Happy Valentines!

Valentines day is a big deal here in PV, but it's not just for lovers.

In PV, maybe all of Mexico, Valentines day is called "Dia del amor y la amistad" - the day of love and friendship. And it's a big deal! Shops have been decorated in red for several days, the flower shops seem to be busting with flowers and helium balloons, and everyone in the whole city was downtown this evening! Many dressed up and/or dressed in red and carrying flowers and helium balloons.

Interestingly, coincidentally, I visited one of the most "historically" romantic sites in the city today. In 1963, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor had a public affair here while he was filming "Night of the Iguana". The story is a bit unclear to me. But one version says that they each had a house here, and they built a bridge over the street to make it easier to see each other. Barbara, a lady who has lived here for 30 years and seems to be an authority on the subject, said no, there was one house with two parts, connected by the bridge. One part was the living area, the other was the pool and party area. Either way, there is a bridge over the street. One of the houses is completely under renovation, and I could only see the outside wall of the other. Many houses here, and other parts of Mexico are like that. They look like nothing from the outside, even run down. But when you get inside some are amazing, complete with inner courtyards and pools!

Pictures: Somebody expressed their love in an interesting way. They painted love words all over their lover's car windows but didn't wash the car for them! The "Bubba Gump" restaurant dressed up the bench out front in honour of the occasion. (yes, you're supposed to sit on the bench, put your feet behind Forrest's shoes and get your picture taken. The bridge between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylors houses. And a neat statue on the "Malecon" - waterfront boardwalk.

PS Kevin Costner filmed "Revenge" here in 1990. I'm guessing the movie is a bit "fromage" but I'd like to see it anyway to see what I might recognize!

I'm slightly out of control!

I already told you that I bought a bikini right? The first one I've bought in 25 years. Well, ooops, I did it again! And I bought more watches too. Did I mention the watches I bought already?

I have now worn my bikini to the beach twice. I've done my exercises (sit ups, stretches, push-ups, etc) with it on, I've swam, and lounged on the beach. No one laughed, or pointed, or ran away screaming. I didn't lose any pieces or flash anyone by accident. It actually felt kindof neat. My tummy is even starting to be a bit tanned!

With that positive reinforcement in mind, and the knowledge that bikinis are plentyful and inexpensive here, I went and bought more; 3 more to be exact. It sounds very decadent. It is kindof decadent. But in all, the 3 cost me about $55 canadian. Not a crazy expense really. And what an incentive to maintain my weight! I might even ask Andre to take a picture when he gets here so I can show you. Yes, Andre is coming on Feb 18!!!

Today I bought 30 more broken watches from the watch repair man who works on the bridge near my school. This makes a total of 60 broken watches I've bought from him. (I will try to remember to take a picture of him on Friday. I'm somewhat uncomfortable about taking pictures of people here. I don't want them to feel like they are on display or something. But I did buy watches from him.) Why did I buy 60 broken watches? Sometime ago, I saw a picture frame in a magazine (?) that was made with watch faces and parts. It looked really neat. I'd like to make a frame like that, maybe for the mirror in the bathroom of the basement at home.

Other than that, the only interesting thing to report is that I've reached my saturation point with men who want to kiss me, touch me, or sleep with me. Of note are the construction worker who has interrupted my exercises at the beach twice to chat and then ask very personal questions about my sexual preferences. And there is Raphael a waiter I've chatted with a few times. Raphael is interesting and even somewhat charming. But today, he asked to kiss me. When I refused he asked me to kiss my had so he could then kiss it. When I refused that he wanted to taste my drink because it was likely to taste like my mouth (cause I was drinking the drink). No, no, no, no. I'm getting better at that word. He said he couldn't help himself, he was dreaming of me. I told him he could keep dreaming, I didn't mind that. Happily he thought it was funny. If I ever go back to his restaurant, it'll be with Andre!

Photos: The ever so charming Raphael. A guy who just lifted and balanced a heavy rock to make an Inukshuk type structure. He stretched his back after that one! Fireworks coming from the "Pirate" ship tourists can have dinner and drinks on every night. Some men replacing the old sidewalk with a new one with an inlaid stone pattern. Some parts of the city are a bit run down. But they seem to be on a mission to make it all nicer.

Mad to the rescue and in action!

Today was fairly quiet in many ways, but exciting in others. I helped two ladies in distress, and I stepped right out of my electronic comfort zone.

