Tis the season, right?

While many of you back home are having an appropriate fall-cooler mornings, falling leaves, warm coats and scarves, oh yeah and pumpkin spice lattes...I am pretending to have fall. Don't get me wrong, I love that its October 19th and still 84 degrees outside, but it seems like even the people here desire a fall, and try to make it look like fall, when really all fall is in Monterrey is just a cooler summer. I love the sunshine, love the absence of the rain, but miss the diversity of seasons-especially this time of year when I look forward to a rainy day and a hot coffee. The other day I was at Starbucks and I asked the barista if he could make a pumpkin spice latte (I usually have about two of them a year-usually an americano is plenty) because i was in a fall mood. He looked at me like I was from another planet (more like another country) and can to a sad realization that we're not going to have the fall drinks that some of us coffee addicts look for, as indicators that the season are changing. Call me pathetic but I know some of you, well, actually, many of you can relate. So do me a favor, the next time you order some festive coffee beverage, toast to Mexico, who although lacks diversity of seasons still remains home for me-at least til mid december. In the meantime an americano will do. Cheers,
-Jordan

The 2-1 Run

I had a blast this past weekend with friends at my birthday. We ate dinner downtown at this restaurant called "Feelgr@w" on friday night. It is THE coolest place to eat dinner, a really classy yet trendy restaurant with its own character. three stories, half indoor and half outdoor with cool lights, trees, art, a bar, cafe and tables. All 16 of us sat out on the terrace that had a view of the downtown and enjoyed the view, company and amazing food-i had a grilled salmon that was one of the best dinners i've had since i've moved to Monterrey. The place was packed come 11pm and there was a live Jazz band as well which was a sweet surprise. Awesome place to celebrate. I then went to 7-11 to get some hot chocolate because it was kinda cold (70 degrees)-I got in the taxi cab with some friends and we took off. My friend Holly accidentally knocked my hand with her elbow and all the sudden I had burning hot chocolate running down my shirt and onto my lap! It looked like I puked down my shirt, haha. It was a good laugh. Jon's taxi got pulled over by a policeman who asked for a bribe, everyone laughed in the Cab and thought it would have been great to take a picture of them at that moment paying their first bribe to policemen in Mexico! They told him they wouldn't support that and he let them go free...as if they done anything in the first place. After arguing over taxi fare with the cab driver who tried to rip us off, we went to my friend Natasha and Sam's and had birthday cake. Sam makes an amazing homemade chocolate cake with Nutella frosting! Thats right. We played a game very similar to guess that tune, and our team, the "Soriana Lovers" won by one point. We hung out, went for a walk to the park, realized it was incredibly late and took a cab home. It was an amazing birthday! Thanks friends!

Thanksgiving in Mexico

This past weekend was thanksgiving for us Canadian folk, so a group of us got together to celebrate. Getting a turkey down here is a bit difficult so I cooked up a good chicken- i've learned that anything tastes good soaked in oregano, garlic and chicken broth! The oven we used took forever to cook, no joke, three hours, but we weren't about to risk salmonella, and it turned out amazing! After a couple accidents and a broken plate, we were ready to eat at about 11:30pm...which is rather common for Mexico! I was impressed with everyone's dishes, mashed potatoes, vegetables, dinner rolls, and homemade pumpkin pie! It was delicious and made us feel at home. You honestly forget a lot about common foods when you are used to eating tacos everyday. Sunday night we had thanksgiving from my friend Natasha's perspective: curry chicken and rice. It was incredibly good and I'm stoked about the leftovers in my fridge. We celebrated with the french roommates as well, i think there were 9 of us. Good dinner and good dessert. This whole past weekend was filled with eating, and it was awesome. We also did some pumpkin carving, i'm a little rusty...and went to a Starbucks tasting class on saturday morning. (so cool if youre a coffee fanatic). I am looking for some new books to read and went out to find some at a book fair this past weekend downtown, but i'm not ready to front $25 for a paperback novel, just can't do it. I'll have to keep looking.

Paseo de Santa Lucia

Today some friends and I went downtown because there was many cool events going on towards city center. We did some window shopping and were introduced to my friend Oto's favorite coffee beverage, horchata with english toffee (sounds gross but it's tastey). It was a beautiful Sunday, about 90 out so we went down to the Paseo de Santa Lucia. This is an extensive river that runs throughout the downtown area past all the parks, one in particular, Parque Fundidora. We walked along the river while watching some of the boats and had a good time chillaxing. It was a very chill day. I'm definitely going to miss the friends I have made here, it has been awesome meeting them, from all their different walks of life and experiences. We went to an art show, which was pretty interesting and then out to a restaurant that i've been wanting to go to for a long time. La Casa de Maiz is the name and we're definitely going back- chill music, really good food, cool artwork-massive portrait of ghandi and a cool upstairs. One of the best days I have spent in Monterrey.

Words of Encouragement from Paul for today

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

Phil 1:9-11