David’s Amazing Spring Break Adventures and All That Followed!

I thought I wouldn’t start by mentioning me being sorry about not having updated the blog, ‘cause it’s something I feel is becoming too much of a custom. So, I wont mention me being sorry for it… this is me not mentioning it.

So finally I’m back. I HAVE had access to the internet, it’s not that, it’s just that I haven’t wanted to do the blog as so much has happened since last time and each time I thought it was about time I did more stuff and it’s just been keeping me too lazy. Anyway, here goes!

So I left you guys at me leaving for the “Ruta Maya” trip back in March. This trip was probably the highlight of the year, 13 days of seeing places, ruins and nightclubs all around the south of México. The first day we went to Teotihuacan again (read the “Happy Christmas” post), but except for it being nice to see everyone again it was pretty boring as there was a two hour line to be able to climb the pyramids.

Ready for 2 weeks of "desmadre"

I guess it’s time to introduce you to the V-Boys; a destructive squad of strapping young lads on the quest to have a lot of fun. It consists of me, Arnaud, Max, Luca and Runar. We stayed together most of the trip, and we’ve gotten together later too. They are my best friends here in Mexico, and meeting them has toughed me to trust Belgians and New Zealanders. Here we are at the “Tree of Tule” in I don’t remember:

We got out of Teotihuacan and headed for Puebla, a beautiful city with a really nice Jardín and an amazing church. After eating there and walking around a while we headed off for the hotel for the first night. Runar and I were sharing a room with two other Norwegians, although we were supposed to be three persons per room. One of the Norwegians in our room was too much of a pussy to stay with two Germans. Luca, Max and Arnaud went out but never told us so we stayed in the hotel the first night.

The next few days we spent seeing cities and towns, visiting places special to Mexico and going out, all the time getting closer to Cancun. Here are some pictures of the coolest, most fun and most memorable places.

"Dude, are they staring at us?"

Oaxaca: A beautiful city with a center as full of cops as of people; this due to riots that had occurred some time before. Oaxaca is the poorest state of Mexico and also the one with most trouble. It’s got lots of farming and many natural resources that aren’t taken advantage of.





El Cañón del Sumidero: In the morning of the 3rd day we went to this huge valley. Getting to the other end of the valley took about 40 minutes and at the end there was a little hotel where we could sit by the water and chill out. I had the best Victoria (beer) I’ve ever had right there and then. The valley was an amazing sight though, the mountain walls on both sides shooting up against the skies and the width of the river that came all the way from Guatemala.






Aguas Azules: This cool place had a huge waterfall and an amazing color of the water. We stayed there almost half a day, just hanging out, taking a swim and later eating.

Manning up for the part of karaoke night where you actually sing

And it's on!

Karaoke night: Of course we had to go out to a karaoke club during the trip. It was funny because it was a local club and we were the stupid foreigners that didn’t know how to sing amongst the local karaoke heroes that kicked ass. We didn’t have any trouble having a cool time anyway obviously, tearing it up with Britney and Backstreet Boys amongst others.

The worlds biggest salt water pool

Cancún: Probably the most beautiful place I’ve been to, but also so Americanized. In fact, most prices are given in dollars! The color of the sea was like nothing I’d ever seen before, the heat and the great snow white beaches really take your breath away. At night the clubs fill up even though it’s not spring-break season (we went about a week after spring break finished). They are huge, being able to hold thousands of people. The most memorable one must have been the Coco Bongo. Also we went to a theme park called Xcaret (pronounced escaret) that really blew. There were barely any people there and each time we finally got to one of the places of the park it closed so we ended up looking for something cool to do there all day long and ended up only going to the show of traditional Mexican dance (which I’ve seen about a hundred times by now) where I got my camera stolen, so I pretty much hate Xcaret.

Coming back to Tonatico I felt stuff was pretty dead with my family. They never knew I lost my camera because they never even asked to see the pictures from the trip. They just wondered if the trip was good and then never asked again. About a week passed, there being little communication and us doing barely anything. Then one day my mom said she wanted to speak with me. She said my attitude had been quite negative lately and that it seemed to her that I didn’t like being with them anymore. At the end she commented that I should tell her if I wanted to talk to Eva (my AFS coordinator and current mom) about changing families. I told her that I’d think about it and that the next day I’d tell her. I went and talked with Eva and her husband Octavio and said I wanted to change families. I had already talked to them before about it though, and knew that if I’d change families I’d come live with them, something I actually really wanted to. Everyone I talked to from AFS or from Norway were very positive to the idea of changing families so I gathered all courage I had and told my parents the next day that I’d made my decision; I wanted to change.

