Not Enough Time In Mexico City

                Despite trying my best to leave my phone behind in the hotel room, we made it to the airport with minimal drama.  The Villahermosa airport was clean and fast, I guess they forgot to make the rest of their town nice, and we were off.

                I was nervous to try to navigate Mexico City.  A new metro that wasn’t Seoul’s seemed too much for me to bear!  But their easy and well planned metro for 5 pesos was such a relief.  Each line is color-coated and each direction is marked by the end of the line (as none of them are loops).

                We had only been in the city for twenty minutes or so when a woman offered to help us find our way.  Though we understood the map, we watched as she explained how to get where we needed to be and even offered to take us there herself (even though she was headed the opposite direction).  We insisted that she needn’t do that, but thanked her profusely and, when we parted ways she waved excitedly and yelled “Welcome to Mexico!”  A wonderful first impression of the city.

                The other three members of my group were all friends with the couple that offered to let us stay with them in their home, and so we made our way there in order to allow our group to, well, regroup.  Since I was not one of the friends, it was admitted to me that my name was not known and that they had written on the approved guest list the names of the rest of my group followed by “y chica”.  I’m glad my boyfriend didn’t know this ahead of time.  When this fun fact came to light he exclaimed “You mean I could have brought any chica?!” Too late, dude.  Too late.

                Our first day in Mexico City we took a walk through a beautiful park, Bosque de Chapultepec in order to get to a history museum within an old castle, Chapultepec Castle.  While Mexico City’s climate is far milder than that of our previous destinations, we had arrived on the sunniest, warmest day in weeks, as our hostess informed us, and the park was a nice reprieve from the beaming sun.  Vendors sold nuts battered in varying spices and fried, candies that we familiar such as gummy worms, gummy bears, peach rings, and the like, directly next to candies I had never seen before.  A popular item was a foam monkey with just enough wire in its frame to allow it to hold tight to the owner’s head.  They had boats for rent, and life vests for rent separately, and certainly no shortage of things to be done including the Anthropology Museum which we would visit later in our Mexico City adventure.

               The group of us entirely and incredibly very white.  Even in the far more mixed-heritage Mexico City we did not look like locals at all.  Despite their pale Mid-Western skin and my paler Pacific Northwestern skin, we had brown hair and maybe could have slipped through the park with minimal head turns.  This was certainly not a possibility accompanied by our gorgeous, tall, thin, blonde-haired hostess.  Passing a thick ring of people circling some performing clowns we were called to.

                Something about the foreigners.

                Something about don’t we speak Spanish.

                Something like “Oh, no? So sad.”

                The ring of people laughed out, all eyes on us.

                Our hostess kept her eyes forward and her walking speed quickened.

                “What was that?” I asked, shooting another look backwards only to find dozens and dozens of eyes still trained on us.

                “They do that every time,” she said, clarifying with, “to the expats.  They have nothing better to talk about.”

                We laughed a bit, but the slightly venomous tone escaping through her somewhat pursed lips told us that “every time” wasn’t once or twice or even eight or nine time, but habitually.

                The castle sits atop a hill, which is wonderful for a view, but less so for trekking up.  We purchases waters and sports drinks at the bottom of the hill and were told we would need to finish them before entering the castle.  Misjudging the length of this height, the drinks were guzzled as to waste no time, which was regretted after walking, and walking, and walking towards Chapultepec Castle.  Maybe that’s a bit dramatic.  There is a train, or rather a cart disguised as a train as there are no tracks, that leaves every fifteen minutes or so, and we walked because it was only a fifteen or so minute walk.  The moral of this rant was more to warn away from guzzling your delicious sports drink in the first two minutes of your trek through the unforgiving sun.

                Chapultepec Castle was impressive if a bit foreboding.  Its military quality was in stark contrast to the sunny and blue sky outlined on all sides by the greenery rising from the park.  The entryway was painted on the walls and ceiling with beautiful and haunting paintings and half the rooms were preserved as they were give an idea of what life was like living there, while the others were full of history and artwork, often intersecting, explained by various plaques that were written all in Spanish.  It made me wonder what the latter of the rooms had been used for previously.  But I am sure that there was some plaque desperately trying to explain it to me.

(The most derp portrait of life...)

                While the interior of the castle was fantastic, it was stepping out onto the balcony and garden areas that really made this worth the trek up the hill.  All around the castle was the park that stretched out until it suddenly became city.  Statues and fountains looked marvelous in the beautiful weather we had somehow been lucky enough to have.  It was simply breathtaking.  And hot.  It was also hot.  I was thinking longingly back to that bottle of water.

                And then, there it was.  A water fountain sitting in a ray of sunshine as though the clouds had parted just to lead me to it.  I don’t think that actually happened…but it feels like it must have.  The rest of the group was talking about something that I couldn’t focus on.  “Is this water safe?” I asked.  They continued talking, having not heard me.

                I took several more hurried paces towards the water fountain.  “It’s probably fine, right?”

                Maybe they had heard me this time, or maybe they simply noticed the direction of my beeline.

                “I wouldn’t trust it,” one of them said.

                “Probably should wait ‘til we can get bottled water.”

                I nodded to myself as though they had said the opposite thing.  “It’s probably fine,” I agreed with I didn’t know who as I came to the water fountain.

                For perhaps the fifteenth time that trip all the advice about water and ice and food flooded back to me.  It was the background noise in my head as I listed to the water streaming from the fountain.  The water was cool and tasted delicious.  And I was fine.  Not so much as a stomach cramp or a second thought.

                We returned to the host and hostess’s house, to the comfort of AC and the promise of a pool, before we started whipping up some dinner and I tried my very first sip of mezcal.  And holy shit.

                “Did you want to try it?” our host asked me.

                All eyes seemed to find me.  Obviously I wanted to try it.  I was cool.  I could hang.  Sure, give me a glass.  I thanked him and pressed the short glass to my lips.  I did not get any farther than this before my eyes burned a bit.  I pulled the glass away blinking and letting out a “phew”.  “Just drink it?” I asked.  “Just like this?”  The laughter told me, yes, just like that.  I put the glass to my mouth once more, moving much faster and taking the worlds tiniest sip before placing the glass down with another “phew…”  “I guess now the tequila will seem weak,” I said.

                I checked the bottle quickly to be sure the guys were actually drinking mezcal and not paint thinner.

