Well I better end this Mexico blog now that I'm sitting in our basement at home and have my adventure all behind me. It's nice to be back with all the comforts of home - a bath, I don't know if there are bathtubs in Mexico but I've never seen one; tap water that's clean enough to put my toothbrush in; Mom's stew that we picked up on the way to the house...

But it's also sad to have a big project over. I'm really glad that I went to Oaxaca and didn't let any little hestitation or worries stop me from heading out on my own. I advanced alot with my spanish although there is still a long road ahead to total fluency; it's an ongoing process with many levels along the way. I can communicate well enough but I still want the satisfaction of getting better. Maybe next year or the following year or sometime...... Guanajuato would be nice.

And I met some lovely people that I will keep in contact with, some I will email in spanish. Maybe I will see Ana, Vivi, Mariko, Ruth and Jack, Alejandra and Nise again somewhere in the world.

Dave and Jillian enjoyed the trip; everything went so smoothly and we saw alot. No-one was sick although we crossed our fingers after eating nopal sopes (cooked cactus on little tortillas) in a market cocina, or zucchini flower tacos, or shrimp and quacamole on the beach. But it was all fresh and delicious. We'll miss all the papaya and corn tortillas and lime juice on everything.

A few other memories I don't think I wrote about:

- the beach cinema in Puerto Escondido with 15 lawn chairs on risers and illegal DVD movies, 40 pesos included popcorn and a cerveza. We saw "Lost in Translation", not a very good pelicula.

- about 100 mixtec indians peacefully demonstrating in front of the Palacio Gobierno for fair prices for their coffee as well as other land issues, all the women in traditional long red dresses. That night we saw them all sleeping in the park beside my house.

- looking down at the dance floor at the salsa dance club and seeing Jillian being twirled around by Sergio, the slightly sleezy guy who was bugging me a week earlier to introduce him to my daughter when she arrived. I don't know how he found her so quickly! Dave and I kept a close eye on them, but he was probably quite harmless.

- the tiny singing studio a half block from my house that had a horrible teacher with the scariest vocal technique; everyday we heard terrible male or female voices doing offkey vibrato scales; Jillian and Dave shuddered every time we walked past and we wanted to tell the singing students to save their money.

- falling in a hole in the sidewalk while I was walking in the dark on my first night in Oaxaca. Electrical lines are being put underground and not all the excavations have barriers around them. Ambrosio took me to a clinic where I got 2 stitches to sew up a little cut on my leg and a few days later I had a spectacularly colourful bruise on my other leg. At school I was known as the lady that fell in a hole but I learned how to tell the whole story quite well in spanish. I decided to omit the incident from my Blog to avoid worrying anyone and to spare myself the embarrassement (how is she going to look after herself for a month if she falls in a hole on the first night?!) It didn't hurt at all and could have been much worse.

That's it for now. Nada mas. Gracias por leer mi blog.

I'm back on my own again. Dave and Jillian just left on their flight from Mexico City airport and I'm here for a few more hours. I can't decide if I'm ready to go back or not to my real life, but I think I am. But I definitly want to come back to Mexico. Guanajuanto and Chiapas are places I want to see sometime.

We had a great bus trip to the city of Puebla yesterday, 2 hours from Mexico City and on a very comfortable luxury bus on a toll highway. Spectacular mountain scenery, quite dry and lots of organ cactus. Their are lots of levels of buses in Mexico and the top ones are wonderful, very reliable, very professional drivers and luggage checking, and quite cheap. Two days ago we were on the bottom of the scale on a little day trip to Hierve el agua, some petrified waterfalls near Oaxaca. A half hour in a collectivo which is a small truck with a metal frame in the back covered with a plastic roof, and seats at the same level as the top of the truck box and nothing across the back. A bit of a painful ride on a rough dusty mountain road, hanging on for dear life so we didn't fall out the back. But mexicans do it every day and think nothing of it. it was an experience, to say the least! We had a lovely hike at the top and Dave and Jillian swam in a cool clear turquoise natural pool. Very peaceful and beautiful, only a few German and American backpackers up there. We caught a rumbling old bus back down.


