Hey Merran Owen!!

ps

sorry that's my only digital pic of you and your birthday was on the 23rd, but happy bday anyway! shout out to the prairie.

THIS IS IT! for now

Hey dudes.
I am back in boston and things are a little nuts
so you can count on more Boston it Up DELIGHT!! early September. and it's going to be delightful!, so, as Yoda always says, HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS!

peace out
no doubt
ben stout

Top 5 Mysteries of Mexico

5. No Catcalls
(as opposed to constant harrassment in the other countries I've visited)
4. Refridgeration?!!
they have refridgerators, why don't they use them? I don't get it.
3. Horrible/complete lack of Water Pressure
Like, showering in a trickle and flushing 3 times (everytime) to get everything down. I don't know, this is pretty typical for outside of the US, so I guess the real mystery is Why is the US's water pressure so good...?
2. People who actually understand my Spanish (sometimes)
I always feel like I'm getting away with some kind of deception, like a kid making up a fake language, like it's always shocking when people can actually understand and give an appropriate response (and then sometimes I understand THEM and it's crazy!!)
1. Where are all the Burros??!!!!!

this silly little story about my soup

A quick one. Back in Cuernavaca (I'm in Taxco now, which is so much better) it was always such a pain trying to get food. Well I had spent a whole day climbing up and around these pyramids on just the 2/3 of a mango that Fanny, my 80 yearold landlady, always gives me in the morning. When I finally got back to town (after waiting 2 hours for a bus that supposedly runs every half hour) it was late enough that I had to hurry and take my minibus home where there are lots and lots of cheesy ceramic animal shops, but not a lot foodwise. I was so exhausted, but I was also so hungry I kind of slumped around town looking for food. Finally I found a restaurant open and I was so happy. I sat down and they handed me a menu and since I didn't understand any of it I just pointed to something and hoped for the best.
So the waitress brought me a bowl of basically hot chicken water with a few sad carrot slices and cilantro leaves. At the point I started to wonder if maybe I had ordered a meal, like the people next to me and like I've had before here--where they give you little courses and soup is the first course. Afterall I think I pointed to something on the menu involving chicken and surely that meant whatever it was had to actually have some chicken in it. So my dilemma was do I eat all my soup and lots of the free tortillas, assuming this will be my only meal, or do I just eat a little and hope this is only the first course. (You would think I had another option, which is try and figure it all out with the waitress, but my exhaustion and the 80mph spanish of the waitress at this point wouldn't let me).
In the end that sad soup was the only thing I got and if I had known I would have at least eaten all my free tortillas.
That's the whole story. I think Pat and I had very similar experience one hungry, and frustrating, night in Zanzibar. Yeah for world travel and confusion.

Bob Esponja

is Spongebob Squarepants in Spanish

SONETO XLIV

Sabrás que no te amo y que te amo
puesto que de dos modos es la vida,
la palabra es un ala del silencio,
el fuego tiene una mitad de frío.

Yo te amo para comenzar a amarte,
para recomenzar el infinito
y para no dejar de amarte nunca:
por eso no te amo todavía.

Te amo y no te amo como si tuviera
en mis manos las llaves de la dicha
y un incierto destino desdichado.

Mi amor tiene dos vidas para armarte.
Por eso te amo cuando no te amo
y por eso te amo cuando te amo.

Pablo Neruda

Ballet Folklorico

Irma bribed a guard and got us in to see the famous Mexican Ballet Folklorico (tickets are about 60 dollars). they did folk dances from around the country, including a lot of dances and songs from the revolution. the best (and most famous) is the Dansa del venado, the deer dance, where a man dances around the stage like a deer. it sounds silly, but its actually really athletic and awesome to watch. he dances to these awesome drumbeats, until the end when he's shot with arrows and dies and the drumming dies as well.
Tomorrow I am leaving for part two of my travels. this part I'll be on my own so I'm excited and a little nervous, but mostly excited. Hasta la escriba. erin

Muchos photos por ustedes! (big fun for you!)

Yesterday we ended up at a ranch of movie star animals. lots of Cowboys and crazy animals and I got to ride a caballo! (I'm too big for burros) This pig was in the movie Apocolypse Now.

In Teotehaucan they have some amazing Aztec ruins. definitely the coolest thing I've seen in Mexico. The day we went there was a total lightening storm, what better time to climb to the top of the Pyrimide del Sol?


View of the smaller pyramid (pyrimide de la luna, pyramid of the moon) from atop the larger pyramid of the sun.

Pyramid del Sol, thought to actually have been an Aztec temple to the God of waterThe other temple (closed for repairs)


These pics are from the Plaza of the Mariachis. a plaza full of mariachi players serenading people for money. it was a big crazy party, even on a wednesday night.

2 bonus pictures for anyone that made it this far

me (haha) eating Elote, which is corn on a stick, smothered in mayonaise and then sprinkled with cheese and chili sauce. pretty great

The pharmacy of God.

