Ocotupus tacos at the foothills of the Sierra Madre

Good Afternoon all,

Well, last time I wrote, we were just getting our feet wet in our new surroundings. Speaking of wet, I could use a pool or heat shield or something (it averages 40 degrees everyday). In the past few days the school has taken us out on a couple of very enjoyable outings to appreciate the finer natural and aesthetic aspects of Monterrey. On Tuesday, we ventured up the majestic Sierra Madre to Chimpique Park. Over a kilometer above sea level we were treated to encompassing view of San Pedre, Monterrey and beyond (Caroline will be adding the pictures shortly). The mountains form something of a natural chain around Monterrey, and are, according to locals, a national treasure. We were driven along 7 km terraced road to ascend the mountain; however, there are hiking trails available and guides who lead to the summit (for a few pescos). It is difficult to adequately describe such a sublime view, only to say that it is carpeted forest all the way to the summit and that the ascent is very steep and strikes an imposing feature on the local landscape. Caroline and I hope to climb it this autumn.
Yesterday, we took a boat cruise of the lazily meandering Santa Lucia river. This river was artificially constructed over the past couple of decades. It is, however, naturally fed by springs that surge from an aquifer below. The river snakes its way through the fashionable San Pedro downtown ending at the National Museum. Inside the museum are many artifacts of which Caroline and I were most impressed with colonial era, oil on canvass, paintings. Along the river route we also saw several boardwalk restaurants that we are eager to try (maybe this weekend). An interesting sociological note, Mexican culture is very trusting and well, more comfortable with physical contact than us frigid Canadians. Case in point, on our river touring boat a little girl, about six or seven, used my knee and shoulder as a ladder for a better view of the shore. This isn't totally unheard of, of course. Nevertheless, she was at that age wherein children more likely to recoil than embrace strangers; stranger still, the parents smiled on as if I were a long-known neighbour.

This week has also brought our first few days of orientation at our new school. I should say, perhaps prematurely, that it is an educational utopia; an utra-modern open concept school (all corridors are outside and contained within a plaza filled with gardens and palm trees) with the latest classroom technology (smart boards, projectors, etc. etc.). My classroom is exclusively for my own classes (a rarity in Canada) and is slowly being decorated with posters and other things. I can't wait until the last week of August when my students arrive. I will be the sole grade nine English teacher, while Caroline has a team of four other grade five teachers. This is, of course, because elementary students keep the same teacher all day; nevertheless, I am apprehensive about the task ahead. This evening, Caroline and I are going to mark up our new map with all the new locations we want to explore.
I should get going now, preparation for tomorrow awaits. Oh, I should note that I tried an octopus taco this week, and it was very spicy (good thing beer is only 1.50 a pint :) Talk to you all later.

vaya le bien!

Venuring Outside the Gates...

Good Evening all,

I'm glad Caroline handled the taco fish story as I might have digressed endlessly on that adventure. Our waiter was a good sport throughout the whole ordeal, and we left a 15% tip which is apparently the norm. Our first outing to the grocery store was interesting, but perhaps a little anti-climactic. The only great difference noticed was that because the parkade is on the ground level and the grocery store proper on the second, there are large elaborate escalators that accommodate shopper and cart up and down. In fact, there is a man whose whole occupation is, it seems, to guide the shopping cart wheels onto the proper grids on the escalator. Prices are comparable to Canada, but odd little things tend to be cheaper, such as razors and fruit. As Caroline mentioned, we were invited to a barbecue last night, what she did not mention was my adventure into the procurement of kitchen appliances in Mexico.

After arriving home from the grocery store and having committed to making cookies for our friends at the impending barbecue, we realized we were short some essential tools; namely, measuring cups and spoons. Being the heat of the day at 2:00 p.m. I decided to demonstrate my husbandly chivalry by running down to our closer local grocery store (not the one we had just come from, more Mexican/less American brands) and buying our measuring implements. So with scrawled Spanish expressions in hand, I ran to the store. Nobody understood anything I tried to say! However, it also quickly became apparent that this store had neither measuring cups or spoons. So it became decision time: continue to search out the items in the ultra upscale adjoining mall, or try to take a cab to the nearest Walmart I had heard about, but had yet to visit. I decided to take the risky route, as it afforded greater chance for comical and epic failure and we were running out of time. My cabbie understood Walmart easily enough, but when it came to negotiating a price, we came to a linguistic impasse. To remedy this, we engaged in a bit of charades until shaking coins in my hand finally transmitted my inquiry as to how much this venture was going to cost (50 pesos / $5). So off we were to Walmart, where I was able to find measuring spoons. Then another cab, another game of charades, a brief period of being lost and trying to explain directions, and I was home just on time to save the cookies! The first batch didn't go very well due to the esoteric knobs on our oven, but we were able to figure it out in the end, and had a very pleasant barbecue.

