Mexican Miscellany

Mexcellany?

From the weekend: We heard our best come-on line from a guide at an archeological site this past weekend at Chichén Itzá: one guide told us that if we hired him, our visit would be less hot.

Emily aptly and wittily summarized some of my feelings on our Brazilian companions for the weekend: they drove too fast and walked too slow.

From Monday: On returning from school on Monday, we entered our room to find that several tiles had fallen from high on our bathroom wall. Several more appeared loose. We changed rooms then first to a room that was next to the noise of the street and that had a closet door that we couldn't get open. Finally, we ended up in Room 10, our current room, and are satisfied with it despite a ceiling fan that makes all sorts of odd noises when we turn it on. I feel a bit like Goldilocks, except we haven't found "just right" yet.

From Today: I asked today to change Spanish teachers. We have a new teacher named Alicia this week, after having the same teacher--Israel--the previous two. We spend about half of class doing grammar drills with Alicia not explaining a whole lot, and then we spend the other half with conversation, with Alicia doing almost all of the talking. I got fed up finally this morning. First, during a vocabulary exercise, she tried to tell me I was wrong when I described an elephant's skin using the Spanish word for wrinkled. She preferred the word for rough. It's just not that my word was more appropriate in the circumstances, it was also the only one of the two that was in the list of words we were supposed to be drawing from. Second, during our conversation, she would not concede that she might be wrong when she insisted on describing Platonic love as when two people are in a friendship, and one is in love with the other without the sentiment being returned. When the three of us in class all explained that Platonic love was nothing of the sort, but was a deep, nonromantic love between friends, she could not concede even the possibility that we were right. Even after she looked it up in a dictionary that did not support her interpretation. She said it means something different in Mexico. Whatever. Hopefully I will get to finish off this week actually learning a thing or two before we leave town.

A General Observation: For some reason, everyone in Mexico spits. Anywhere they happen to be. Emily suggested that maybe they all have swallowing issues. Whatever the reason, we can't help but find it a bit gross. Mom, if you're reading, you can rest assured that I internalized the whole "don't spit on the floor" lesson.