I wonder what He charges for ARVs.

mexico is BIG fun

well Mexico is very funny because I don't ever really know what is going on.

por exemplo: last night I was talking to Irma, the 54 year old woman whose house I am staying at. Irma does not speak English (the way I do not speak Spanish) and usually I have one of her kids handy to help translate, but last night it was just the two of us. We were talking about my plans for traveling around Mexico and the places I had been in Mexico city. Then for some reason she started talking about hair and beauty salons and hair dressers and I was really tired so I was just like "whatever", kind of half asleep while she kept talking and then our talk turned into this crazy lesson on Spanish, starting with the alphabet and the concept of lowercase versus uppercase letters (!!). pretty much the greatest night ever.

Anyway, today this lady shows up at the house to cut and dye my hair! I guess Irma was disturbed by the fact that only half my hair is black (Abby dyed the innermost/longest layer black a while ago) and that I recently cut my hair myself. hahah. luckily, when the lady came Joan (my new friend/tourguide from Panama) was here to help me explain that I actually MEANT to have two toned hair. I would have enjoyed the experience of a Mexican haircut, but the femullet incident in the Philippines has really made me shy away from cross-lingual haircuts.

Irma (the mom of Hiram and Christian) and Hiram--they are the Mexican Aunt Marty and Andrew Beck, much to my delight!

Joan and her husband, Christian

I think I'm in love

El mural, Velocidad
This is a mural by David Siquieros called Velocidad, or, Speed. I read about it in my guide book (under murals less traveled by) and really wanted to find it because it is of a woman runner, como yo. Well, it really was less traveled by, no one had heard of it or knew where it was, even the guards guarding the plaza where we found it.

Un Policia con Caballo

Joan kept telling me I could take his picture, but I was afraid he would arrest me or something, so I just kind of took it and ran.

Un mural de Diego Rivera en la Palacia National
This mural depicts the history of Mexico, something which I am becoming more and more fascinated by. There's just so much more there than our boring U.S. heritage. Maybe because in the end the colonizers lost, so the story is through the mouths of the ones who were oppressed.
We pretend that's what happened in the U.S., but let's be honest

check this dude out!

He is a half fish, half crocodile from Tabasco. Viva el Mexico!!!

Mexico !!

un catedral en Coyocan

Mi amigo, Hiram, en la casa azul de Frida

Hola mis amigos!

Muchachos! Que tal?! La television es no importante, Carlos! Yo quiero estudiar el espagnol!
Well, would you believe I've exhausted all the spanish I know! Hahaha what a silly thing--in two days I will be in Mexico. I hope to be able to post some pics and tell my best donkey stories along the way--so don't give up on me. I'll be back in Bostonland the 14th of August, so for now I'm giving this blog the temporary title of : Mex it all around town!
Yeah!!!
I am so really happy today because everything is as it should be. La Amor y El Passion es mi programa favorita! Papa, es possible estudiar manana!
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE
erin

some pics from the 4th

Boston fireworks were sooo awesome. they tried to rain us all out of the esplanade but we wouldn't go. roommate Melissa as statue of liberty. Abby made the flipflops

HAPPY BDAY NICOLE

ps click on the picture to see it well :)

for two Super-Cutes

OTHER pics...

i've been meaning to show you (as per multiple requests to replace the bloody t-shirt)

brushin' the ole teeth

Abby's gay pride jello. can you believe that thing?! only a transplant from Utah could pull that off

Scooper bowl 2007


Mom reading with Max on her head



What does this painting make you think of? (is it just me?)





I had a wicked bad cold

Some kind of Special

yeah, so yesterday we got to help out at the special olympics, you know it was really fun. Got to cheer and shout and flirt like crazy. hold hands and ask people the names of their pets.
all of that athleticism flying around I guess I was feeling festive or envious maybe, I don't know: I kept leaping over the chains sagging down between posts--you know, to keep the cattle out or something. Abby was too chicken to leap. she prefered the cautious approach: throwing one leg over at a time. which made me laugh at her and call her a wuss.
anyway, fast forward a few hours, I was going over one such chain and somehow got my feet caught up in it and fell over hard. tree in a forest, just really SMACK straight on my chin.
I thought I was cool at first and tried to shake it off, until I noticed my hands and arms were wet and looked down to a whole lot of blood coming out my chin. yeah me-here to help out and I'M the one who ends up in the emergency room. YEAH MAN.
The best things to come of it:
a) look how tough my volunteer T-shirt looks (blood stains are a definite improvement to the pink parrot)
b) while other volunteers were out hunting down abby (my ride) I got some TLC from my super-crush who happened by just in time to see me covered in blood :) got the damsel in distress thing down. word
c) woot. more stitches (this will be a scar upon an already existing scooter accident scar from when I was 6) I got 10 new stitches: 2 inside because I cut down to the bone.
The worst thing to come of it:
a) paying out of pocket since I have no health insurance

I am going to mexico mid-July. If anyone wants to come hang out with me you are so welcome. It's just going to be donkeys and sunshine.

what a cutie

ARE YOU READY KIDS??

oh kids! what can I tell you. things are going faster than meat on Monday. I can't seem to pin myself down

pinp pipinp pin pin

(tinkly pinning down noises)

I am sick of ABDICATING. no more abdication

Here's what I am reading (with ne'er a suggestion in sight):

the Grapes of Wrath (my bday present to myself this last year)

some Audre Lorde

more Anne Lamott

I have been on a weird biographical tangent lately

I am going to start writing about Boston. Because that is what this blog is all about.