Puebla seemed like quite a european city, busy pedestrian streets, very decorative tile-covered spanish style buildings, more of a wealthy urban feel than Oaxac

Dave went turtle-riding today! We hired a little boat to take us to another beach, Playa Angelita, and on the way the guy stopped the boat and dived in to drag a big turtle over to the boat. Dave helped him wrestle it in so we could take pictures; was about 2 and a half feet long and he said about 45 years old. Quite a cute face on it. When they threw it back into the water Dave went in to have a ride on its back; he held on to its shell and zipped along until it started to dive under. We should have some good photos.

As we were sitting on the beach with our Coronas my friend Ana from Oaxaca walked by--
what a surprise! She is travelling with 2 gay men - quite convenient for companionship and security and no worries about a relationship with them. She goes back to her normal life in Germany next week.

We were offered free raw oysters with hot sauce and lime from a mexican who was shucking ?¿¿ them on the beach. Dave said they were tasty but Jillian and I declined in spite of lots of coaxing. Instead we had fish tacos which they said was swordfish caught today, but who knows.... In any case they were delicious, and we haven't been sick in spite of eating in a few little beach palapa restaurants with very minimal facilities.

Hotel Casa Blanca is very nice, huge room with a ceiling fan that we have on all the time, very clean, pool, courtyard, private bathroom, lots of hot water, right on the tourist strip, 48$US. The town isn't very busy with tourists now but is packed during their high season at Easter (Semana Santa), and november, the holiday of their patron saint, and Christmas.

We played in the ocean all afternoon at playa Carrizalillo, a tiny beach about one and a half soccer fields long in a little bay at the edge of Puerto Escondido. Beautiful warm clear blue water, nicer for swimming than the main beach here which some people have told us is rather polluted with sewage...although there are still lots of people swimming in it. I've read that Hualtulco, a newer resort south of here is the only resort area in Mexico that doesn't pump its sewage into the ocean.

We ate garlic shrimp at the beach, delicious. You would have loved it Luke. Lots of palapas to sit under so we didn't fry in the sun and there was a cool ocean breeze. There were some funny old hippies smoking pot on the beach who have lived here since the 70's and probably haven't changed much since then. They've avoided the regular working world, some make jewellery to sell on the street and I have no idea how the others manage to buy their groceries.

Gary and Darrah, you should see Dave's nice sunglasses. He forgot his at home and bought some really stylish ones on the street in Oaxaca for 6$. I'm enjoying my new ones these last few days. I didn't wear them too often in Oaxaca since there was always a shady side of the street in the city.

It's 11.00 at night and still hot out. Buenas noches.......

We had a fun last night in Oaxaca at a salsa danceclub with some of my school friends and a teacher and some mexican friends. A live band was blasting out salsa music and the dance floor was a writhing mass of bodies...Dave and I danced a bit and then watched Jillian learn some fancy moves from various mexican guys. She really enjoyed it and was much closer in age to everyone else than we were. I finally drank mezcal which is the popular drink in this area, similar to tequila but made with a different process.

We made the right decision! For weeks I was asking people the best way to get to the beach which is only a few inches or so south of Oaxaca on the map but is not quite so easy to get to. There are quite a few options and everyone gave me conflicting advice. Mexicans all said to travel at night so the trip goes faster, foreigners said to travel during the day for safety and for the view. Some said to take the second class bus which goes the short way but is extremely curvy and narrow and usually makes people sick, and it still takes 6 or 7 hours. Or take a van which is faster but the drivers are a bit crazy. Or take a 30 minute flight in a 10 passenger plane which is expensive....

Last night we decided on a first class, very comfortable bus which takes a longer but safer route. We left at 11.00 PM and we got here to Puerto Escondido at 9.00 this morning. Only 250 miles and it took 10 hours to drive through the mountains. But with a little gravol we all had quite a good night and were surprised how quickly the trip went. Jillian dreamed we were skidding on ice but there were just a lot of hairpin turns. A quiet ride, very nice professional looking driver, a modern mercedes benz bus, so was the best option to get here. We expect to go back to Oaxaca the same way in about 6 days.

It's Really hot here, far hotter than Oaxaca which is 5000 ft above sea level. We are almost at the very bottom of Mexico where the coast faces south instead of west which seems odd to me. Only the state of Chiapas is farther south and then Guatemala.