                I stuck to tequila watered waaaaaay down with soda but was warm and giggly within an hour anyway.

                The guys had all gone to school together.  They had taught in China together.  They had been friends for years and years and had no shortage of stories to be rehashed upon this reunion.

                I laughed along with their stories and contributed mostly when the topic turned to poking fun at my boyfriend, which is something I can ALWAYS contribute to.  But mostly I just listened and laughed and shot our hostess looks of I have no clue what they are talking about.  She returned these looks and we all laughed some more.

                Day two in Mexico City began early for me.  I didn’t sleep past 5am and decided it best to make my way out to the kitchen instead of disturbing the others, since we all shared the room.  I wrote in my journal and sent some messages to friends while I had wifi and didn’t see anyone else for a couple of hours.  But when they came, they all seemed to come at once.

                They began planning the day, and I suppose they thought I was part of it.  They listed place after place, enough that I couldn’t keep straight which one someone had vetoed and which everyone had nodded excitedly to.  I simply nodded, hoping that someone else was just as lost as I was.  But I doubted it.  The Anthropology Museum was the one that stuck in my head.  That.  I wanted to do that.  I wouldn’t fight anyone on anything else so long as we went to the Anthropology Museum.  So the conversation continued until we finally decided on a plan that I cannot quite recall as none of it happened.

                We walked through a Saturday market that resembled the Saturday markets that I knew only because they were selling things and it happened to be Saturday.  It was more closely related to the market in Merida without the bugs and grime.  There were mechanical parts to something or other and whisks and silverware and things a tourist would never consider buying, but it was interesting to feel part of the real life of Mexico City.  I lingered like a distracted child, but my boyfriend kept me up to a decent pace, pulling me by the hand as I slowed to watch a woman haggle over the price of a strainer.

                Impressive architecture rose up all around us as we moved out of the ritzier part of Mexico City that was home to Gucci stores and embassies alike.

                “What is that?!” I would ask, pointing to the most amazing building I had ever seen.

                “A bank,” our host or hostess would say, disinterested.

                “Wow…” I would linger, amazed, until my eye caught the NEXT most amazing building I had ever seen.

                It occurs to me now this may be called existing in a city.  Maybe this is what most banks look like in big cities and simply in being different from Seattle or Portland or Seoul everything seemed new and exciting.  Maybe after having traveled more I too will be able to pass archways and spectacular facades with a simple “just another bank” or “that’s only a mall” or maybe I won’t even notice it because it will all seem commonplace.

                But I hope not.

                If passing banks was impressive, I simply was not prepared for the post office.  This post office was plated in gold.  This seems like an unlikely sentence, and, believe me, it is an even more unlikely sight.  “This is the post office?!” I asked staring up at the elevator that was shimmering in the light of the chandelier overhead.  Never had I wanted to have my picture taken with a post office so badly.  Brush Prairie’s post office doesn’t even have more than one employee as far as I know.  There was a section, not just a corner, dedicated to art and post office related history and I started that way before I was reminded that we had other things to see.  My strong desire to spend an hour in just the post office told me that two days in Mexico City was ridiculous.  Absurd!  It wouldn’t be enough.  And begrudgingly I left back out to the street only to see another most impressive building I had ever seen.

               We moved on to the Zocalo, a square that was surrounded on all side by points of interest highlighted in our guidebooks.  The stop we had intended to start with was the Palacio Nacional.  It is one of the places that you must visit while in Mexico City!  Or so I was told.  The outside was very nice.  But it was also closed.  This caught us off guard and our group just kind of stared at it a while willing it to be open so that our plans could continue on.  But eventually we gave this up and turned to our left to the Catedral Metropolitana.

               The cathedral has varying architectural styles as it has been built upon all throughout the colonial period and, through glass in the ground, you can look down onto some of the ruins of Templo Mayor that it had been built upon.  This, more than the guidebooks or documentaries had, conveyed a feeling of the history of the city.

                The inside was full of people worshiping.  I felt like a voyeur as I admired the altars and artwork in the midst of people trying to have a religious experience.  I appreciated the beauty and history of cathedral, but not without a feeling of guilt.

                “I didn’t know they would allow heathens like me in here!” one of the members of our group, a Methodist, joked.

                I just scoffed and continued walking about.  Try being Asatru, I thought to myself, avoiding walking under chandeliers just in case.

                We moved to Templo Mayor next.  I wanted so badly to be awed  by what was left of this structure.  But I simply wasn’t.

                “Look at what it used to look like!” the recreations of the Templo Mayor seemed to cry to us.  “Look how amazing it was!”  This is not to say you ought not to go.  It is only a couple dollars to check it out.  And maybe your imagination will allow you to fill in some of the blanks.  But for me, “It used to take up so much more space!  See that coffee shop over there?  That was built over the ruins of this,” wasn't enough.  It just fell short of the ruins we had already seen.

          The attached museum had a wealth of artifacts found in the ruins and was worth the entrance fee to the Temple, so I don’t feel slighted.  But I simply felt guilty that I was so underwhelmed by what was supposed to be impressive.

                “I think we’re all museumed out,” someone said after leaving the museum.

                “Wait…what?” my eyes widened in terror.

                “Yeah,” someone else agreed.  “Let’s skip the Anthropology Museum and do something else.”

                “But, but…”

                There was a unanimous nodding as we started walking toward the bus.

                “Are you alright?” my boyfriend asked me.

                I felt my eyes morph from my own eyes into puppy-dog eyes, but I could do nothing about it.  “We’re not doing the Anthropology Museum…?”

                “Nah,” he said, “I don’t think anyone feels like it.”

                I could feel despair nestle itself into my heart.  If that sounds dramatic, well, it was a dramatic time in my life!  I had stared at those stupid rocks that someone insisted was a temple for far too long.  I had been pulled from my post office.  And now the new plan was brunch and then coffee shops in “a kind of cool neighborhood”?  I swallowed down a tantrum remembering I was a 24 year old woman and simply continued to pout.  I felt that was a reasonable middle ground between tears and kicking my legs and going with the flow.

