Hurrah for the Weekends!

Since Christmas ( along with the trips to Isla Isabel, Mazatlan and La Boca),
there have been some pretty awesome weekend outings. During the week is very low key. Basically, I have been studiously attending school (or at least attending), occasionally hanging out with friends,  and working out! I have also joined the volleyball team at school as an honorary practice member, which is super fun. Basically all of November and December I finally had to admit I'd gone and gotten super chubby, exactly what I'd told everyone there was no chance of happening. Quite overinflated from all the delicious Mexican food I'd been ingesting in great quantities right from my entrance into Mexico. Now, don't get me wrong, I regret not one meal of Mexican decadence that I ingested. This year is about experiencing another culture that you will never be able to repeat in your life, and a huge part of every culture is the food.  I wouldn't waste my opportunity to live in another culture and try international cuisine just because it's not low-calorie or strictly healthy! However I won't lie- arriving in Mexico as a very fit sport-aholic and then realizing months later that despite my attempts I had STILL gained the exchange 20 was a pretty frustrating thing to accept. And as the Christmas season kicked into gear, I basically admitted temporary defeat with all the Christmas meals that were happening almost every day. But as soon as January began, it was to the gym with a vengeance! Time to lose the extra curves, in time for Semana Santa or at the very least for the Ruta Maya trip in May. I have been very fit my entire life but never worried especially about what I was eating. That's definitely had to change- I miss being thin and want to speed up the process of returning back to PMB (pre-Mexico body)!

So far, I'm still very festively plump but underneath all the fat I'm getting into pretty darn good shape! I go to Spinning class in the morning before school, and then a strength class in the afternoon called Insanity or Bootcamp (wooh, intense), and so far I'm loving it. It is actually amazing how different you feel when you're doing a lot of exercise. For a while there I felt like an intolerably lazy chubby kid, which has NEVER happened before. With a gym teacher as a mother it's basically forbidden. When you don't have organized sports to go to and everyone is constantly offering you delicious food, your waistline definitely gets away from you! And while I have accepted that gaining a bit of weight is just a part of exchange, I love being in shape, and am motivated to get back on track! And in any case, you have so much more energy and just generally feel better about everything with exercise. I'm one of those weird people that actually likes finishing a workout feeling a bit like dying from fatigue, and then waking up the next day with your muscles sore. To me it's satisfying, and you feel pretty great the day you find that the hard moves have become fairly effortless! We'll have to see if my pants will start feeling a bit more relaxed in a few weeks, but in the meantime I'm working hard at it. Also, the mexican pump-up music they play during the classes is pretty motivational. As is someone yelling Andale Wendy, Andale! Si puedes, vaminos (Go go, you can do it, come on!). I've learned a whole new repertoire of fitness vocabulary words in Spanish, good fun. Annnnd there my fitness fanatic tangent, I guess the summary of all that is that I am spending a lot of time taking advantage of the cheap but excellent gyms Tepic has to offer, and hoping soon to lose the result of all the cheap but excellent food Tepic also offers. (Looking at photos from before Mexico and comparing them to now sort of makes me laugh, I'm surprised i can still even fit into my pants!)

On the weekends, the usual activities include baking with friends, testing out new restaurants or cafes, and the occasional party. There are a lot of family gatherings (with more food involved), and lately some fantastic outings to various landmarks and sites around Tepic.

I'll start with a quick summary of the weekends of February. (But split them up into separate blog posts so you readers don't die of boredom). The first weekend I went to Mazatlan with the Castillos. Then the second was equally awesome!

On the Friday, I went with the family to eat posole at Noni's, a tradition Mexican restaurant. Afterwards, I went with Maribel to get our hair straightened to prepare for the night- we were going clubbing! Before heading to the club, I tagged along to a Rotary ladies meeting. Because there haven't been many invitations this year for the wives to come to the official club meetings (it's an all-male club), the women of Tlatoani have decided to start meeting on their own! It was at this adorable cafe called Chilindron that I'd never been to before (but since that point have been five times, I'm a fan). Despite being the only young adult amongst all these 30+ ladies, it was pretty interesting to listen to them brainstorm- go girl power!

