturday and then a meeting of the group representatives on monday. 2 movies were shown. the purpose of the event was to inform non-AA about the group. it was great.

i need to go eat. a 2 year old is petting me and telling me its time to eat.
amor!