Observations on being Obvious and on Food

As Michael mentioned in an earlier post I have found a gym here and have been taking spinning classes for the past week and a half (Alright, so I have taken 4 in total, but that is pretty good for being on vacation--I wasn´t averaging any more than that at the Y¨). It has been a fun adventure. First of all, as it turns out I don´t understand Spanish at all if an extremely fit instructor is yelling it and it is combined with loud fans, really bad loud techno versions of Madonna songs, and the sound of 10 other huffing and puffing people in a room with no air conditioning. Despite how it sounds, it is really fun. The classes here have a bigger focus on keeping a fast rhythmical pace than the ones I took in the states which means less going up big hills and more speed which is hard for me. One of the things I do understand it the ¡Ritmo! ¡Ritmo! ¡Ritmo! shouts, being the gringa that I am, my ritmo just really isn´t that good. The other thing about my gringaness is that I stick out like a sore thumb. First of all I am dressed funny. My shorts are way to long and not nearly tight enough (I didn't bring my bike shorts) and my t-shirt is way too big and floppy. The subtle differences in dress that mark someone as a foreigner are hard to put your finger on--but trust me I look different. The more salient reason that I stand out is that I am GIANORMOUS compared to the other women (and men) in the class. When we do stretches and reach up to the sky you can't see anyone in the row behind me (I sit up front so I can see the instructor to make up for my poor comprehension). When you look over in the mirrors, there is my head popping up a foot above everyone else's. The bikes actually don't fully adjust to fit my body, my arms are too long and the seats don't move far enough back. The one bike that might is stuck in a very low seat position. I am not sure if that is just a function of the brand of if they sell smaller bikes here in Latin America. It has been fun to be the gangly awkward one and it has given me some insight into what it would be like to be really tall compared to everyone else in our own culture. It hasn't been negative, it is just very obvious.

The second part of my post is unrelated really to the first and it is about the food here in Mexico. One of the things I have noticed as Michael and I have shopped in the supermercado for our little cold food picnics we have in our rooms is that there seems to be two extremes of food here in Mexico. Either everything is made from whole ingredients, chicken, tomatoes, oil, corn massa, milk, chilies, fruits, and veggies, or it is highly processed packaged food. They don't seem to have the kind of intermediate kind of packaged foods like we have in the states, stuff you might find at Trader Joes. Like cookies that you can read and recognize all the ingredients in but still buy in the store or packaged salads. Most likely this is because in the states most of our food is processed or packaged to some extent so there is a market for the middle of the road stuff that is a little less processed than gummy candies and Pringles. It is a fun adventure to eat in a new place. Yesterday I bought home a new fruit from a little veggie shop, I couldn't get the name but it looked kind of like a pine cone but broke up really easily had white flesh and big black seeds. Actually the one I tried in the shop when I asked the girl there about it was really yummy but the one I brought home was over ripe so Michael didn´t get to enjoy it really. That is all for this post.

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