I tried posting this entry three times, but for some stupid reason it doesn't upload. It's a little out of date, but I figure I should post it anyhow

We're still here, this is still the best place I've been to in Mexico, and I still keep getting lost everyday. Jadon and I had a discussion last night about how this place is perhaps the "most foreign" place we've been. Both of us have certainly been further away from home, but not exactly further away from familiar surroundings. Aside from Europe and Canada, I haven't really been anywhere internationally. The culture here in this part of Mexico isn't a polar opposite of what I'm used to, maybe rural Cambodia might be, but it has taken quite an adjustment. First off, the language is pretty tricky. Most places in Europe allow you to get by with English quite easily, even France although I tried to never use it. Nobody, including my host family, understands a word of the language. They teach it in schools here to some extent, but hardly anyone uses it except for the tourist booths and in a few restaurants. Cool enough, it's not a big deal, I'm learning pretty rapidly. Unlike French, where I hardly have the opportunity to speak it at home, I'll be able to use Spanish that I've been learning here in Kentucky with all the immigrants and refugees. Being able to stammer through conversations and understand what people are saying has been a real confidence booster.

For some reason, the water infrastructure in Mexico is atrocious. Everyone knows you can't drink the water, but what I found bizarre was that you aren't supposed to put toilet paper down the toilet. Yep, you're supposed to do your wiping and place it in a little bucket by the commode. In a café yesterday I nearly gagged at the sight and smell of a full bucket. I guess the pipes aren't designed to handle it. You don't even want to think about how bad it was on the 12 hour busride from Puebla to San Cristobal. What's even stranger is that a couple of teenagers had "a good time" in that same bathroom. ¡Muy disgusto!

Today was our third day of lessons at the language school. Jadon, who has never learned another language, is starting to sink his feet in. If you're ever down this way, even just traveling through, it's well worth the skrill for a week or so. $200 for a week of lessons and a homestay. Yesterday we went to a Mayan medicinal herb museum, and today we cooked a traditional soup after buying the ingredients at the market (lleno de bueno). Tomorrow we'll be salsa dancing. I'm not sure what we'll be doing saturday or sunday, but we'll probably leave Tuesday morning for Palenque and then head up the Yucatán to the beaches. The goal with the Spanish lessons was to become a little more comfortable with the language so we could get by with hitchhiking, something we figured we should certainly give a try.

One thing about this town, that's almost creepy are the amount of wild stray dogs that people don't seem to pay any mind. They sure are cute looking, but I wouldn't dare touch them. I guess dogs like these are all over Mexico, but they seem to be here in greater numbers than anywhere else we've been. From what I understand, few people actually keep dogs or cats as pets here. Occasionally birds or something more exotic like a monkey. Thing is, I've seen literally hundreds of these dogs in my walks across town. They're like the cats that take over Mallory square in Key West - when the sun goes down, they just take over the city. Walking to school this morning, a dog followed us nearly the entire way. We lost her at a busy street. I felt so bad for her, but I couldn't really do anything about it. She looked emaciated and dirty, I would have been tempted to take her home and take care of her if I were back home (although it probably wouldn't work out because she and Ruby would probably not get along). I guess it's just a fact of life here. My instructors said that occasionally the dogs become rabid, and are most likely disease carriers anyhow. Really sad.

Tonight, Jadon and I are probably going to study for a few hours and hit the streets again. This town comes alive a little during the evening - moreso even than Mexico City. Supposedly there are some Mariachi bands in one of the town squares that take requests for only a peso. Since a peso is roughly ten cents on the dollar, I give it about two weeks before I've heard enough.