                But I know I should have simply gone with the flow.  My boyfriend suggested we split up after brunch and some of us go to the “kind of cool neighborhood” and he and I, and anyone else who was interested (which turned out to be no one) go to the Anthropology Museum.  Everyone said that was fine, but I suddenly felt guilty for my childlike pouting.  I told him it was fine, that we could all stay together, but he insisted that he also wanted to go the museum.  I knew he didn’t really.  That he would have preferred to go with his friends, that really he was just going for me.

               

                This brunch is what some of us like to call “lunch”.  It happened at around 1pm, and served lunch-type food.  But because we called it “brunch”, I decided that it was fine to start drinking.  I ordered in Spanish, which I should not be too proud of since I simply said “para mi…” the food I wanted, and, “y…” the drink I wanted.  And even that I had to do twice and point to the menu because my pronunciation is apparently shit.  While the food was great, it came at Mexico speed.  We waited for what felt like hours (it wasn’t) and were starving by the time our food came.  I ordered a second drink knowing that it would take forever and someone else ordered a coke.  By the time the second drink came everyone had finished their food and had been hoping for the check for ages.  I didn’t even want that beautiful, delicious drink at that point, and the coke was shoved in a bag “for later”.  I angrily and quickly drank that beautiful and expensive drink, which is not the ideal fashion to drink such a drink, and the check came within minutes.

                Despite the guilt of pulling my boyfriend from his friends…I really, really enjoyed the Anthropology Museum.  There were a series of rooms for each civilization.  Even though we had three hours, we had been warned to pick and choose which we wanted to see most and not lollygag too much.

                Within each room there were some real artifacts and some reproduction, but the recreations were done so well the only real way to tell them apart it seemed was either by being informed by one of the signs or deducing that, because this one was behind thick glass and surrounded by protective rope and that one was within arms’ reach, that this one must be real and that one a reproduction.

                This museum was exactly what I wanted.  The ruins we had seen had provided a skeleton of the civilizations that had once inhabited Mexico and the museum had filled in the flesh and blood: the religion and daily life.  The clothing they wore and the products they created.  What they might have eaten and the stories they probably told.

                Each section was broken into an upstairs (with the aforementioned artifacts and such), an outside (the was a smell section recreated into life-size), and an upstairs.  For the most part, the upstairs areas were a mystery to me.  We had only three hours (yes, I said only three.  Three is nowhere near enough) and we only say the upstairs to one of them.  But it was recreated with photos and color.  It made me wish I had seen the other upstairs sections.

                We both left very happy that we had gone, which made me feel slightly less guilty about my earlier pouting.

                We would leave the next morning and so, to celebrate our second but final night in Mexico City, we all drank margaritas the size of our heads.

Don't Skip Palenque: My trip through the Yucatan Peninsula, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas

This post is not for everyone.  If you want to take a selfie with one of the wonders of the world accompanied by a 700 peso tour guide before returning to meet other travelers and drink and speak English, then know that this advice is not for you.  If this is your ideal vacation, then book a few nights in Merida and a tour of Chichen Itza.  You can go back to your hostel (and I highly recommend Nomadas) and grab some people to go eat great, cheap food.  And there is no shortage of bars.  There is plenty to do in and around Merida to fill up a vacation and the locals’ English paired with the few words you remember from high school Spanish class should get you through with limited drama.  You will have still beat those who never left Cancun and will go home to rave about their “Mexican experience”.

                But I hope that you will take it one step further because, for me, it has been spectacular.

CANCUN

                Our adventure began in Cancun.  Well, it started a bit before that, but I will spare you the details of how awful Frontier Airlines is and the nine hour layover in Denver.

                Immigration was full of Cancun-only tourists who all knew each other and were decked out in their favorite college basketball gear.  They spoke loudly as we waited in line, dramatically reuniting with their friends each time the line would turn a corner.

                Two hours.  That is how long we had to endure that line with people who loudly proclaimed that this was Mexico and they should be served margaritas in immigrations.  But, without incident, we made it through and stepped into the warmth of Mexico.

                Our destination was certainly not Cancun, so the goal was to get to the city center and then bus to Valladolid as quickly as possible.  Leaving the airport you are assaulted instantly by English-speaking taxi drivers yelling prices at you of a couple hundred pesos to go here, there, or some other place.  Now, at an exchange rate of about 15 Mexican pesos to a US dollar (rounded up for simplicity of math through my trip) this isn’t terribly expensive.  But for 64 pesos you can take a very comfortable air-conditioned bus that leaves every fifteen minutes or so and stops only two other times before taking you to the bus station.

                From there my group and I combined our few words of Spanish each to ask what was the next bus to Vallodolid and what was the fastest bus to Valladolid.  We could have taken the first class bus that takes only two hours (it drives on the pay roads) and would have left an hour later, or we could take the second class bus that left 15 minutes later and took 3 hours (drives on the free roads and is therefore cheaper).

                I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but Mexico is hot.  I know, I know, I was as surprised as you are now.  But it is better to sit on a bus for three hours in comfortable air-conditioning than for two hours and spend one in the heat of the bus station.  Save money, same amount of time, and, we reasoned, we will be able to see more of Mexico from our windows!

                This last one is mostly false.  The Yucatan has much to offer, but views from your bus window is not one of them.  It is incredibly flat and brush grows up on either side thick and high so that you catch only a glance of a dilapidated, but still inhabited house here and there.  This simply gave us the chance to sleep and not miss much on our 3 hour bus ride to Valladolid.

VALLADOLID

                Much better!  Valladolid’s charm is evident from the moment you enter!  Don’t panic every time the bus stops, Valladolid’s bus station is the last stop, so the seventy-eight other times it stops and you wonder in panic if this is it.  If you should get off.  You shouldn’t.  You’re fine.  It is the very last stop. 

                Valladolid was our first real taste of Mexico and began the theme of “screw you, I’ll paint my house whatever color I like!”  In the US you will see a range of colors spanning from browns to beiges and off-whites and, every once in a while, a subdued sort of blue or green.  But not too much!  In Mexico it is not so.  The buildings will be bright orange next to hot pink next to lime green next to whatever other lively color you can think of!  With white trim. Always white trim.

                Valladolid is easy to navigate if you have a map, or even just if you know the cross streets you need to go to.  They don’t have streets and avenues intersecting, but instead one direction is odd numbers, and the intersecting streets are even numbers.  Which can be a bit off-putting when you get off at 67^th and 52^nd, relieved that you only have to get to 66^th and 51^st and then realize that you are  thirteen blocks away and not two.  But if you have this knowledge locked away from the get go, you should be just fine.