Puerto Escondido is very much a mexican resort town with lots of hotels, restaurants, souvenir vendors and mostly mexican vacationers, but no big resort complexes. Some Europeans and Americans and world traveller types and some old hippies and I hear there is a nude beach near by...maybe we'll try it out tomorrow. Ha.

We just had a great shrimp and fish supper. Prices are relatively cheap.

This town is known for some great surfing beaches so we're going to watch some tomorrow morning. Other beaches are quite sheltered and we'll go by taxi or fishing boat to explore some of them.

We're all healthy and just have to be careful of sunburn now.

Dave and Jillian arrived 2 days ago at 2:30 am and I ran to the bus station to meet them, only 3 minutes away since I was a little scared to be out on the streets so late and I ran fast. But no hay problema, the streets were well lit and this city really seems to be so safe.

They were quite tired getting off the bus since they both took 2 gravol to sleep during the 6 hour ride from Mexico City. But it's a luxury bus and very comfortable with pillows, blankets, big foot rests, large seats. And on an excellent double lane highway all the way.

We've done lots these last 2 days and they now know Oaxaca quite well; we've walked miles, met my mexican friends and some school friends, ate chapulines in the market, which are a popular snack but are dried, salted Grasshoppers!?¿! Have shopped in markets, visited some art galleries, sipped cerveza in the zocalo listening to mariachi bands, ate elotes, corn on the cob with lime, dried cheese, chile and mayonaise on the street late last night. And went to my favourite free cine club to see the pelicula "Chocolate" with spanish subtitles.

Tomorrow on the cyca tour of oaxaca are the ancient ruins, Monte Alban which are only 20 minutes from the city. Then my family, I mean my mexican family Ambrosio and Ruby, have invited us for a special meal with them. That's quite an honour since they usually have more of a business relationship with their students and only provide them with breakfast. But I've spent quite a lot of time talking to Ruby and 2 year old Andrea and have got to know them fairly well. I'm not sure what kind of meal to expect...

Jillian went to spanish school this morning since the director agreed to let her have a free morning since I paid for the last 3 weeks. She was in a beginners class with 4 seniors and by the end of the morning was ahead of them all. Meanwhile, Dave and I hopped on a bus to go to the next town to see a famous 2000 year old, huge cypress tree; takes 35 to 50 adults to reach around the trunk depending which information booklet you read, probably 3 or 4 cars could pass through it side by side.

We had a big dinner at a lovely outdoor restaurant with 3 mexican friends and my friend Ana from Germany and now Dave is having a siesta so we can go salsa dancing tonight....ha! maybe after a cerveza or 2 we can salsa. Jillian at least will be able to do it.

On sunday we leave for the 6 or 7 hour very curvy, mountainous drive to the beach and will stay 4 days in Puerto Escondido. It will be on a second class bus since the primera classe bus goes on a longer road which takes 11 hours. They say the scenery is spectacular but the ride is a little hard on the stomach. But they also say it is vale la pena, worth the trouble, to get to the beach.

I'm finished school and received my diploma on friday saying I completed 45 hours of spanish instruction. But I'm on a plateau of language learning I think; I sometimes feel reasonably fluent but often have times of discouragement when I can't quite spit out the words I want, even if my brain sometimes knows the words they get lost on the way to my mouth. But all in all, I should be quite happy with my spanish considering the very little experience I've had. Others at my level have studied for months or have had recent years at university. It's a longterm project to learn a language with many levels of ability along the way. I think I could make a big jump with another month but that can wait for another year. I've found some biking tours so maybe Dave will come here next time.

I'm enjoying these free days now before Dave and Jillian come on Wednesday the 11th. I asked the director of the school if Jillian could have a free morning of classes and he agreed, so she'll have a nice little taste of studying spanish in mexico.

I found another lovely gallery this morning with gorgeous, very compelling and creative photographs, my favourite exhibition I've seen here, in an old colonial building with 2 plant-filled patios. I'll go back there for awhile and read.

Wandered into a full little restaurant and a mexican woman invited me to sit at her table since the others were full and I was on my way out. We had lunch and talked for an hour in spanish - one of the advantages of travelling alone.

