Blogging from a Far Away Country

I do not need to describe our breakfast to you because all you need to do is scroll down the page. There, you will find a very enthusiastic description of the fruit, pan dulces, etc. etc. You would be much better off reading that than trying to convince me to describe it again, because all you would get out of me would be complaints about how repetitive breakfast has been.

A little while after breakfast, my father took Jon, Heidi, Dylan, and I to an Internet Cafe to do what we cannot do at home because our wireless Internet is broken. To get there we took a bus instead of a taxi. This bus was much less cramped compared to a taxi, and if we had tried to fit five people into a 4-person taxi we would have felt very much like a Mexican family. On our trip to the center of town, the bus stopped at two other places. At one stop it picked up a man carrying cans and boxes and spray thingies. We figured that he was an exterminator. He had an odd habit of opening his mouth a little and sticking his tongue out of the right side of his mouth, perhaps to try to lick his right eyeball. Fortunately, so I would not have to look at him, he sat in the very back of the bus, where I was not. The exterminator got off the bus at a hotel. I barely noticed him leave because the bus only slowed and did not stop while he got off.

We reached the center of town and got off the bus. It stopped to let us off, probably because we were Americanos tontos who had no idea how to disembark from a moving bus without breaking our necks in the process. The bus ride only cost 5 pesos per person. So for five people, that’s $2.50. It would have probably been around 30 pesos ($3) for one taxi, and twice that for two (duh).

After a little bit of walking we reached the bank. There we exchanged some dollars for pesos. We found an Internet Cafe. My dad took a really long time to check his e-mail (probably because he had about 30 new messages and needed to reply to almost all of them.) I had a few minutes to post what blog entries I had completed. As my readers may have noticed, I posted the entries for 11/21 and 11/22. I would have also posted 11/23, but I procrastinated and had not finished it yet.

We left the Internet Cafe and walked to the market. There I bought several small trinkets to give to several people, at least 4 of whom are reading this right now. Everything was beautifully crafted and most of it was hand made, and the best part was that it was dirt cheap.

Our group split up, Dylan, Dad, and I took a taxi back to the house while Jon and Heidi went around town a bit more.

If there is a very special coincidence and one or more of my readers ever finds themselves renting Villa Del Mar and they are in a taxi bound for the house, then the directions to give the taxi driver are as follows:
1. Playa la Ropa, cerca de La Gaviota restauraunte.
2. Izquierda y derecho.
3. En el fin del calle, izquierda y arriba.
4. Los puertos estan a la derecha.

If you memorize these directions, and say them in understandable Spanish (even if you don’t have a clue what they mean), along with many instances of pointing fingers and making odd noises, you should be able to get to the house relatively easily every time.

Once we had returned to the house, we had lunch (ham and cheese sandwich) and then got into the pool. I find it odd that, for the week we’ve been here, the pool has stayed very cold, even though it is sitting in the sun and just happens to be warm for any other family who rents the house.

After that I tried to do some homework, but got distracted and did something else with my two brothers. Whatever we were doing, it developed into creating a code using the alphabet as numbers, multiplying, dividing, and changing the base of a word (confusing, I know). I will not tell you more details on this code, because I may use it later and I don’t want my readers to be able to translate my messages into something understandable.

We were interrupted in our code making by the arrival of dinnertime. We had made reservations at a very fancy restaurant called “De Donde Eres?” Our neighbor, Tanya, had recommended it to us. We arrived promptly at 7 o’clock and took our seats at a long table with 7 places. The restaurant was a small place with a very small staff, so the owner was the one who took our orders. She was a very nice Italian woman who seemed to love what she did. She was always smiling and laughing when she talked to us. There were only three different dishes served each night at that restaurant, but they were all very exquisite and complicated. We ordered two of each for everyone to share.

After 20-30 minutes of waiting, the food came. First there was a soup called “Daal,” which had many vegetables in it. We were not given spoons, so we drank it straight ut of the bowl. It was actually very good. Next there were camarones (shrimp), which were very spicy, and good. The rice, potatoes, eggplant, chicken, and everything else came while we were starting on the shrimp. Needless to say, they were all very good (and spicy).

We had finished the shrimp and were almost done with half of what was left on the table. We waved the woman over and told her we would like more shrimp. She hesitated for a moment and then replied, “Ah, the situation with the shrimp has gone dramatically bad!” This sentence made us all laugh and it meant something like “There are no more shrimp, cooked or raw, in the building.” We told her that that was all right, and enjoyed the rest of our dinner without any more spicy shrimp.

Once they had cleared away all of our dishes, they brought out dessert. It consisted of a slice of chocolate cake with ice cream on top. It was delicious. With all the factors taken into account, this restaurant gets an A+ in my book.

We returned home and my older brother opened an Excel spreadsheet on his computer. He showed me that you could do more than just write things in little boxes in that program. We used it to make a translation program for our code that I have already described 5 paragraphs ago.

Nobody has come to even look at our Internet problem all day. My dad called someone at about 10 in the morning and he said he’d be over “right this minute” (The Internet Guy). <-- (Quote thing for Ms. Chiang’s class)

Today was our last full day in Mexico and I think we used it well. I have really enjoyed this trip and I’ll wrap it up in tomorrow’s post. How will it end? Will the flight be delayed? Will the Internet Guy finally show up, but find that he was too late? Find out in the final post, coming on Saturday, the 25 of November.