Today was a quiet first Sunday with clothes ironing, blog updating, and a leaky pen :( Now as I sit at the table, I can feel the evening breeze drive off the mountains and into our valley bringing a peaceful dusk only interrupted by the flourish of swaying palm trees. This is paradise...sort of. Tomorrow we have a big day of administration, school tours, etc. etc.
I realize I have still forgotten to talk about the malls here- Mexicans take their malls SERIOUSLY- but I'll save the for another post. I'll only leave you with this little "lost in translation" tidbit: "Athlete's World" is "Athlete's Foot" in Mexico, literally.

vaya le bien!

Pictures of the Residence

Here are pics of the house that we took on our day of arrival.

Firstly, here's a shot of the exterior:

It's a duplex, and we live on the top floor. We haven't met our downstairs neighbours yet; it will be their second year with the school and they are currently on vacation. The stairs up to our place are behind the red wall. Every house here has an open carport-style garage. They are always clean, and yes that's a large plant container at the back of the garage. The size of our front yard is larger than most; this indicates that our house is smaller than most rather than us having a bigger yard.

Next up is a pic of our sitting room. I'm only calling it that because (as you can see), the only furnishings in it are of the sitting variety.

We also have a living room. Here's two views of it:

And our spacious kitchen, with the two baskets of food and jugs of water they gave us:

Finally, the bedroom (we didn't bother with pics of the spareroom, because it's pretty much the same). You can see they pushed two single beds together to make one big one. They bought new sheets and towels, and included blue bags from the school with regulation books in them. There's also a shot of cabinet in our huge walk-in closet. Neither of us could fill our sides of it.

Our ensuite has a sink area, and a large glass-enclosed shower.

So these are the new digs. We're obviously pretty happy with them...

Killing Time

We had our first grocery store experience. The school representatives took us, which was a good thing because I couldn't figure out the butter. They have 10+ varieties, in addition to the butter-knockoffs. The produce is pretty different; they have apples and potatoes, but weird yam-type things (I hope they cook the same) and tons of dried chili peppers.

We went to a BBQ hosted by another teacher who will be starting her eighth year here. She told us that the school is actually pretty lax, which is nice to know.

We've taken a few walks. There's not much near our place because it's in the middle of many other gated communities, and it seems to be a real driving culture. I'm sure in Monterrey itself there'll be more people on foot, but in this little suburb, where the wealthy live, no one would be seen walking.

There's not much yet to do, because we don't really know where to go and it gets too hot to do anything during the day (today was 40 degrees). So other than exploring the neighbourhood, there's not much to do. I'm sure we'll envy these free days later in the school year when everything is busier, but right now it seems like a waste of time. Tomorrow we're getting our first tour of the school, and the rest of the week we'll be touring around the city.

First Day

It's hot. In the afternoon, it's pretty much unbearable. The afternoon is when we decided to walk the 15 mins to the mall to pick up some necessary items for the house. Although the school put some essentials in the house for us (toilet paper, box of Cheerios, a jug of water), but they oddly didn't include some things like dish soap, hangers, or paper towel. They are taking us to Walmart on Tuesday, but because we want to finish unpacking (ie: needing hangers) we headed out to the mall today. On the way I almost melted; the air conditioning of the mall was essential.

Last night we went out to the mall to pick up laundry detergent so we could wash our sheets before bed. We hadn't had dinner, and it was after 8pm, which is when the mall closed (the grocery store stays open until 10). There were no restaurants around, and just lots of highway. We walked the sidewalks around this 200+ stores mall, trying to find somewhere to eat. We eventually came to this little open restaurant. They sold only tacos -- fish tacos to be exact. This little tortilla came with a fried piece of fish on it. There was a condiment/salad bar thing, but no lights near it, so we didn't know what anything was. So our first Mexican dinner was a plain fish taco....

Landfall and Hearth

Good Afternoon all,

I'm writing this post from the balmy sitting room of our fabulous new house in San Pedro, Mexico. Caroline and I have been in the country for about 24 hours and have already experienced many sundry adventures. However, before I go into any detail, I must first offer my personal disclaimer that many of the tales I will weave may widely vary from the more literal imagination of my darling wife. Therefore, think of my posts as an amalgam of impressions and imaginings that are occasionally rooted in reality; go to Caroline for the facts.
Stepping off the plane onto Monterrey's parched landing strip, my mind immediately reminisced four years ago as I stepped onto the Tel Aviv's landing strip at the beginning of U.N. peacekeeping mission, ironically with the same feelings of apprehension and excitement. Then I realized that Caroline was getting ahead of me.