Walked to the edge of the city, out of the nice clean historical center, to the gigantic indoor market called Abastos. More dead chickens, every kind of fruit and vegetables, cheap clothing, hardware, people, than I wanted to see in a big claustrophobic maze. By far the biggest mexican market I've ever seen. It's the only place in Oaxaca where I've heard warnings about pickpockets so I held on tightly to my new woven purse. A rather seedy area of the city; I wouldn't go back. The main centre of Oaxaca is completely different and there are other markets here. After walking 5 hours, which seemed more like 1 hour, I had a lovely coffee in a sidewalk cafe in the slow-paced, beautiful, shady zocalo.

Went to the free cine with Jack and Ruth, a retired couple from Vermont, to see El Graduado, with Dustin Hoffman. What a great movie. And the spanish subtitles are good practise and easy to understand. It's such a neat theatre hidden behind the low arches of an ancient aquaduct that I'll take Dave and Jillian there for sure.

I'm going to have an intercambio in a little while with Miguel, who I met as a taxi driver but who also takes english classes at Amigos del Sol. The school teaches spanish in the mornings and english in the afternoons and sets up these meetings. We'll talk a half hour in spanish, then a half hour in english at the school or in the park at the corner. It's an excellent idea and free.

Found a charming little patio cocina for lunch yesterday, Cocina Isabel, with Mariko and Ana and our only common language was spanish. We talked for a few hours and walked around town together, but after Mariko left we spoke english. My brain gets tired from overuse and like all germans, Ana speaks english almost perfectly. In the evening we ended up with a new japanese girl and 2 young Oaxaneo guys and climbed up the observatoria in the middle of the city, a beautiful night view of Oaxaca. We were speaking spanish, german, japanese, french and english..fun! I could have been their mother but they didn't seem to mind. The guys kept bugging me to indroduce them to Jillian next week, but I don't think so...

Oaxaca is a big city, about 500,000 mas o menos, but there is a dense historical centre of about 15 or 20 square blocks where everything is, all the colonial buildings, museums, galleries, restaurants, stores, markets, tons of churches, school, homes. Most foreigners live in this area and tourists hardly realize there is more to Oaxaca than el centro but there are suburbs all around. All the buildings are low and even the churches are very square and solid with no tall spires that could break in an earthquake. There's lots of traffic on the narrow streets and pedestrians may have the right of way in theory but not in practise, so it's really important to keep your eyes open.

I'm off to hear some music in the park near my casa and then there is some kind of art gallery opening where I'll meet Ana. Lots of cultural activities in this town.

Since I'm on a roll here at my local internet shop (with a few neighborhood kids playing noisy computer games beside me).... I 'll write about the great band concert I saw yesterday afternoon in the zocalo. A local university band played a lovely concert under the huge shade trees with lots of chairs set up for the audience. I had a written program and there were overtures, waltzes, marches, a tango, all really well done, and with some top-notch soloists. I think even Greg McLean would have been impressed with them. A beautiful Sunday afternoon concert free for everyone and it happens every week.

Happy Birthday JILLIAN MARIE CANDELARIA CYCA. That would be your name if you lived here because Feb. 2 is a special religious day called candelaria and babies born on this day have that as part of their name. I keep telling everyone that mi esposo y mi hija van a venir la semana proxima, they'll be here next week. I'm thinking of good restaurants, stores, things to see and do when you two get here next Wed. How about a day trip to a petrified waterfall called Hierve de Agua? People say it's beautiful. Or we can go to a multitude of towns that each specialize in a particular artesania.. There's a rug town, a black póttery town, several carved wooden animal villages, a knife town, a belt town, weaving towns and a cheese town.... They are all within an hour or so of OAXACA and are traditional pueblos.


Every friday at school we have a graduation for whoever is leaving. The director of the school thanks them, wishes them well etc. and gives out a diploma. And every Monday new students show up for a week or 2 or 3. This goes on all year round. This week I have to share my teacher with one other student, Ana from Germany who speaks spanish much better than I do, which will make the class more challenging for me but will also be good for me. My teacher, Josefina, has started speaking faster to me and I can usually understand quite well. In my other class there are also only 2 of us. Mariko from Japon has a big problem with r's and laughs when I can roll my r's and she can't. She speaks no english at all but we're having fun in spanish, lots of conversation with our teacher with various lessons in grammar. Both these girls are in their 20's but there's no generation gap when we're all learning spanish.