I haven't yet received the refund for my timeshare mess. Fortunately, both VISA and Profeco keep telling me to relax since I have the letter from Royal Holiday telling me that they cancelled the contract and will issue a refund. Visa said they would give Royal Holiday 30 days to issue the refund then begin a dispute, and Profeco said they would make them pay at a "hearing" if I email Profeco and give them an update. Either way, it should turn out OK for me.

But, I wanted to double check with Profeco about their process, in person. So I went back to their office this afternoon to do that. They were very kind and told me again I should email them. They explained why. Their process makes sense, so I'll follow their instructions.

But while I was there, I met 2 very upset ladies from Winnipeg who also made the timeshare mistake. They were at Profeco to ask them for a letter that tells their timeshare folks to cancel the contract and issue a refund, like I did. I chatted with the ladies, told them what I know, gave them advice, and helped them with a bit of English/Spanish translation. It felt nice to be able to reassure them at least a bit. Poor ladies, they're only here for 7 days and this will have gobbled up about 2 of those days! And get this, they were actually being hassled about the timeshare while sitting around their hotel pool, by their own hotel staff. That really sucks!!!!!

Then, it rained again. So I stayed in and worked on building the website for my painting business. I'm so proud of myself. I created a draft version using the Google Web site function, which is what Andre and I learned in a class we took this fall. But Google Web sites has very functions. So I actually spent the last 3 hours finding other website creation software, downloading it, and using it!!! This is very out of my comfort zone, but its exciting and it needs to get done. Yeah!!!

Pictures: Some pretty petals on teh sidewalk; a man scraping old paint of the outside wall of a shop, some kiddy costumes outside a cute store; and a pretty window on an abandoned building.

I went to meet the ladies

I met 2 ladies who also feel into the time sha

It was a dog day

I volunteered for the PV SPCA today. It was a nice experierence that enabled me to meet a whole bunch of new people.

During my second week here, I asked Alfredo if he knew of any organizations that might need volunteers. I thought that volunteering would help me feel like a part of the community, enable me to contribute to the community, and be a fun way to meet new people. He told me that the local SPCA has an adoption event every Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm at the Los Mangos Library, and that I could volunteer there.

I went today, for the first time (for whatever reason, the event did not occur last Saturday). It was easy to get to, the library is in my neighbourhood, but in a part I had not explored yet.

The library itself is really nice. They have many types of activities there, including dance, drawing/art, and language classes, book sales, and the SPCA adoption event!

Today, there were 7 dogs for adoption and 4 cats. Three dogs and 3 cats were adopted, yeah! Before they come to the adoption event, each animal is examined by a vet, vaccined, de-wormed, de-flead (is that a word?) and neutered/spayed. When we arrived this morning at the library, 2 dogs were tied to the fence. People aren't supposed to drop off dogs at the adoption event, but I guess they sometimes do. They were so adorable a few people wanted to adopt these 2 dogs, but we couldn't let them because the vet has to do his thing. They will be available in 2 weeks.

Hanging out with the dogs today was pretty neat. But, it was also neat to meet some of the people that were there. Most of the volunteers were "expats" (Americans, Canadians, and 1 British lady) who are in PV for various amounts of time. Linette, from the UK, invited me to join her and her friends at the Vaca Grill next Friday. (You may recall that the ladies and I danced and drank there last week!). So that's neat, cause I'd like to go back and going alone is less interesting....The volunteer coordinator is Luz. She's the only Mexican volunteer. Turns out she lives on the same street as me and we met the other day when she was walking her dog. I remember cause the dog had a cute raincoat on! I also met Irene and her family. That was interesting because I had met Irene on a booze cruise/snorkelling trip here in PV 2 years ago. And I recognized her and remembered her name! (I remember her because I had taken photos of her on the booze cruise and emailed them to her.) It is a very small world, and PV is a fairly small city.

Pictures: Me and Canelo, a sweet dog that did not get adopted today. Two of the cats that were up for adoption, the all white one is with a new family now. Irene and her family on the booze cruise 2 years ago. Irene doin karaokee 2 years ago (The pole was only for stability, though she was kindof getting into it!)

Check this link out. I got it from a newslwetter for a small town called Sayulita, which is near PV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfq_A8nXMsQ

A quiet day with Spanish and food

Yesterday , it rained very hard again almost all day, so I focused on my Spanish most of the day, and met the ladies for "Art Walk" and dinner later on. The amount of rain that came down was very impressive, and a bit depressing. But, we made the best of it.