                Valladolid was a quiet town, we arrived Saturday and there were religious festivities going on here and there.  But the quietness was only amplified the next morning by 1) it being early as Mexico wakes up much later in the day and 2) it being Easter.  This was the perfect time to take in the roads full of pastel houses and the Templo de San Bernardino.  While these things were quite nice, using it as a halfway point between Merida and Cancun seemed perfect for us.

CHICHEN ITZA

                The plan, the one that had me very nervous that I would be stuck hauling my luggage all around my first wonder of the world, miserable, was to bring everything with us and leave it with “left luggage” at Chichen Itza.  “They will definitely have one,” my boyfriend reassured me for what must have been the 80^th time.

                “And if they don’t?” I asked, once more.

                He shrugged, “They probably will.”

                The conversation had gone like that several times.  The certainty of someplace to leave our bags downgraded from “definitely” to “probably”.

                They did, indeed, have a place to leave your luggage.  We were lead to it by a series of signs with pictures of bright red luggage.  The phrase I want to put here is “it was free and completely not sketch”, but I am realizing more and more that my version of “not sketch” and others’ may be completely different, though I am certain the concept of “free” is universal.  There was someone there to guard the luggage, or rather, take the luggage and then stand near it.  Upon our return she allowed us to walk in and choose any luggage we wanted!  She did not ask for our numbers or anything of the sort, but I still chose my own luggage.  But my bag hadn’t been opened and no one had taken it.  So I shall proclaim Chichen Itza’s left luggage as “sufficiently not sketch”.

                Having adopted a German kid of 22 years old in Valladolid, our group had grown to five people.  Our new adoptee was keen on the idea of getting a guide.  And there were no shortage of these.  My boyfriend and I are incredibly cheap though, and isn’t that what you want in a significant other?  Someone equally cheap, or at least someone who doesn’t mind when you ask for “the cheap one” when asking for wine.  So we turned our nose up at the English guides who called out their price of 700 pesos.

                The group broke off into my boyfriend and I in the “we got this ourselves” group, and the other three went to find a guide.  They ended up paying 500 pesos instead of 700, haggling is most definitely a thing, and having a wonderful time, so if that is your cup of tea the other half of our group highly recommends it!  For me, even if it had been an included service I probably would not have taken them up on it.  I enjoyed moving at our own pace and, armed with a Lonely Planet Guide and a boyfriend who had just read Aztec by Gary Jennings and done obsessive research pre-trip, we had enough facts to perhaps lead our own tour.  Plus, I’ve seen road to El Dorado like a hundred times.

                That being said, we strategically took water breaks, reapplied sunscreen, and “rested” near someone else’s guide and picked up a fun fact here and there, so I am not saying that guides are not worthwhile.  Just not my style and more than double the cost of entrance to the wonder.

                The ruins were amazing.  It helped that we got there on Easter Sunday just after they opened, giving us unobstructed pictures and the chance to hear our own claps chirp off of El Castillo.  It was found that the echo from these stairs, and other Maya Pyramid like El Castillo matches the call of the Quetzal, whose feathers, alongside jade, were the most valuable items for the people of the area.

(If you’re a nerd like me, check out this article about it! http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1206_021206_TVMayanTemple.html)

                Upon entry they will give you a map, but you’ll want a guidebook anyway.  The free map (or rather, included in entry) is a nice souvenir, but I found that Lonely Planet’s map was much easier to orient yourself by, and Chichen Itza is no small complex.

       Pictures cannot do the ruins justice, so what chance does a blog post have to explain to you the awesome feat that is Chichen Itza?  Rock walls stretch up higher above your head than a postcard could have conveyed and the carvings stare out with precise lines even hundreds of years later.  Even those that have faded only add to the feeling that this place has stood through more years than we usually care to think of.  The parts of the complex farther off the path are certainly worth the walk as they give you a feeling of the life that could have been lead in and around this place (just be careful of iguanas, there is no shortage of those).

                We ignored the calls of those selling souvenirs throughout Chichen Itza for quite some time.  “One dollar!” they would call, holding up something that we knew was not going to be one dollar.  And yes, this is a lie.  They are holding up their coolest item and it is not one dollar.  What is one dollar are the small pyramids and magnets and such.

                They must be cheaper away from the tourist attractions!

                They’re not.  This is completely backwards from what we have experienced in the US and, for me, Korea, but items are much, much cheaper in Chichen Itza.  Probably due to there being dozens of different sellers within eyesight at any given time.  But the souvenirs are at times a fifth of the price you will find them in gift shops in town.

                Pay in pesos.  It is obviously going to be a better deal.  Some American man was yelling at a young woman because the exchange rate didn’t match up.  “Why is it more expensive if I pay in dollars?!” he loudly did the math and shoved the calculator in her face.  Then pay in pesos dude.  They then have to go exchange the USD for pesos and pay a fee for that, plus, they can charge whatever they want!  If it was such a hassle you should have exchanged your USD for the local currency.  Alright.  End rant.

               

MERIDA

                Having successfully retrieved our bags, we bought a bus ticket inside the gift shop and waited with a group, away from the tour buses, for our bus to Merida.  Moral of the story: don’t plan ahead!  It is so easy to get place to place just buy your tickets as you go!

                Don’t actually listen to that.  But it was ridiculously easy to get from place to place in Mexico.

                Merida also followed the odd streets one way, even streets the other rule, making finding our hostel, Nomadas, a cinch.

http://www.nomadastravel.com/

                The consensus about our hostel was that it was not your average hostel experience.  In the best way possible.  We settled in and the boys kept reminding me again and again not to get used to it.  “This isn’t what hostels are usually like.”  “This is the nicest hostel I’ve stayed in.”  “Don’t expect this from every hostel.”  Shut up and let me in the hammock!

                Hammocks here.  Hammocks there.  Hammocks, hammocks everywhere! Hammocks hanging over the pool and under palm trees.  There may have been more hammocks than guests!  If Dr. Suess wants to write a hammock themed book, it ought to take place at Nomadas.

