Xalapa

Xalapa was definitely a whirlwind trip, we arrived around 12.30 on Friday night and went straight to Coatepec and fell into bed. The next morning me,
Jose, Jose's brother Juan and his mum went for
breakfast and it was so nice to have real Picadas Veracruz style, realy good start to the day. We then went to see both his grandparents, and a few of his aunties-lots of Spanish practice! We then wet to the house of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who was the presi dent of Mexico on 11 non consecutive occasions for 22 years. He was born in Xalapa, Veracruz and was the son of a respected Spanish Colonial Family.. Jose's mum's mum Guadalupe claims that he was the grandfather of her grandfather.. who knows, maybe its true.. Jose's mum's family name is Lopez but then again there are many families with the name Lopez, beautiful house though.
In the afternoon I helped Maria make dinner, we made letter soup which is my favorite and then Aztec cake which was so tasty. That evening we went to a club called Rio with some friends: Eunice and her sister and Zazyl, it was really fun and so good to dance again! A really good mix of pop, reggaeton,
salsa.. exhausting. Of course afterward we went for hotdogs at Farmacia Plus whcih were amazing and I have a video where all I hear from me is "con mucho queso!" haha lots of cheese!
Sunday I was quite tired, but we went to see the grandparents again and we saw a movie.. something to do with Avatar, I'm not sure, I thought it was really boring and i fell asleep for most of it.
All in all it was a good trip, nice to be in Xalapa again, so familiar, I felt like I could have gone back to my apartment and all of our stuff would still be there.
Anyways I will put some pictures :-) xx

The week

Just a quick blog, I feel like I don't have too many things to report. I have finally started to get my own groups, so far i have three which works out to about 17 hours a week so far, and I will get another 2/3 groups in the next month. I have 2 beginners groups and one advanced group and so far they all seem really nice and I am quite enjoying being Miss teacher Leanne :-) I went to a yoga class on Wednesday which was amazing. The girl is from Russia but she speaks really good Spanish and I just loved her style of yoga, first time I had done a handstand i a long time, I could definitely feel it in my shoulders the next day! Jose is coming with me today and I think he will like it. We are going to Xalapa tonight so he is taking a half day at work, we are gyming and then taking the bus around 5. I think I will have some Xalapa things to blog about next week. Okies well have a nice day! xxx

Gym

So the gym is going really well, exhausting and painful but I can already feel a difference. And I have more energy during the day, I sleep better and I wake up easier... I do 40 minutes of cardio at 70%, 20 more minutes than Jose, I have 20 more minutes of fat to burn than him! I like going because Will and Grace is on the tv at that time and i forget that I am exercising because I love that show. 3 times a week I do legs, 2 times a week i do arms, Jose is the other way round. We are also going to do this yoga class on Saturday and Sunday is rest day! There is a man that is always at the gym when we go, he seems quite normal but he sings out loud to his music.. but mostly to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and he is probably 40. He was with a woman yesterday who also seems normal so i guess he just can’t help but sing “You drive me Crazyyy” and “Thank for making me a fighter”” yeahh and pumping his hands in the air. It is actually quite entertaining! Tomorrow I am going to do another yoga class during the day, but this time Hatha yoga.. I don’t know what the difference is between Ashtanga and Hatha?

Work!

WORK! I have my first real class. The company is Canadian, based out of Toronto. My student is the assistants manager, called Rafael. He reads and writes really well but has problems speaking and reading... I think this is always the problem!. The class starts at 7.00 so I have to get up at 5.55, leave by 6.20 and then i take the metro bus, which is just like a normal Canadian looking bus that has its own lane and is 50 cents more expensive than the normal bus. I have to travel all the way alone a street called Insugentes and the company is in a nice business area in the south of the city. It is an early start and after the gym in the evening I am ready to go to bed at 10!