I had my first exchange with Sophia, a gynecologist from PV, who is learning English at the University of Guadalajara (UofG) where I'm taking my Spanish classes. The UofG twins students together who want to practice. Sophia is very nice, about 35 years old and calm. She's married to a Canadian from Vancouver. Practicing with her went well. We talked about who we are and why we are studying each other's language.

After that, I had my conversation class. The students are teh same as last time, George, Louise, and Beverly will join next week. But the teacher is different. Now, we have Cynthia, a very animated and pleasant teacher from Guadalajara. The class was good. One of teh things we talked about was Canada, including the number of provinces and territories, why there are provinces and territories, and the history of colonialism in Canada and north americal as a whole (remember, Mexico is part of north america). Cynthia said we should watch Apocalypto, the movie with Mel Gibson because it describes some of Mexico's history from the mayan point of view.

When class was done, I was starving and it was raining pretty hard. So I crossed teh street to a big indoor/outdoor market and found a table near the railing (overlooking the river and lots of nice trees) in a restaurant upstairs. I had one of my best meals here so far, a wonderful burrito!!! And chatted with my ever so cute waiter, Eric. He was pleasant, wanted to learn some English, and had a killer smile! I'm thinking I'd like to go back again for the burrito and Eric's charming company.

Then I got wet, grrrr. I had to meet Joan and Darcy at a local art gallery. It was only about 10 blocks from teh market, but it was impossible to keep my feet dry. The water in the streets was several inches deep in many areas. Fortunately, I had a good rain jacket, so my body stayed dry.

We walked around the art galleries and went into a few tourist thing stores, then went to dinner at a fairly nice place. We chatted like school girls, again, then came home. It was a nice calm day.

Pictures: You can buy Corona in a 1.2(?) litre bottle here, just like quarts in Quebec!. The day of the dead, Nov 1&2 is an important holiday so there are lots of squeleton art things everywhere. You can also buy cute little little sculptures made from pop cans on the beach.

It rained all night and all day

This is the dry season. It's not supposed to rain in PV from about October to June. But, there has been rain a few times in the evening during the last week, and it rained all last night and today. The forecast says rain for the next 2 days too!!

I didn't mind today. It was actually kind of nice. I had planned on working on the content for my painting business web site. The rain made it easy to stay indoors to do that. I actually made concrete progress and think I might be able to "build" the web site soon, using my newly acquired "Google web site" knowledge. Andre and I took a class with the city of Ottawa in the fall. It was very basic, but it should be enough to get me started.

Also, I kindof enjoyed walking in the rain and seeing how it accumlates in the streets here. There are no storm sewers. So it just runs downhill, more or less towards the ocean. That's why the sidewalks are so high in spots. It was pretty neat to see just how high it got in some places.

But rain for the next 2 days?! ben la! I sure am glad I brought my rain jacket. Too bad I didn't bring the one with the hood. I could look like a soggy rat for a while.

Pictures: cars in the puddles in the streets of PV (yes, the taxi splashed me a fir bit); the ceiling in my bedroom (built with clay tiles on wooden beams), and a chair in my bedroom and my closet doors with the nice fluffy pink towel alfredo gave me to use during my stay. If it keeps raining, I might see more of that ceiling and room...

Mad goes shopping

Except for the need to be assertive with the timeshare guy on the beach, it's been a pretty tame couple of days. The most exciting thing I did was go shopping. At the food market and the bikini shop!

The food market was small but interesting anyway. The market was in an open-ish somewhat broken building. There were a few fruit and veggy vendors, but the most interesting were the fish and meat vendors. There were coolers full of shrimp, and a kid rolling a case of barely dead dorado (aka mahi mahi) fish, and a cooler with a whole but dismembered chicken! All the vendors were patient and friendly when I asked to take their picture.

The bikini is a topic I'm somewhat uncomfortable with.....I've been swimming almost every day. And almost every day I've seen women in bikinis that maybe shouldn't be. But they are. They don't seem to care about their size or jiggle, and some look sexy just cause they seem so comfortable with themselves. So I've been thinking I could maybe do that too. It would be comfy to have the breeze blow across my belly, and maybe Andre would like it, even if I have to learn how to be comfortable about it. And they are very affordable here.

So yesterday I did it. I tried on about 10 bikinis, and bought one. It's black and white and fits me well enough, to wear here. I will reserve the right to "not" publish photos. It is possible that this is a case of "what happens in PV stays in PV"!! I'll let Andre be the judge.