              And yes, I said pool.  A really nice pool surrounded by tables and chairs and palm trees and did I mention hammocks?  Breakfast is coffee and fresh fruit and toast and the like.  They play music at night for those enjoying dinner in the hostel.   Yoga in the mornings is relaxing, if meditation based, and also free.  Salsa classes are free.  And their cooking class is 25 pesos, which is basically the cost of ingredients.  Which you then eat.  The boys were able to catch their basketball game on the hostel’s TV which apparently gets American sports.  All in all, for- what?- ten dollars a night, we were very pleased.  It is still a hostel and not perfect.  The first two nights we paid for the bigger dorm which had some characters in it and was right by the front door that locked at 10pm.  But fear not, they had a very noisy doorbell to remind you if someone was there.  But it was clean and comfortable enough sleeping arrangements, and the rest of the amenities couldn’t be beat.

                Merida had a similar feel as Valladolid, but on a bigger scale and a bit more lively.  With churches, old mansions turned banks, street markets, street performers, street food, and more, it is not hard to amuse yourself in Merida.

                Plaza Grande is beautiful and holds Catedral de San Ildefonso, a beautiful cathedral that is over 400 years old.  This is in the center of the city with all of the food and life going on around it.  I think one would have to actively avoid it to not see it during their stay in Merida.  Nearby is the Casa de Montejo.  This barracks turned mansion turned bank used to take up a city block, but now only a small chunk is left of the original façade.  But it is a chunk worth a couple pictures.  Though a member of our group called dibs.  So no telling what it will be next.

                A little more out of the way is the market.  But this was one of my favorite parts of Merida.  Not another tourist in sight, we made our way through the crowded market selling just about everything.  They had hammocks (when in the Yucatan, buy a hammock!), clothes, produce, cooked food, bling bugs and more.  “What are bling bugs?” you ask.  The simple answer is: I have no idea.  I don’t even know what they are actually called.  But they are bugs that have had jewelry glued to them.  They were everywhere.  And we don’t know why.

                The market also has less blinged out bugs.  If you feel like helping a cockroach out I suppose you could bring your own superglue and rhinestones and remedy this.  But you best bring a ton of rhinestones, because there are a ton of cockroaches.

                This fun fact stated, I would advise you not to eat the food in the market.  If you are a smart person, you won’t and you’ll go eat safer food someplace else.  There.  Now you can’t be upset if you get sick.  I am not a wise person and I scarfed down this sketchy, cockroach adjacent food.  8 pesos for an empanada?  I’ll have two, thanks!  And they were delicious.  I deserved to get so violently ill from this food adventure.  Drinks full of ice and cockroaches as tablemates.  I finished my meal knowing that if I got sick, no one would or should feel bad for me.  But I was just fine.

                A nice evening walk is down Paseo de Montejo.  My very smart boyfriend knew the history and time period and all of that fun jazz.  I just remember they were cool.  And if I started listing facts about them now you would simply call bullshit and credit Google or Lonely Planet (as well you should).  At the end of the road is a huge roundabout surrounding a gorgeous monument where an enormous Mexican flag is supposed to be.  The flag was missing in action when we arrived.  I shrugged it off.  The boyfriend did not take is so kindly.

                Cenotes just outside of Merida are also worth a visit.  Though I ran out of time in Merida, half of our group went and enjoyed them immensely at a very low price.  Lifejackets are either an extra fee or not offered.

UXMAL

                We took a bus from Merida to Uxmal and then back (though we did not buy the round trip ticket).  They have a circuit bus that allows you to see Uxmal and the smaller nearby ruins in one fell swoop.  This, however, only takes place Sundays and I have no idea how you could properly see the ruins at that speed.  We arrived at Uxmal just after it opened and were there well past midday.

                Chichen Itza is the wonder of the world.  I was prepared to very much enjoy Uxmal, but if Uxmal were the superior site, it would be the wonder.  So, with this logic in mind, I was ready to be slightly less awed by Uxmal.

                And this logic did not hold.

                While Chichen Itza is amazing, it is a museum when compared to Uxmal.  You can see all of these amazing things, but you cannot touch.  But Uxmal you can almost feel the city.  You walk the alleyways that the people of Uxmal once walked.  You sit on a hill above the city and ball court where they probably sat to watch the games.  You feel like if you turned around maybe a bit of the life would come back to it.  The Magician’s house is no less impressive than El Castillo (and also chirps if you clap) and you can climb to the top of the Great Pyramid.

                You won’t find a ton of souvenirs here.  Really just in the souvenir shop, but these prices are no lower than the ones in town (though some of the items were ones I hadn’t seen before, I’d list them, but I have them as gifts to give away…)

PROGRESSO

                “Do you know what we need?” someone must have asked.  “A trip to the beach!  I mean, it isn’t a trip to Mexico if you don’t see the beach.”  It must have been something like that.  I can’t remember.  We must have been drunk or under duress or possibly possessed when this conversation took place though, because we somehow decided that Progresso was a fantastic idea.  It wasn’t.

                The bus we took to Progresso was much smaller, a local bus, as it was only 45 minutes to the beach.  We arrived and knew right away that it was a mistake.  But I was determined.

                The wind was some of the craziest I had ever experienced.  I pinned my hair quickly back, but, after only a few blocks, was keen to just cut it all off.  Upon touching the beach the wind sand-blasted our legs and the water, even from a distance, was brown and murky with the churning waves.  My wonderful boyfriend waded through the water with me.  He tried to stick it out, but as a romantic kiss in the Gulf of Mexico turned into an assault of salt water in both of our mouth and up our noses, he threw in the towel.  Or rather, headed back for the towel.  I stayed though.  I was determined to enjoy my first time in the Gulf of Mexico, damn it!  Even farther out the waves grew tall enough to smack me square in the face, and any attempts to just float and go with the flow showed me just how fast the flow was, taking me down the beach faster than I could swim against the waves.

                “But, Chelsea!” you cry.  “It has a really long dock or something.”  You can’t walk on it.  It is a road. And the shorter version is covered in garbage and bird shit.

                We tried to head back, but everyone had a similar idea and we had to wait in line for the fifth bus before we could get back to Merida.

                In the moment I was determined to enjoy.  It was an experience!  A story to tell.

                Well, now I’ve told it and I can push it from my memory.

                And you’ve read it!  So now you can never ever ever go to Progresso.

PALENQUE

                Well goodbye Yucatan!  It was fun!  I am sure our next stop, Palenque will be quite similar.  I certainly don’t need to be more worried about my hair, I am confident!

