the Lonestar State

Last weekend my buddy and Jon went up to visit his aunt who is a missionary in the border town of Reynosa. She works at a school for children with disabilities among other ministries and invited us over. The city itself is nothing to see, in fact, my buddy refers to the collecting garbage in the streets and river as "Reynosage", because it is a broken and dirty city, yet growing rapidly because of foreign industry taking advantage of the cheap costs in Mexico. After about 3 1/2 months in Mexico, I had a day back on American soil, which was pretty great. We went to a city accross the border in Texas called McAllen. It has all the comforts of an american town, plus some I hadn't experienced yet. We went out to breakfast at Crackerbarrel, which is super good. I had grits, friend apples, biscuits and gravy, and sausage-very tastey and so different than Mexico. We then shot over to target and I bought good cereal and granola bars, then a pitstop at Starbucks to buy pumpkin spice lattes...something that I have been missing here in Mexico. It was a beautiful moment when I put my lips to the cup-except she put whipped cream on my latte, something I am not a fan of. Luckily I have my buddy jon who is there to help me out in such times. I was able to call my parents from a u.s. cellphone, something I haven't done in a long time, and hear their voices over the phone. It meant a lot to me. After a day of indulgence I was pretty tired, I know, kind of pathetic, but its those things in life that you learn to appreciate after being out of the loop of things for so long.

Real de Catorce

We took an express trip last weekend to a city up in the mountains called Real de Catorce. Its a beautiful little city with old rocky streets and some beautiful architecture in the town center. In order to get there you have to take a bus through a 3 mile tunnel under a mountain. When you get out to the other side it is as if you have walked back 100 years in time. This is also the city where they filmed the movie "the Mexican" with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. Rumor is there is a small shrine to Brad Pitt somewhere in the city, but I never found it-just good homemade food and soup, and a couple amazing horseback trips. The first day we took a tour on horseback up the mountain to the mining ruins. It was beautiful. This was the original town before the mining industry went down significantly, over 100 years ago. The second day we ate breakfast at a creperie run by a husband and wife from Switzerland. They had really good coffee. We then took a large trip up into the mountains. It was so barren and beautiful, like out of a picture. Unfortunately my horse didn't like Katie's horse and if it got too close my horse would kick her. That, and from time to time our horses would decide to randomly break into a gallop and speed off in any direction. It made for a very interesting and exhilarating trip. We got back and we were all really sattle sore. I was actually happy to get off my horse. Our trip was a great break after exams and I got to meet some new people that were a bunch of fun to travel with. Some buddies from Austria, one from Germany, one from here in Mexico, the gringos and one from Prague, Czech Republic. It was a lot to cram into a weekend, but I'm very glad we went.

Copper Canyon Adventure

My buddy Jon, myself, and good friend Katie Rice went on one of the most incredible trips I have taken. Even though it took 26 hours in a bus to get to our destination, it was totally worth it. We decided to take a long weekend and travel to the state of Chihuahua to see the Las Barrancas del Cobre (the Copper Canyon). Chihuahua is the largest state in Mexico and incredibly diverse. When we started out on our trip we entered rolling dessert hills that seemed to go on forever. Then we hit massive plains and wheatfields of all different colors...i've never seen such a large sky and felt so little-not something you see in Washington. All the sudden we hit windy mountains and we were in alpine temperatures. Our first night we stopped in a beautiful little city of Creel. Its a western-style outdoors town with lots of cool stuff to see and do. Amazing mountainbiking...next time i'm staying for longer! We went hiking that afternoon and witnessed a true fall with changing colors. We stayed at a backpacking lodge called Casa Margarita...a really cool guesthouse, more like hostel where we met some great people. Hung out with some Canadians from Victoria and went to a restaurant run by a guy from Toronto. The place provided dinner and breakfast for us ontop of lodging for a total of $10 per day! super cheap in Chihuahua. The next day we woke up early and caught a small van through the copper canyon to our destination of Batopilas. Batopilas is an old mining town who's main source of development was as a result of the mining industry. At one point it was a flourishing pueblo but when they realized there was little promise of silver, the population almost dropped to zero. Today it is a hospitable town of about 1,000 people located in the copper canyon. It is right on the Batopilas river and subtropic climate...a hiker's oasis. We took a van for 6 gut-wrenching hours down the windy dirt roads of the copper canyon until we reached the sleepy town. We were greated at the front of our guest house by an old lady, who we called Tia Monse. She runs a gift shop out of the front of our house along with a guest house in her courtyard. She has a beautiful house. Each room is a separate hut built in along her courtyard garden where she grows bananas, limes, oranges and other fruits and flowers. We had quite the sweet setup for a bargain. I enjoyed the hikes we took in the morning and then coming back to swim in the river and sleep in the hammocks. It was a rough life. We went on two really cool hikes. The first day we checked out the Hacienda, the ruins of the large mining house where the miners lived and worked during the silver rush. The next day Katie and I hiked 7km to Mision de Satevo, a cathedral that was constructed in the early 1600s by the Catholic church. After trying to convert the local indigenas, the Raramuri people, the Church decided they would build a "visiting church" which means they built the church and appointed a priest who would visit on various occasions. The Raramuris are still very present in the Copper Canyon. They specialize in making cool sandals that are made from recycled tires from trucks on the highway. They grow chiles and jalapenos as well and the women make beautiful blankets and jewelry for us gringos to buy, i suppose. Had to indulge a bit myself. We greatly enjoyed our stay, couldn't have asked for better weather and better tostadas! I would love to go back someday, down that windy road to the sleepy little town. Definitely worth the 26 hr busride.

Dia de Los Muertos

Today, being Nov 2nd, is Day of the Dead in Mexico. Although it may sound pretty creepy, really it is a cool holiday and actually has meaning...as opposed to Halloween. Day of the dead is a time to commemorate one's relatives who have died. Tradition is to go to the cemetary where your relative is buried and bring candles to place at the graveside. Usually people also cook foods and dessert to bring to the graveside along with beautiful wreaths and flowers. They leave part of it out for the dead relative in honor of them. Outside the cemetary is a large festival of food, music, and vendors of all sorts of foods that are not healthy for you. We ate some churros filled with chocolate, homemade potato chips with salsa, and gorditas. It was a good afternoon.

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.