I'm hoping to feel a small temblor before I leave, a tiny earthquake. They seem to happen quite often in this area; my teacher says Oaxaca es muy seismico. The week before I arrived there was a noticiable one and I heard there was a tiny one last week but I didn't notice anything. People hope for many little tremors instead of one big one. The last bigger one here was in 1999.

There are lots of vendors around town but last night I saw 2 old nuns in black habits hustling Rompope in front of Santo Domingo church, trying to make a few more bucks for the Dominicans. It's a creamy liquor that has some religious significance and for some reason my dad used to buy it in mexico. Probably because it's very sweet. I wanted to take their picture but they said only if I bought a bottle. I chatted with them for awhile and they eventually laughed and said sure, I could take a photo, but I really should take rompope home to my mom in Canada.

As I've said before, Oaxaca is very safe and I often walk home alone at night. There are always people out, lots of families with little kids, and teenages in school uniforms. High schools have 2 sessions everyday; some kids go in the morning till about 2:00 and others go only in the afternoon till about 8:00. Makes good use of the facilities.

One thing I haven't figured out is why there is so much graffiti in this city. It's an epidemic. Almost every building has some kind of writing or graffiti.. Quite a shame on these old brick and cement covered buildings.

What a good winter for me to be here. It sounds terribly cold at home, schools closed, highway warnings, taxis not even running. When I tell Mexicans about that they can't imagine why we would live in such a country. In the mornings at breakfast Ambrosio and Daniel wear their gorros, their tuques, because they think it's cold here. I wear a sweater in the mornings but by 10:00 AM it's hot and stays hot till evening.

Tonight I went to see a swedish movie with spanish subtitles with music that I used to play on the piano 30 years ago - Elvira Madigan. It's at a funky little cine that shows good mexican and foreign movies almost every night for free. A wonderful place originated by a famous Oaxacan artist named Francisco Toledo who has done many things to support Mexican culture here, including leading a big protest against allowing a McDonalds in the 16th century town square.. The city had given permission for the McDonalds but Toledo and the protesters got the decision overturned. He gave out free tacos during the demonstration against the " McZocalo."

After the movie I went out with 3 students from my school for coffee and pan con cajeta, a sweet carmel spread made from goat's milk. Delicious.

I just had a really pleasant day. This afternoon after having lunch with Vivi, my friend from Denmark and a retired couple from Vermont, I discovered a lovely art library in a restored colonial building with a gorgeous courtyard full of plants, very tranquille and beautiful, and lots of books and music available to use for free. I'll go another time to study or listen to mexican music on CD since it's only 15 minutes from my house.

And tonight I had my intercambio, which is the exchange with a mexican student, with Alejandra and after talking in the park for a hour she decided to skip her english class and we went to the zocalo. She showed me a gallery there I never would have found on my own, that overlooked the square full of people and the Oaxaca state band playing in the bandstand. Tons of families around enjoying the music, rousing marches and a big grinning band director. And we ran into her aunt and uncle and cousins that I spent last Sunday with. It was fun to see a mexican family in the park that I actually know. I danced a bit with the plump little 6 year old named Gandhi. There were some quite elegant couples dancing. It was a very nice atmospere in the warm evening. (And I keep hearing that it's absolutely freezing at home. Sorry to rub it in but the weather here is perfect, always slightly cool in the mornings and evenings, but just barely. And hot in the afternoons.

After the State Band wound up with Quantanamera, a Peruvian group played for a long time. And all this is free and happens regularly in the zocalo. I walked home about 9:30 and the streets are still busy and perfectly safe.

I'm getting used to the different schedule here... some stores close from 2 to 4 for lunch, then everything is open till 8 or 9 and lots of people are out shopping.

I've had a few very good meals and lots of ok cheaper lunches, but there are lots of good restaurants. I'm saving them for when Dave and Jillian come so we can splurge a bit. But even really good suppers are only about 10 dollars and I often spend about 6 for a good lunch. Yesterday I had lovely chicken rolled around bananas, with rice and mole sauce. Lots of different moles here, which are sauces that usually have some chocolate in them, but spicy and very flavourful.