                Oh, ho ho.  Not the case.

                We took a very comfortable bus the long stretch from Merida to Palenque.  Surrounded by the shrubbery of the Yucatan, we couldn’t watch the landscape change as we made our way through Tabasco and Chiapas.  That made it all the more breathtaking when, suddenly, there were the mountains and the jungle and, though the Yucatan was fun and charming in its own way, this was a whole new creature and my breath caught in my chest.

                I looked through my window, excited for this next beautiful location and, when we finally stopped at the bus station, I excitedly grabbed my bags and headed out of the bus.  Here the humidity punched me with all of its might.

                Holy shit, Palenque.  What did I ever do to you?!

                Palenque is lucky that it is so beautiful.

                The town is a bit small, with a couple nice things to see.  But makes for a good hub to see the jungle and waterfalls and the like (though we didn’t have time for these).  The food here is not like it was in Yucatan.  We were not at all impressed, but probably would not have thought much of it except for the fact that the food we had just come from was so amazing.

                The real draw to Palenque is the ruins of the same name.

                You pay for a van to take you the 15 minutes to the ruins where you must pay for entrance to the park area, and again to get into the ruins.  With all of this paying in several small transactions, it was still less than either Chichen Itza or Uxmal.

                The ride in the van was so enjoyable.  We shared it with several locals going to work (as tourist apparently don’t get up that early) and I voiced that I almost wished the ride had been longer.  You take a road through the jungle and you can look across the sloping hills and mountains at the beautiful expansive green that simply wasn’t present in the Yucatan.  Each new person got into the van with a “Buenos dias” and a huge smile.

                We were the fourth and fifth people to get our tickets into Uxmal for the day and had it nearly to ourselves!

                I had already stated how amazing Uxmal was.  How could I gawk at Chichen Itza, then declare Uxmal better, and then declare Palenque better?!  I couldn’t, I reasoned.  So I fought it for the first half of the time we were there.  But I could only fight it for so long.

                The ruins weren’t quite so big, but just as beautiful.  And added with the backdrop of the jungle all around, it was amazing.  Here, as in Uxmal, you are climbing stairs and walking down paths and feeling like you can feel the life of the city.  But, unlike Uxmal, at Palenque you walk from one series of ruins into the jungle, only to come upon another clearing with ruins just as beautiful.

                Within the dense jungle there are ruins not quite so well preserved, and quite a bit smaller, but being under the canopy and alongside a stream and waterfalls, I was still appreciative of it.

                A sound started out so quiet we didn’t pay much mind to it at first.  But it slowly overpowered the gentle stream until it was a roar above us.

                “What is that?” I asked.  “Is that real?”

                My boyfriend and I both determined that it wasn’t.  Like zoos elsewhere, we were certain it was coming from a hidden speaker someplace in the trees in order to give a sort of ambiance.  It got louder and louder.  The sounds didn’t seem to repeat and I couldn’t help but imagine an angry monkey leaping down from the high treetops, unhappy with our presence.  But he and I were certain it was a track.

                As we came across another small set of ruins that had once been baths, there were two people looking up into the trees.  Though they didn’t speak English, they called us over to them and pointed up.  There, in plain view, sat a group of howler monkeys.

                I pursed my lips, one last moment of defiance, before admitting it.  “Palenque is the coolest.”

                The museum (included in the entrance fee) is also very cool.  If you’re reading a guidebook like we were as you went through you have plenty of fun facts that are then reinforced with the artifacts of the museum. 

                We took another bus back to the town of Palenque and hung out for a while.

                While the food may not have been the best, the town was charming and had lots to see around it.  It was a great place for a taste of Mexico.  Outside of Palenque ruins we didn’t see another foreigner and if we wanted something we had to ask for it in Spanish.

VILLAHERMOSA

                Something we didn’t know: Palenque has an airport.  Had we known that we could have skipped Villahermosa and been better for it.

                The initial plan was to take a night bus from Villahermosa to our next destination, Mexico City.  This would be an 11 hour bus ride for about 60USD.  But the plane ticket was the same price so we thought that was the best idea.

                Villahermosa is dirty and a little unnerving without sights to make up for it.  We stayed in a four star hotel (Mexican four stars is not the same as US four stars, but it was fine) and had planned to see a small park that had some stone heads in it.  We decided against it.  We got some food instead.  This food was the worst of the trip.  I got a salad as there wasn’t really anything better anyway.  I paid more for a “ensalada natural” than if I had wanted chicken.  But I don’t know why.  I got four pieces of romaine lettuce, three stale pieces of bread, and all of it was smothered in mystery sauce.  I was warned not to eat salad.  But I had paid 55 pesos for that salad and only remembered after I had eaten every awful bite.  Later that night I laid in bed.  My boyfriend caught me with protein bar crumbs all over me and I whined that I had been wasting away!  I froze in sudden realization.  “If I get sick from that fucking salad-“  He just laughed.

No Regrets

Don't waste a single chance.

Some people don't have the opportunities that I have.  I hope that you have the chance to go abroad and experience the exciting and unknown.  Maybe you aren't as fortunate as me to have two terms abroad.  Maybe your trip isn't even a semester long.

The first term I chose the wrong friends.  This is not to say they are bad people, but they aren't my people.  My people don't waste a moment.  We stay up too late and laugh over food or alcohol or coffee.  We make last minute plans and run with it.  We are low maintenance, but sometimes hard to keep up with.  A feeling of obligation kept me bound to my room waiting for my old group of friends to decide it was okay to go out and about.  Or not.

Despite my fears it took only a "Do you have dinner plans" and I had found a like-minded friend.  A leap of faith on meeting a total stranger and I had found another.  It isn't too late to start again. And don't find yourself obligated to those who don't feel the same towards you.

From the moment I realized my time here could be whatever I wanted it to be I have utilized every waking moment, so much so that I haven't written a word about it.  Well it is time that that is remedied.

Locker Rooms in Korea

Trying out the swim club on campus is one of the ways I am making the most of my second term at Yonsei University.  They are great and welcoming people to all of the new Korean students and international students alike.  They kicked my butt a few Saturdays making me swim more than I think I ever had before and then we all hung out and got some pizza specifically so I could have access to a salad bar.  Simply great people, and a great experience even if I decided to club jump...