No one was angry; they said they respected my decision and that I should talk to Eva again about when they could pick me up etc. They said they’d come the next day to talk about it. All the waiting from I’d said I wanted to think about changing to I actually was finally out of the house was incredibly difficult. I felt like everyone hated me and that they looked upon me as the guy who had just come to stay with them for a while to waste their time and money. Again a day passed and in the morning Eva and Octavio came over. We had a chat about what had happened, they asked me when they should come for me and I said they could come next morning. Big mistake; that night my father who had seemed to be taking it very calmly came home drunk to the house while I was sitting with the rest of the family watching TV. He was NOT happy. The next hour and a half he spent yelling at me for all the things that in his perspective were wrong about me. He said I never respected them, that I had told lies about them to other people in Tonatico, that I owed him a lot of money for all they had given me and that I was a lazy rude idiot. He had the greatest Spanish vocabulary of swearwords I’d ever heard. When he was done I went very shaky back to bed and didn’t sleep for about 3 hours. Happily during that time my brother and mom came into the room and said they were sorry for what had happened and that they also were sorry I was leaving.

Next day I left, to start the best 3 months of my entire year, if not life! As I said my current parents are called Eva and Octavio, but I actually call them Mom and Dad, which felt pretty weird at the beginning, and in the other family TOO weird to ever do it. They have no kids, yet, but my little brother Claudio is on the way. A few weeks ago my parents came back after learning it was a boy and my dad said proudly “Wow, if his pecker is that big now, IMAGINE what it’ll be like later!”. My dad and I have a very good relationship. He takes the role of father, brother and friend in one. We can spend a lot of time together doing different stuff like watching movies, helping him with work or going out. My mom is a very nice person and someone great to lean on if there’s too much father-figure in the picture. She is from Tonatico and I’m a lot more with her family than with my Dad’s. I play guitar with my uncle and aunt every week and yesterday I played some songs with them in a bar (and sang!). I’ll put the pictures up later. Every day we eat in my grandmother’s restaurant. They’ve got great food there and there’s always a lot of family when we eat. They are a lot of fun.

Now I have two days left here, I can’t believe time has passed this fast, and it really gives me nerves that I have to start packing and getting everything ready, in just two days! Let’s sum up the year of things I’ve done, surely I’ll forget something:

• Go to Teotihuacan 3 times and six flags 2 times


• Go to Cancún, Monterrey, Vera Cruz, Acapulco, Mérida, Palenque, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Puebla, Oaxaca, Taxco, Mexico City, Toluca, Cuernavaca, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí… Dang, I’ve seen more of México than of Norway.


• See most of the ancient ruins of indigenous people of México, one of them currently being voted to become one of the 7th wonders of the world.


• Celebrate 17th of May in the Norwegian embassy with Norwegians that acted like Mexicans and Mexicans that acted like Norwegians. Funny combination.


• Go out to clubs and places like I’ve never done before in my life.


• Use a lot of money.


• Experience Christmas in a way that felt nothing like Christmas and made me long for Norway more than any other time during the year.


• Learn Spanish.


• Live in two very distinguishable Mexican families and learn from my experiences with both.


• Meet some really cool people from all over the world, especially the v-boys.


• Get into clubs without being of legal age just for being a foreigner, also having access to VIP areas in some of those clubs for the same reason.


• Fail Mexican literature classes 3 times.


• Have two girlfriends


• Successfully get through a complete year with AFS


• Update my blog on a regular basis… NOT!
  

Well there’s of course a lot more but it’s what I could think of now. Tomorrow is my last day, what does one do on the last day of an experience that has lasted ten months? I know what I’m going to do; buy a guitar case. And of course finish packing and say goodbye to everyone. I still have stories that I haven’t told yet, but they’ll come on the blog eventually. Now I think it’s time to put these words on the web so I can say that I DID update one last time before leaving.