The young couple who run this little internet shop want to close up and take their 3 year old home so I better sign off. Their kid seems to spend his days playing computer games.

Things are going great here. It's the perfect city for me, lots to see and do, I like my 2 teachers and it's easy to find other students at the school to hang out with. There are all ages, lots of university students and quite a few my age and older, from Canada, the States, Japan, Denmark, England. I just spent the day with a woman from Denmark, my age who speaks perfect english and is travelling around Mexico on her own. Most people are on their own, and lots of single women so I guess this isn't such an unusual thing to do. My Kelowna friend, a TV journalist named Adrienne Skinner, worked so hard on the forest fire news stories that she is now taking time to travel around Mexico by herself. Seems that all the people at the language school are travelling types who are just here for 2 or 3 or 4 weeks then will carry on to other parts of Mexico.

The school has a great idea of matching students like me up with university students here who want to practice English. I have 2 intercambio amigas, and at each meeting we speak half the time in spanish and half in english. It works great and at no cost to anyone.

And even better, Alejandra, a 23 year old architecture student invited me on an outing with her family on Sunday. I thought it would be 2 or 3 hours to see the ruins at Mitla, pre-Aztec ruins right in the middle of a town, but it was an 11 hour adventure travelling to 3 pueblos, little towns, to vist various relatives, eat barbequed meat and tortillas in the middle of a very mexican mercado with them, see a fiesta with lots of traditional dancers and not a tourist in sight and I travelled in the back of the half-ton with the cousins and an uncle the whole time. She assured me her uncle was an excellent driver....

I bought them all ice cream but otherwise they insisted on me not paying for anything. When I thought we were heading home, we went to another little town to visit the 2 abuelas (grandmothers) and a tiny abuelita (greatgrandmother) who were making tortillas by hand and cooking them over a fire in the outdoor kitchen. Before I knew it I was sitting at a table again with a big taco in front on me, I think it was mostly chicken... They were all very friendly and the whole day was in spanish of course. The kids were fun and loved my only trick of pulling my finger off. When we visited the church they insisted that I kneel and dab holy water on myself; they thought I wasn't doing it only because I didn't know how so they showed me step by step.

I felt very confortable with the family and enjoyed the day alot. I felt quite mexican speeding down the highway in the back of the truck. IT's the only dangerous thing I've done here, and it wasn't so bad, it was a new blue Ford like ours...And at the end of the day the uncle said he felt very happy that I trusted them to come along with them.

Alejandra has also invited me to a Quince-anos fiesta, which is a big party that girls get on their fifteenth birthday, if the family can afford such an event, on february 7. I'll go for sure. People think I'm quite lucky to go to Mexican homes since it's not something that foreigners always get to do.

MY spanish is coming along and I can definitlely understand better than before, especially when people speak directly to me at a reasonable speed. When I listen to mexicans talk to each other a mile a minute it's nearly impossible to understand, except for the odd phrase. But I understand nearly everything in my 3 hours of classes and there is never a word of english. Many students at the school are beginners and have much less spanish than I do and they have a hard time progressing, so I'm glad I studied at home first.

I can feel my spanish improving! I'm getting on to past tenses, especially if people speak reasonably slowly. Although I know I can't expect to be fluent in 3 or 4 weeks. People say it takes at least 3 months of living in spanish full time. But I already have some degree of functional fluency and I talk to people every chance I get so I'll just learn what I can. No exam at the end of this adventure.

Just spent 2 hours in the zocalo, the town square, eating, studying, talking to a few tourists, and watching the world go by. Seems everyone comes out in the early evening to stroll or sit. The weather is absolutely perfect and is one of the reasons there is a small expatriot community here.

I went to the little town on Etla today with 4 other women who are also on their own here studying spanish. We were the only tourists in the whole market and not a tourist knickknack to be seen. Quite refreshing to be in a real mexican town that doesn't even have a souvenir store.

The time of this post is not correct. I don't stay up that late. IT'S only 9:30 right now and I'm in a little hole in the wall internet spot just across the street from my house so it's very convenient to come here at night.

