Off to the beach

Hi. I am in morelia still. Kenny left for the states to start training on the bike for his summer job. So now i´m only down to one gringo friend in mexico. But that´s okay it just means more spanish. Speaking of which i am still struggling but doing okay with it.

Heading to the beach this weekend because it is semana santa (easter) and very few people work these next few days.

Anyways, have to run, sorry for the short update. Email me!!!
Love
mike

More time in Morelia

So the big news for me is that i have found an apartment here in Morelia. I am excited to stay in this beautiful city and work on my spanish more. That means i will probably be here at least until june, july or august. I am currently looking for a job. Probably as a bartender or waiter. But I think it will be hard because my spanish isn´t that great yet. We´ll see though.

I finally saw kenny again after three weeks apart. He finished his farm and stopped by morelia on his way to some hot springs. He is doing well and has a nice beard going. I´m not sure what his plans are next. Although our friend katherine is coming to visit him soon. That should be fun.

Lets see what have I been up to lately??? Well i have been to the zoo here which was fun. Lots of interesting animals from all over the world. I also went to a monarch butterfly reserve. It is where all the monarchs from canada migrate to during the winter. It was crazy. Millions of butterflys. I will post some pictures of them eventually. I have found a gym to work out at and also have located the only ¨climbing gym¨in morelia. It is really small but at least it is climbing. I have been playing tennis with andy´s brother in law hugo. He keeps beating me but soon i will win i think. I have gone out to a few dance clubs here which was an interesting experience. Tons of people with fun dancing. Last weekend i finally made it to the pacific coast. Andy, Nena and I went to the beach for three days. It was beautiful and I realized how much i miss the ocean. So much fun, although I didn´t get to surf because i couldn´t find a surfboard. Next time. We stayed at nena´s fathers house. They were such nice people. I still can´t get over how generous and great the people are here. They welcome perfect strangers into their homes like you were family. Good times.

well i have to get to my apartment to wash my clothes and make some breakfast. It is fun to wash clothes by hand. Takes a little time but they come out nice and clean. I will try and pòst more pics sooon.
Take care. I miss everyone. Kenny does too.
Love,
Mike

Morelia

It was very interesting watching the super bowl in spanish. We watched it with some friends in Queretaro. Needless to say after struggling to understand the announcers the Colts ended up winning. Congrats to my boy Slack, his team did it. Too bad the broncos didn´t even make the playoffs, its okay though.

The day after the super bowl, kenny and I took a bus to Morelia. It is about 3-4 hrs west of mexico city. It is a beautiful city with about 1 million people. The architecture downtown is like most cities in mexico. Old colonial spansih style with very old buildings and very beautiful. We met up with my friend Andy Dick´s wife Nena, at the bus station and she took us to her home. After hanging out for a few days, Kenny has gone to another farm about one hour west of here. I decided not to go down to Oaxaca but right now there is no space for me at the farm so i am here in morelia for now.

My friend Andy arrived a few days ago and I have been staying with him and his in-laws. They are a wonderful family and I have been grateful to have such a nice place to stay with such delicious food. We have been just running errands and relaxing the last few days. But now I need to think about whats next. I might need to get some sort of restaurant job or something because my money is depleting rapidly. We´ll see. Kenny will be done with the farm in another two weeks and we might travel with Nena and Andy to the beaches on the pacific coast.

The weather here has been perfect. I have seen some mountain bikers for the first time so I´m going to try and find a bike to use and check out the trails. I have been missing the skiing, climbing and biking in colorado so i´m desperate for some similar excercise here.

I hope everyone is doing well and I miss everyone.
Take care,
Mike

Soccer Match and tourist visa

Soccer Match (Los Gallos Blancos)

Hi. We are now in Queretaro Mexico (About 3 hours north of mexico city). We finished our last week at the WWOOFing place. It was a great experience and I recommend it to anyone. Anyways, after heading back down to san miguel from the farm, we stayed one night with some friends from spanish class. The next day we ran all over town trying to get the ¨permiso¨we need to travel in mexico. When we crossed the border no one checked our passports or even stopped our bus. I guess your supposed to get a tourist card but we didn´t. So we went to migracion in san miguel trying to get one. We were told you can only get it at a border or at an international airport when you fly in. So we told the immigration guy we lost ours and he sent us on a wild goose chase to accomplish this. First we needed to go to the police station to file a report of losing it and then get an official letter from them about this report. AFter getting the letter we would have to return to migracion and wait a week for processing. But we figured if we had the letter from the police we would be okay. Because we have heard stories of the police stopping busses throughout mexico and if you don´t have your permiso they put you in jail in a holding cell for a little bit and then make you go all the way back to the border to get one. We don´t really want this to happen.

So we went to the first address we got and the place had moved. We took a bus to the new location but went into about 3 wrong building before we found it. Once we finally found it we waited for a little while and made friends with the secretary lady and helped her do her english homework she had for an english class. Then the lawyers took down our story and printed out an official looking letter describing our situation. We think this will be good enough to travel with. Then we helped the secretary finish her homework and she gave us some tamales that she was having for lunch. Overall it took the whole day but it was still a good time.

We also happened to run into one of our spanish teachers at the police station and he said he would give us a ride to Queretaro where our friend Alex (the groom from the wedding) lives. Once we arrived alex took us to a local market where we bought some food and took it to his sisters house where we had a wonderful fiest. We also got to see his nieces, nephews, and sisters that we met at the wedding which was very great to see them again. Because they are the nicest family ever.

After eating we decided to go to the Soccer match. Los Gallos Blancos de Queretaro v. Los Diablos Rojos de Toluca. There is a really big stadium in town where they play. The whole experience was great. Tons of people all cheering non stop for two and a half hours. There was lots of action but no goals and the game ended in a 0-0 tie. Still very fun.

After the game we went to a restaurant and bar and had dinner with some tequila. Very delicious food as always. Then we went to a bar next door where there was a live traditional mexican band (about 11 members) and we danced and hung out until the wee hours of the morning. It was a very great night.

Today we went back to the sisters house where we had more delicious food. And we are now going to watch the super bowl in spanish at his house. It was weird because i had no idea it was the super bowl or who was playing until about an hour ago.

Anyways, kenny and I are doing well and are heading to morelia tomorrow to meet up with my friend andy dick and his wife nena. I´m very excited to see them both. Hope everyone is doing well.

Adios,

love

mike

Farm Pics

The Most amazing bug ever: painted grasshopper The yurt we built waiting for canvas

earthbag house under construction

Donkey Luna

Outdoor hottub heated by the sun Shower

Kitchen

Pictures

Sunset at the farm

With our spanish teacher Marta

Disneyland type church in san miguel

Overlooking san miguel

Our homestay courtyard

At the lake Media Luna

Water falls at El Puente De Dios

Cascadas in Tamasopo

Kenny in Tamasopo