Thanksgiving to Christmas

It's been a little bit, so thought I'd give an update. Starting with Thanksgiving in DC with Sandra and all her friends. 

First just a standard photo bomb. Came is last second with the Turkey leg.

From the left, Gabby (Sandra's new roommate, Ines, Gesen, then obviously).

Turned out pretty well for a Safeway turkey. Not as good as my turkey last year, but a lot less work. It's funny to celebrate Thanksgiving with foreigners because they are down for a big dinner, but they don't quite get the significance of Thanksgiving. They were making fun of the neighbours playing back yard football, but it's Thanksgiving! You have to throw a football around, even if you haven't played since last Thanksgiving. I was thankful that the Seahawks beat the 49ers and ate turkey in their new endzone. Overall had an amazing weekend and made me feel like the holiday season had started. Even had dinner with our hosts from Brazil this summer as Joao is a guest lecturer at Georgetown.

Coming back from DC was pretty brutal as I had had two consecutive short work weeks, 4 days and 3 days, and I had to transition back to 5 days plus studying for finals week. My first finals week in 4 years. My law class ended up being a 8 minute oral exam that was worth 70% of my grade. I was pretty nervous for that one and studied a ton. We'll see how I did. Fulbright says I need to have minimum grades of an 8 out of 10, which is actually pretty hard. 6 is passing so I am not sure why I need significantly above that.

The Friday of my first week back was the company Christmas party. Wow, this Christmas party kicked the crap out of Deloitte's Christmas parties where everyone is afraid of getting too drunk and saying something they shouldn't say. The Christmas party was more like a US wedding. It included a 3-course dinner with open bar the whole time, and a firm wide gift exchange. Everyone had to put 3 suggestions of what gift they would like, and I just put "Something typical from Mexico that you can't buy in the US." My wish was granted, when one of the partners got me a nice bottle of mezcal. Still haven't open it yet. The party had a dance floor and after dinner people started getting after it with salsa and whatever else was played.

My new mezcal. 

 

These are my coworkers. Everyone is between 20-35. There are partners older than that, but this is my cohort. Good group.  From left to right back row: Pamela, Taylor, Sabina, intern, Celeste, Carlos, Guadalupe, Fernando, Armando, Ricardo, Chava. Middle row: Ixtchel, Zulima, Monica. Front row: Cohen, Christian. I mostly work with Fernando and Ricardo.

 Even went to go see Wicked with Carlos. It was in Spanish and I couldn't understand some of the songs, but overall quite enjoyable.

 

Took this picture on Metrobus when it was particularly crowded. Accidentally had my flash on so everyone stared at me afterwards. My bad. I actually don't know how to turn off the flash on my Android phone. 

 Then Julianne arrived!! She didn't have the smoothest of trips (got robbed and missed a connecting flight), but she made it. Her first week she would meet up with my coworkers and I for lunch and would work on her applications and explore Mexico City by day. On Friday, we went to a Lucha Libre with my coworkers (many of whom had never been in their entire lives). Sometimes it takes a foreigner to do the things in your very own city. One of the fighters, Guerrero, would do this goofy dance after he did a good move. So we all decided to imitate it.

The next day after Lucha Libre, we took an 8 hour bus to Oaxaca. Oaxaca is a the capital of Oaxaca and is home to a number of indigenous communities in Mexico. During the Fulbright orientation I met a few anthropologists, and they were ALL going to Oaxaca.

Oaxaca has lots of cool little streets like this one. It is extremely colonial. 

All of the streets are decked out for the holidays as well. Hence random hanging piñata.

We explored the city pretty quickly, in about 4 hours, so we decided to head to the nearby Tule to see a giant tree. Apparently someone decided to build a city centred around a giant tree. It worked. Because now the city had tons of tourism and is extremely well kept. That's the tree on the right.

On our way back we found a FREE carnival. Yes, FREE. The government just paid for a carnival and people were going on all sorts of rides, including some pretty epic bumper cars. Mexicans are amazing at bumper cars because they have so much experience being crazy drivers in normal life. They were super good at dodging and weaving. 

 Mexico is super family oriented. Sundays is for families and the number of games, cars, and activities set up for children in the parks is insane. This particular one I had never seen before. It's a water coloring station. You pay to have your kid sit at an easel and paint their hearts out. Then no clean up. It's brilliant.

Anyway, Julianne and I will spend on more day in Oaxaca and leave tomorrow night on a night bus to Mexico City, then a bus to Guadalajara, then a bus to Puerto Vallarta, then a bus to Sayulita, then a taxi to San Pancho. It's going to be about 20 hours of travel and overall a pretty brutal day.