Buenos dias

Right now, Starbucks and I are spending some quality time together. I love my local one, you can sit outside and they have plugs so you can do things like update your blog! I am drinking a mocha Frappuccino, with soy milk, a shot of mint and no whip... really good. So on Sunday Jose surprised me and took me to the zoo, which was so lovely because every time we drive by the zoo i say “oo I would love to go there one day”. I actually already had an idea where we were going... it seems impossible to keep a secret from me haha. It is free on Sunday, and it is an outside zoo so all of the animals are not locked up in cages, apart from the gorilla which made me really sad. There were so many people looking through the glass and it was shut in this big room, he sat down and was wrapping his arms around his knees and just looked like a really human being that was frightened... made me very :-( but all of the other animals looked really good! I love the pictures we took, and I can’t decide which ones to put up, so I may put up lots! This weekend we also went to a yoga class on Saturday morning, I was quite surprised at how 1. How good Jose is 2. How inflexible I have become... but the class was great, it was Ashtanga yoga whatever that is haha but at one point we had our hands on the ground and our legs up on the way doing bridge handstands so it was quite challenging. After we did our gym session and after this I was completely exhausted! We then did our laundry, went for Korean food at this restaurant where they can only speak English and their attempt at muchas gracias was “mucho grac..s haha crazy how you can live in a Spanish speaking country and not be able to say thank you to your customers. Anyway, we then went to Chedraui and bought groceries, lots of fruit and veg! We had decided to go to a club in the evening but we were too tired and had an early night, so boring haha Sunday was the zoo, then we watched “Inception” which after the second time I actually understand now and it is an amazing movie. We then went home and watched another movie called “Always by my side” (mum watch this). It is about a dog... and I won’t say what happens.

Wednesday and Thursday - midweek stuff

Hola Hope you having a good week :-) I think it's gone so quickly! I can't believe it's Friday tomorrow. Anyway I finished covering classes for Jocelyn yesterday, and I get my own classes next week and tomorrow is pay day, first Mexican pay cheque so all in all the job is going well. I am really excited to have my own groups so I can teach in my own style, which includes lots of pictures on the white board and acting out things, yesterday I was trying to explain the verb "to break out" and the only way was to act like an animal breaking out of the zoo... they got it though! Yesterday Jose and I went to a concert that a radio station put on. It's a really popular station called Los 40 Principales, and they had some bands there. We got to see a band called Jotdog, which I really like and then we say 2 guys from Venezuela called Chino and Nacho. They were very reggaeton/latin they are apparently quite famous and I recognized the last song, I liked them though. We went with 2 of Jose's work friends and then afterwards we went for some food..not quite street food more like vendor food haha Today I didn't have a lot to do. I slept in which was sooooo nice, I got up cleaned a bit, showered, then went to the school to give the lesson plans back to jocelyn. I then went to Starbucks and had an Americano and I read 100 pages of my book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in The Nighttime" i absolutely love it, I read half of it for a class when I was in Capilano College a few years ago but I want to read it again. The boy in the story is the most interesting character and i love the way he turns everything into logic, if you haven't read it you must. I was in their for about 2 hours, It was really nice and i had a big comfy chair. Only bad thing was there was a car crash on Reforma, i heard the screeeeeeeech of the breaks then thud.. it wasn't very bad, it was between a taxi and another car, it was hard to see form where I was but no ambulances or police came so I think the cars were just a bit crunched up. Anyway Now I am here in my apartment sitting by the from door so I can get good internet connection. I am going to make some food and then we are going to the gym :-) Okies speak soon! xx

Weekend pictures :-)

1) Saturday night - Hot dogs, and tequila with fresca = good combination!
2) We were supposed to go to an exhibition about The Revolution and movies, which I was really excited about, but it had already changed and was some kind of architecture exhibition, beautiful old building.
3)Jose with his birthday present from me, it's a manual camera called the Dianna mini, it basically just takes really cool pictures, you can do double exposures, half frames and overlapping. I think it made him very happy haha
4) Me in a cafe that we went to, really great view of the Zocalo (Sqaure). I had cold coffee and Jose had some stange kiwi tea infusion.