hello from guanajuato!

Hi all of you who just might be interested enough to read about our daily lives down here. I think these emails might end up being my mini-journal, we’ll see. I apologize in advance for the typos, I probably won’t go back to proofread. Here’s how the first few days went:

Travel

Not bad, though LAX was a complete nightmare due to construction and a horrible system for check in at Continental/United. It was a good thing we had four hours to kill. What we hadn’t realized until shortly before boarding was that because of the time change, our 1 am to 6 am flight was only 3 hours long. My mom and I had anticipated the kids getting a solid sleep on the overnight flight to Leon, but not so. Waking them up and getting them through long lines at baggage claim and then customs was a bit of a challenge. Thank goodness my mom was there because I had to carry Zeiva off and on, which would have been impossible without Nani helping with the bags. But considering the circumstances, everyone did really well.

30 June

We got to our casita in Guanajuato early and once we got settled in we figured we’d better figure out food. Unfortunately, Zeiva zonked out right as we were getting ready, and slept for hours. Shortly before she woke up, Lucas crashed out (after a melt down about losing a chess game, of course) so we did not get out of the house until late afternoon! We took our first trip walking down to La Mega, a truly mega store with groceries, clothes, appliances, restaurants….MEGA. Ick. And the walk down was along a very busy but fairly narrow and very windy and steep road skirting the city – not even remotely pedestrian friendly. Shopping was a complete nightmare. I was overwhelmed with everything there, couldn’t easily find most of what we were looking for, the kids were terrible – fighting over the cart, Zeiva constantly shrieking STOP at the top of her lungs, grabbing things off the shelves, etc. Thank goodness my mom was there or I wouldn’t have survived (hmm – I’m sensing a theme…what will I do when she leaves in a week?!).  We didn’t even look for several things that we needed because we had to get out of there. And a couple of people told us that we could change money at the store, but when we asked at check out they told us no. Fortunately, they take credit cards, but we were out of luck for getting some cash. Also, fortunately, Martín, the night watchman at the house who we’d met on our way in, had loaned us some cash, so we were able to take a taxi back up to the casita with all our groceries. Things the kids noted as different – cactus and star fruit at La Mega, no seat belts in the taxi that brought us home. The 1-2 yr-olds in little sleepers (the footed pajamas) on mopeds sitting squished between mom and dad caught my attention! We got home and I admit I was fighting the doubt demons in my head. Who said this was a super walkable city? What about all my mental images of quaint little markets with local food? What on earth was I going to do here with the kids for 2 months?! It was dusty and dirty and I was completely disoriented. I was overwhelmed and freaked out. And functioning on almost no sleep. I reminded myself that the point was to get out of our comfort zone. Not just the kids with Spanish, but me, too. We had some dinner and went to bed at 7 pm. We woke up 1 July at 9 am. 14 hours of sleep….

1 July

We talked to Django first thing in the morning, and one of the first things he asked is whether we’d seen a scorpion. NO, we hadn’t! He must’ve jinxed us because shortly after, Lucas was peeing in the bathroom and yelled SCORPION. We ran in there – he’d peed all over the toilet and the floor while reacting to a scorpion running out from behind the toilet, past his feet and under the bathmat. I gingerly lifted the mat and a little (~1 inch long?) grey scorpion came scuttling out. I frantically searched around and said, “we need to find something to catch it so we can let it out!” My mom said, “I’m sorry, but we’re killing it.” And she proceeded to step on it. I had absolutely no problem with this, it just honestly hadn’t occurred to me, which made me realize what a habit I’ve made it to catch bugs and let them go outside. So, our first scorpion encounter – fortunately, no one was hurt…but you should know that the kind around here supposedly only sting like a bee, so we would have survived regardless. It just wouldn’t have been the best way to start our first real day here (both kids have already stated that they want to GO HOME!).

We took the regular roads down the steep hills into downtown, which was really fun and interesting and instantly buoyed my attitude about being here. We wandered around, had lunch in a beautiful plaza, checked in about ceramics classes for kids at one of the museums, and asked about kids’ Spanish conversation classes at a Spanish school. The weather was mostly fantastic – a little cloudy, perfect temperature and not even remotely humid. Afternoon rains hit as we were headed home. Everyone tucks into little storefronts and covered alleys to wait out the usually few minutes of really hard rain. My mom and I did this while the kids splashed around in the streets. This whole area is what I’d seen and heard about Guanajuato – very narrow cobblestone streets, people generally are walking in them most of the time and get out of the way when a car comes by. The buildings are all different amazing colors. I didn’t bring my camera and we forgot to take pictures with my mom’s camera until we were half way down, but I’ll send a few shots soon (or you can easily look online for gorgeous generic Guanajuato photos). Even short periods of rain build up unbelievably in the narrow, steep alleys. You’ll see in one of the photos below. We’d done a lot of walking all day, and the kids had done great, so we asked if they were up for climbing the hundreds of steps back up to our neighborhood (you can take a “funicular”, a little tram up if you want) and they didn’t hesitate. So we hoofed it straight up through these narrow little walkways, literally hundreds of steps and a multitude of switchbacks, and the kids beat us hands down without breaking a sweat. We had a nice evening back at the casita, dinner on the patio and settled into bed.

Some photos:

Arriving at SeaTac airport at 3:30 pm – can you tell the kids are SO excited for this incredible adventure! :)

Plaza de la Paz downtown 

Heading back home – you can see waterfalls cascading down all the steps of the little pathways leading up the hills. The kids hardly noticed the climb because they had so much fun in the rain.