After that it was back to the house to speedily prepare ourselves for a night out. I got my party dress and heels out for the first time in what felt like ages, and off we went to a club called Rabbit in Tepic. Johannes (the German exchange student) and Alex's sister Cindy met up with my parents and I at the entrance. Then we commenced officially the best club night I've experienced so far in Tepic. The club itself had a stately library theme, and they were playing older music (or remixes of it at least) which I loved because it's an awesome era of music. Very fun to dance to! An overall way cooler club than Palazzo, which is the most popular club for the young and hormonal high schoolers. Later on, an oldie semi-famous Mexican pop band, Rostros Ocultos, came on and performed for a couple of hours. The club went wild, it was fantastic music, and I got to bring out my special dance moves. Incorporating all the dancing lessons I've recieved in Mexico and a dash of signature Canadian style, I danced my pants off for the entire night. Maribel, Johannes and I were givin 'er and while some may have been a bit more graceful than others (ahem, Maribel), the rest certainly made up for it in enthusiasm! At one point the YMCA came on and I went crazy, swinging my arms in the approximate shapes of the letters. Very fluid dance moves that I've got. Although clubbing isn't normally my thing (a hippie at heart, I'll take a campfire surrounded by friends and an acoustic guitar over a club any day), I had a huge amount of fun. We stayed until 4 in the morning (man my parents go hard!) and I loved every minute of it!

Taking a brief rest from dancing

Waiting outside

What a classy theme

The fantastic pop band- ready to rock it

Rostros Ocultos enthusiastically giving their all

One good night :)

The next day I went with Cindy and my siblings to eat carne en su jugo (basically a yummy greasy stew of spice and mystery meat, great for the diet). From there we went back to Cimdy's house, and a couple hours later to a family gathering of tamale eating! This was the traditional tamale gathering (supposed to be on February 2nd of every year), part of the Catholic tradition to celebrate the "Feast of Purification" which falls 40 days after Christmas. In the Rosca de Reyes, the cake you eat during King's day (January 6th to celebrate the wise men), there are several little baby dolls hidden. If you get one in your piece, you have to make/buy the tamales for the rest of the party crew in the following month. (Thank goodness I didn't get one, I am in a permanent stage of empty wallet.) In Mexico, the celebrations never end! There were about 20 relatives of varying ages, shapes and sizes, but all very interesting to talk to. I got to test out tamales de camarones empanizados (deep-fried shrimp), and then the traditional pork and chicken tamales. For dessert, tamales with pineapple and strawberry! ) This was all accompanied by atole de guayaba (a sweet corn drink with this tropical fruit flavouring).  While the savoury tamales had the meat and peppers surrounded by the corn dough and the corn husk wrapper, the sweet tamales had the fruit incorporated into the dough. Need I say, it was all absolutely scrumptious. 

mmm carne en su jugo

tamales de camarones empanizados

Atole, y dos tamales, uno de puerco y el otro de pollo

Strawberry tamale!

On Sunday, Mariana and I went to this AWESOME hippie artesanal crafts fair downtown. I mention repeatedly how much I miss the crunchy granola nature-loving type of people you just can't get away from in Canada, and in this fair I got a little taste of what the mexican version looked like! I spent way too much money, but got some pretty sweet homemade swag. I also learned an important lesson in foreign ATMs found on the street. DON"T USE THEM. The first one I used swallowed up a sizeable chunk of money and charged me international fees without actually giving me anything, and the second luckily just charged me an exorbitant amount of money for using a foreign card. Definitely learned my lesson when I looked at my bank account and saw the considerable decrease in the amount the next day! But anyways, it was an experience, and the fair was sweet.

There were these ceramic pigs everywhere

And the roofs were decorated with deadfall, how awesome does it look?!

Set up for a band later on in the day

Requisite selfie

Nom NOM. Set for a few weeks, at least

Me with my purchases, all happy (until I realized how much I'd spent!)

Just had to add this in- saw this walking back to Mariana's house. From far away, you see the storage carriage is open. Fair enough. However, once you get  closer look you see something a bit out of place.... Dead body or interesting napping spot? We were too scared to find out! Oh, Mexico.

 Thanks for reading!

Wendy