If you have ever been to a public swimming pool in the States, and likely most other places as well, then you know the basic setup.  You walk into the lobby area, sign up and get a key for a locker.  The boys and girls need to split up to change before meeting back up in the pool.

In Korea the key gets you into two lockers.  The first is a shoe locker.  This one is only for your shoes.  "Well can I lock my wallet and phone up?" I asked to my much more knowledgeable and Korean friends.

They kind of smiled at me, "You don't have to.  This is for shoes."

"But can I?" I asked again, unwilling to leave my wallet and phone unprotected.

This time they snickered a bit, "This one is just for shoes."

I was perplexed.  "What about everything else?!"

"You put that in your other locker."

Two lockers.  If you don't want to look like a goober like I did then just put your shoes in the first locker and stop asking so many questions!

The next piece of advice?

"Don't be shocked," my friend said to me, turning back over her shoulder before opening the door to the locker room.

It was a locker room.  Of course people were going to be changing.  For me, a locker room is a place for the briefest of nudity before throwing on your workout clothes, in this case the required one piece swimsuit and swimming cap.  But in Korea this is not the case.  The locker room is a place for prolonged and drawn out nudity.  Adjummas gossiped and lotioned up and blew their hair dry all while naked and sending glances to those of us who were clearly foreigners.

The friends with my were varying levels or Korean.  One of them had a Korean passport and Korean parents, but spent only a few weeks in Korea at a time, and the other was Korean through and through, but had spent the last several years in the states.  The former worried about stares from adjummas that might be judging her athletic build, a trait not held by many Korean women, while the latter was simply not accustomed to nudity.

Fully clothed, and as white as can be, I already drew attention.  I desperately didn't want to be naked.

Sadly, the within the locker room you are not allowed to wear your swimsuit.  This means that the general plan of action is to strip down naked and carry your items to the shower room where you will rinse off, still naked, and then slip on your swimsuit, cap, and goggles.

A Korean-Korean girl -born in Korea, raised in Korea, always been in Korea- informed us that we shouldn't worry about being naked, but we should worry about being yelled at by the adjummas if we wore our swimsuit in the locker room.

Most foreigners in Korea are Asian.  I have gotten fairly good as seeing the differences between ethnicities, just like at home someone with Greek heritage will look different from someone with Swedish heritage, but if you want a fool proof way to spot the foreigners, simply go to a swimming pool.  We will be the ones with the towels wrapped around us as we slip out of our clothes and slink, swimsuits in hard, to the shower room to wiggle our way into our swimsuits without allowing our towels to drop.  This may not ring true for Europeans, as the Swedish girl in the club strode proudly about as naked as the Korean women, but those of European heritage are fairly easy to identify in Korea.

After the showers you are free to swim to your hearts content!  Though be warned that Korean clubs are no joke.  When they say "warm-up" they mean 400+ meters of rigorous freestyle stroke.  And at the end of the session when they say "game" they mean relay race...

All in all, a wonderful experience.  Culture shock does a body good.

It's Been A Long Time (Returning to Korea and To Blogging)

I am so grateful to have another term here in the wonderful country of South Korea.  Last term I let a break-up taint my experience and I let this "funk", as I so lovingly called my sour mood, keep me from blogging.

My second term here is another chance to do things right.  And what better way to start a grand new adventure than with a stressful international flight.

Get to the airport at least an hour early.  Yes, we all know this.  I know this, you reading this undoubtedly knows this.  But you'll be reminded anyway.  No, the woman at the Alaskan Airlines counter does not care that your itinerary says Delta and so you went to the Delta counter only to wait and be told that actually your flight is with Alaskan.  She also doesn't care that you waited in line for 30 minutes to talk to her.  No.  There is a strict 40 minute cutoff and she was not going to let me on my flight.  You see, I only had 38 minutes.

"What can I do, then?" I asked.  Internally I told myself not to make a fuss or panic.  I would get to Korea one way or another.  I just hoped I didn't need to buy a new ticket.

She let out an exasperated huff.  "Let me go ask my supervisor."

When she returned she informed me that they would make an exception for me (how kind) and she took my bag gave me my boarding pass.  "Hurry," she said with a condescending sort of tone, "You only have 30 minutes.  You better run."

"Thank you," I said, because my Pacific Northwest heart wouldn't allow me not to, and I hurried through security (five minutes) and down to the last gate (ten minutes) found my seat (mere moments) and waited for my plane to take off (about fourty-five minutes).  Tell me to run... The woman at the desk continued to piss me off for most of the flight, but not as much as the two people seated to my right who discussed wine and Italy and the irresponsibility of twenty-somethings in a flirty fashion the entire two hours to LAX.

My layover in LAX was only two hours from landing of one plane to the taking off of the other.  No problem. I stupidly thought to myself.  In LAX if you are transferring to an international flight you have to go to an outside terminal, Tom Bradley, with its own security.

TSA is allowed to be frustrated.  I get it.  Your job isn't easy.  Although often times they should be frustrated, they usually are not.  I have never had a bad experience with TSA in PDX.  Not so much as a downward turned mouth.  Besides maybe a firm voice where necessary I  have never experienced a TSA agent be anything but nice.

Tom Bradley is where they send the surliest and least patient TSA agents to all piss each other off.  Security took about an hour and a half which is a little nerve racking in and of its own.  But the agents made it far worse.  Nearly all of us in line were waiting to go to South Korea and, with the size of the plane, it should have been assumed that we all needed to go through security.  But our mere existence pissed them off.  One agent had an elderly woman with a Chinese passport come up and she spoke loudly and slowly despite the woman speaking English.

"Wooooooow..." the agent said.  "You're late.  You're plane is boarding already.  Do you know boarding?"

"Yes," the woman said, "I have been waiting in line."

This response should have been enough for the agent to stop speaking to her like a child who just drank the secret stash of horse tranquilizers.  But it wasn't.

"It is 10:35.  TEN.  THIRTY.  FIVE.  Do you understand?  You should be on your plane by now."

"I have been waiting in line since before nine-thirty," the woman said with more patience and sweetness than I knew someone could muster in such a situation.  I would have gladly decked the agent for her if I hadn't been in a separate line (and also afraid of being tased).

The agent looked away, before handing the woman's passport and boarding pass back.  "Don't know what to tell you.  Run, run, run," she said, making the motion of running with her index and middle fingers.