Any downside to my trip so far? Dogs barking at night sometimes, roosters crowing at 5:00am in my backyard, a few tiny ants in my room, and I don't have a reading light in my room. I asked for one but I don't think it will happen. But otherwise this trip is just about perfect and I'm very glad I came. I'm not homesick yet and haven't even done my Leader Post crosswords Cathi.

I started school today at Amigos del Sol with about 20 other people all in various classes. And I'm definitely not the oldest. IT's not a very sophisticated place but the people are extremely friendly and eager to please. I had a teacher to myself for half the morning and we mostly worked on conversation. There doesn't seem to be too much structure or creative teaching methods but that's ok with me. There were 3 of us in my next class, including a Japanese girl who speaks spanish with a strong Japanese accent. I went for a nice 3 course lunch with a girl from Utah, for about 4 dollars. Meals seem quite cheap and have been good, even my roast chicken and beans I ate in the market at Tlocholula yesterday, a town about 20 minutes away. I went with Nelba who is an aunt of the family I'm staying with. Was a huge regional market with many Zapotec indians who don't speak spanish. They're very short people with bright red and pink and turquoise print clothing. There was a row of goods for tourists but tons more of food, clothing, oxen yokes, turkeys, herbal medicines....for locals. Beautiful handwoven, natural dyed rugs which I'll buy later.

Almost directly across the narrow little street from this internet shop is a big metal door which is my house. The door is always locked and inside is the carport with rooms all around, including mine with a separate entrance, the main house and the garden in the back with a mango tree, outdoor washing area and hens and roosters. i have access to the kitchen and garden but not the other rooms.

Ten minutes after my last post I received the name and address of my family in OAXACA and now I´m here in this lovely town. The trip was easy and Mexico City airport wasn't much different from any other. Not as much pollution as I had expected considering there are some 23 million people. The taxi driver was chatty after I started asking him questions, all in Spanish. TAPO bus station is a huge domed building with shiny marble floors and I didn't see another gringo there for the 4 hours I waited, but I was perfectly comfortable in a clean, modern first class waiting room. The 6 hour night ride was fine and I slept quite well, a very modern spacious bus, pillows and blankets, drinks, lots of families, businessmen with laptops and regular people. Not a bandito in sight Eric. At 5.00 am the elevator music came on to wake everyone up and we pulled into Oaxaca. The station was full of sleepy looking families and again not another gringo. I took a taxi for 3 dollars to my house and Ambrosio let me in to my room for a quick sleep then had breakfast with 3 Ontario women who were leaving the house that day. Ambrosio and Rubi are a lovely young family with a 6 year old and a 2 year old, a courtyard with chickens and roosters, and a very Mexican little house which they have fixed up with 2 guest rooms each with a bathroom.

Oaxaca is like I imagined. Lots of reconstruction of old buildings since it is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Narrow streets with lots of traffic, charming coloured buildings, beautiful centre square with tons of activity, music, families, balloons.. it looked like a fiesta but is like that everyday they say.
I've seen my scooter alot and I even saw me on it once, except she was a Mexican mama in a black helmet.

Everything is quite perfect so far. I can communicate in spanish more or less but I know it sounds barbaric. I have a long way to go and need to get my ear tuned up so I can understand their fast speech. Everything has been in Spanish but at least it doesn't bother me to barge ahead and make mistakes and throw in French accidentally.

Estoy muy cansada. Time to go back to my room. Very high ceiling with a skylight, my own bathroom, sparse but very clean, opens on to their car courtyard.

Well here's my first try at blogging. I'm sure I'm the only mom in Swift Current who received a blog for Christmas. Thanks Luke. I'll have to wait and see if I have the time and inclination to sit at a computer in Oaxaca and write about things there.

Would be nice if I had the name and address of the family I'll be staying with. The director of the school "Amigos del Sol" is a little slow in getting that info to me. I have a list of hotels I can go to for a few days if I have to. And there are at least 3 other language schools I can go in Oaxaca. Glad I haven't paid any money yet.

Tomorrow Dave and I drive to Calgary and my adventure begins! I fly to Mexico City then get myself to the huge TAPO bus station and then take a luxury bus for the 6 hour ride to Oaxaca, a city of about 300,000. If I can just avoid the pick-pockets at the bus depot I'll be fine. Oaxaca itself sounds lovely and very safe, a colonial city that many people say is one of the nicest places in Mexico.