Customs ran very smoothly, and as an utter contradiction to the brute realities of Canadian/American airports, some complimentary porters moved our luggage through the gates and corridors for us - the spoiling begins. We were met at the arrival gates by two eager representatives of our school whose own team of porters then moved our bags to the vans. Following this, we all had a nice chat about the cruelty of Canadian winter until the other couple, Peter and Heather, arrrived.

The one hour drive from the airport to San Pedro provided snapshot views of a city in the midst of modernization at breakneck speed. Cranes, skyscrapers, and English billboards coloured the landscape under the majestic Sierra Madre Oriental mountains. I must also clarify, as some may be confused, while we originally told everybody that our new home and school would be in Monterrey, we are actually located in the outlining suburb of San Pedro. Along the way we also discover that Peter and Heather mirror us in many peculiar ways. Both Peter and I are 27, while Caroline and Heather are 29. Both Caroline and Heather substitute taught for two years while their respective husbands Andrew and Peter finished their education degrees. Both Caroline and Heather have large families, the former having 5 siblings and the latter having 8. Both Andrew and Peter have two siblings. Both Peter and Andrew enjoy running as a hobby. Finally, both couples met in the same store independantly on our first day in Mexico and were using the back of the same school form as a scrap of paper with very similar lists of items - uncanny. Peter and Heather are a very nice couple and we are looking forward to next few months together.

On to the house, of which we intend to post pictures very soon. It is a beautiful duplex in the heart of a GATED community on Grenado St. Our neighbourhood is very secure, surrounded by (I would estimate) 12 ft walls, crowned with forboding spikes and 24 hour security guards. The front entrance is guarded by very friendly uniformed men who are getting used to the strange English couple that walk downtown instead of drive. Our half of the duplex is a humble two bedroom abode, floored with slate tile, containing no less than four bathrooms (at last count), a full kitchen with adjoining dining room. The dining room cointains seating for six and a large patio with a view of the mountains. The kitchen has a fridge, gas stove, microwave, toaster, food processor, among countless other appliances. We have a T.V. room with couch and loveseat, cable T.V. and DVD player. The sitting room has a couch, loveseat, armchair and very handsome hardwood coffee table, and a computer with wireless internet access. Our master bedroom has a queensize bed, a large bathroom, and very large walk in closet. Off the T.V. room is a very fine spare bedroom with its own large bathroom and walk in closet. Off the Kitchen, we have a laudry room with front loading washer and dryer and ironing table/iron. Off the laundry room is another full bathroom (we're told for the maid, but we're allowed to use it). The fourth (bonus bathroom) is directly off the front entrance (a powder room for Caroline :) Yes, humble, that's the best word for it, haha. The floor area is probably comparable to our own house in Winnipeg. Oh yes, and every room as AC and ceiling fans. Well, Caroline has now made contact with Jim and Carole on Skype, and I think I'll join them for the tour. I shall write of our first day adventures with seafood tacos later.

vaya le bien!

Count Down

It's now down to the last few hours. Andrew and I have been running around doing last minute errands and trying to cram in a few movies before we leave. The most important thing was that Andrew finished off our pension information; we had to spend a couple hours down at the unit to print off everything, copy it, and then send it away. It felt like wasted time, but obviously needed to get done.

The trip out east was awesome. With the beach, walking trails, BBQ, and the Tall Ship festival, we were busy and saw a lot. Christine: tell your brother Steven that the solution for that last puzzle we couldn't solve (the one that went "timing tim ing") is "split second timing."

We've spent the afternoon packing and finishing off a movie. Think about it: what would pack for a year, if you could only take two bags, each maxing out at 50lbs? Believe me, you run out of room quickly. It's hard to think of what we'll need; between teaching (very formal) and traveling (cut-off jeans) I feel like I have to pack the majority of my closet.

In terms of movies, we rented Bonnie and Clyde and Once Upon a Time in the West. Considering the western is almost three hours, and we've only three days at home between coming back from the East Coast and leaving for Mexico, these were ambitious choices. Both were excellent. B&C had lots of action, and was filmed in the French New Wave style; I can see why women emulated Faye Dunaway's costume's after the film was released. As the 'the West,' it was slow moving, and dripping with style. I highly recommend both of them.

Nervous jitters are setting in, and I feel like we should somehow be taking-in more of Winnipeg before we leave... . Mom's delicious hamburgers will be the last supper, and I can't wait to have them.