Because running through the scanners passed TSA agents is the best of advice.

If you are going to have such a frustrating start to your day followed by a thirteen hour flight, make sure that flight is with Korean Air.

Holy F bomb.

I sat down in my seat as the uber kind flight attendants put my heavy carry-on in the overhead compartment.  In front of me was a television that I assumed they would show the in-flight movies on.

Before I could look into it much another flight attendant came up to me.  "Excuse me, miss.  Did you order the vegetarian meal?"

Relief.  "Yes," I said with a smile.  "Thank you."

"Would you like a drink with lunch?"

"Oh, no thank you," I said, maintaining my smile but inwardly thinking Ain't nobody got money for that!

My focus returned to the TV in front of me.  My initial assumption had been wrong.  You choose what you want to watch.  And I don't mean just reruns of Friends and Two and a Half Men (though they have those).  They had brand new movies like Gravity, Last Vegas, Thor, etc., documentaries on travel, food, and a million other things.  Korean shows were listed.  They even had games to play.

Gravity... I thought to myself.  That was supposed to be really good.  I wonder how much it is.  But the only two buttons offered were "Play" and "Trailer".  I assumed if I hit play it would then prompt me to pay for it, or at least tell me the price.  But the movie simply started.

I looked one way, then the other.  Did I break it?  Did it charge my card automatically?

I paused a moment longer as the unthinkable came to my mind.

Was it free?

Indeed it was.  Along with comfortable seats (the most comfortable economy has to offer anyway), two full meals and two snacks, along with a constant barrage of refreshments, all the movies shows and games were free.

I suddenly got a nauseating feeling in my stomach...Had I turned down a free drink?

Indeed, I had.

Motivation to Learn Korean

It has been a long time since my last blog post.  But it has been quite the crazy adventure so far.  And during these adventures I have been able to see similarities and truths in the videos and the articles I read about Korea before arriving.

All the blogs I have read and video blogs I have watched have joked about Korean cars wanting to kill you.  They have joked that if you are not a Christian, you become one in a Korean taxi.  And until recently I laughed along with these jokes and even made them myself, though I didn't really feel any sort of danger.

But a week or so ago, that changed.

The stress of studying so often gets to me, but de-stressing is rather easy.  Back home I would simply take a walk and listen to some good music.  I figured: hey! Even though I am in Korea I still have legs and I still have music!  I can do this!

Before I left for my walk my roommate and I discussed our own personal horror stories about going out late at night.  Always a good idea before trekking into the dark!  "I'm just going to stay nearby," I promised, "And I will be back in twenty minutes."

Rather than going to the nearby park to circle it a bit, as the stories had scared me away from places devoid of lights-posts, I walked up some stairs, around the back of the building, and then back down to where I started, never allowing the dorms to leave my sight.

Head back?  I wondered after it had been just about twenty minutes.  Nah...I'll make one more loop.

I waited patiently to cross the street until there wasn't a car in sight.  Doubling checking once more, I stepped into the street.

I loud noise met my eyes.  What on earth?  It sounded so close and so ominous.  Silver took up half of my vision and it wasn't until I stumbled backwards onto the curb, heart pounding and knees shaking, that I realized the sound I had heard was my body bouncing off the hood of the car.

It what seemed to be slow motion, I watched cars driving by, the street suddenly busy once more.  The security office across the street came in and out of view as the cars rushed by, the light inside the office cast shadows across the street.

What and awful dream...I thought to myself.  What a strangely realistic dream...

But it wasn't.  The car that had hit me slowly moved down the street, questioning as to whether or not it should stop.  He eventually did.

My back went week and I placed my hands on my knees for support, breathing hard and trying to process what exactly had happened.

No one got out of the car.

With as much composure as I could muster I tried to wave the man on, terrified to be yelled at after having been hit by a car.  He got out of the car anyway.

"It's okay.  It's okay..." I said in Korean, shaking my hand back and forth.

"You're okay?" He asked, stepping up onto the sidewalk to meet me.

Cars continued to rush past us despite the fact that it was a campus and not thirty seconds away from the dorm rooms.

I nodded to him after a few deep breath.  "I'm okay..."

"Where are you going?"

"Dorms..."  I probably knew how to make that into a full sentence, but instead I just pointed and said a single world.

He nodded and said some incredible long sentence to me in Korean.

That was the point that I had to start fighting back the tears.  "I don't understand Korean."  I shook both my hands at him defensively, physically moving back a full pace.

"Ahh..." he said in understanding.  "You are a student here?"

"Yes," I said, but all I could think was: Please just leave.  Let me go home.

"You are okay?" he asked.

"Yea..." my brain gave up on Korean and English came out for the first time during our conversation.  "Just scared..."  I put my hands over my heart to show what I was saying, but felt my heart racing against my rib cage.

He laughed uncomfortably.  "I was scared too."

I don't recall exactly how we finally separated.  But I turned away quickly and crossed the street cautiously.  I hurried back to the dorms and made it to the elevator before I realized the pain in my knee, though I made it all the way back to my room before I started crying.

People have told me over and over again that I should have gotten his information.  I know that I should have.  But at that moment, I wouldn't have been able to ask for his information in English, let alone in Korean.  And that got me thinking: in the States, I wouldn't have to.  In the States the pedestrians who had been on the other side of the street would have stopped.  At least some of the passing cars would have stopped.  Those in the security office sure as hell would have come out.  I wouldn't have had to ask for anyone's information.  I've seen it a million times with fender benders.  My friends have had it personally happen to them, and there is always some third party stopping to get involved.

My roommate and I have had lengthy conversations on this topic since.  I am thoroughly enjoying my time in Korea.  I love it here.  But a large portion of the Korean population does not want to get involved.  They will walk by people passed out on the streets, or people fighting, or a girl who just got hit by a car.  It is part of their culture to mind their own business, whereas in the Pacific Northwest, we make it a point for everything to be our business.  Both of these things can be good and they can be bad.

Please, if you plan to go to another country, at least learn the things you need to say in such circumstances.  It isn't what they teach in guidebooks, textbooks, or even classes, but try to make it a point to know how to ask for someone's information in case you are calm enough to remember to ask.

As for crossing the street in Korea, that deserves it's own freaking blog post...