Vacation part II

Okay, more about the vacation, finally. Mexico! The first thing that occurs to me to say is that I did fairly well with the Spanish, even though I haven't spoken it or taken it in quite some time. It was sort of nervewracking and sort of fun to actually be thrown into situations in which little or no English was being spoken, and I could get by decently.

The house is near Lake Chapala, which is the biggest lake in Mexico--it's huge, and lovely to get a view of. I got to see it up close when we wandered around Ajijic, and also when we went to the town of Chapala. One of the things I noticed about Ajijic, and Mexico in general, was that the colors were always vibrant and bright. All the buildings and houses often had really bright paint, and the artwork was all beautiful and colorful. In Ajijic there were lots of stores that had pretty things to buy, though I tried to curb my spending urge so that I didn't use all my pesos in one shot, lol. There was also a lovely church, as there were in many of the towns we saw. Or, I guess, all of them.

Chapala was the next place we visited; there was a sort of permanent market full of stalls, and we wandered around looking at everything. I was still getting accustomed to the sort of vaguely pushy sales style, so I felt awkward buying things, but I did get a dress and a shirt, and a present for Becky--a print of a woman's face, made all out of calla lilies. Calla lilies are a big deal in Mexico, they're the national flower, or something along those lines.

Let me pause at this point to talk a little bit about our time at home in Mexico. It was lovely, first of all. There were lots of animals, and being an animal person, I was thrilled. They all mostly liked me, too, with the exception of Stella, who I think is not the most people-oriented cat ever. When we were at home, we did a lot of laying around lazily, and played endless games of Skip-Bo (a card game made by the company that makes Uno), Crazy 8's, Yahtzee, Boggle, and even a round or two of Trivial Pursuit (which I always lose, because Alex is a trivia whiz).

And now I'm being told that if I want to join Becky and Charlotte on an outing, I have to shower and dress in five minutes. I'm going to go attempt that. More about the trip later!