A quick round up of days gone by...

It's been a time--can you blame me, faithful readers, that I've been remiss in posting? Here's a quick round up of the days gone by...

March 22
Woke up, felt like I needed a change in my life to produce some much-needed momentum. And thus, I painted the ceiling in my office tangerine.

My face, post life-changing-paint-job

March 29
Feeling like we needed a short trip to a place outside our normal haunts, Alejandro and I headed out to CaSa, an old textile factory-turned organic paper workshop and library. Alejandro took the reins of the camera. So here are some rare shots of me doing nothing-remarkable-at-all (Alejandro said my parents would be happy to finally see some pictures of me--instead of just the places I go--on my blog):

Me walking up a stairway of cheese blocks.

Me laughing while overlooking the textile factory.

Me making a tiny "boat" out of a flower and setting it "out to sea" in the reflecting pool.

April 9
Laura, Caitlin, Alejandro and I head to a baseball game. The Oaxaca Guerrero's vs. the Campeche Piratas. The game: so-so. The stadium food and mildly-coordinated cheerleaders: FANTASTIC!

April 11
It was Semana Santa, the week proceeding Easter. Basically, the whole of Mexico shuts down to enjoy a little assassination and ascension of their main man. Since most offices are closed, there's nothing to do but join the fun. Thursday night, a small group of people in my neighbor hood observed the stations of the cross--marching from home to home, each marked by purple flowers and a tiny shrine to Jesus. When I left to go to the gym they were down near the cheese vendor's shop. And an hour later, on my return from spinning class, they had only reached a home four doors down.

Friday's the big day. From what I've observed the death of Christ seems to resonate a lot more with Mexicans than the ascension. Thus, Friday sees a giant parade down the main streets in town. See my pictures and commentary from last year for a detailed account. I even saw this article about an even more elaborate parade in Mexico City.

April 11
On Saturday, Laura, Caitlin and I headed up to a small town called Cuajimaloyas. Some of you might recall Cuajimaloyas from my hiking trip with Vicki last year. When Laura, Caitlin and I decided to abandon our attempts at making it the beach this weekend, we opted for a day trip to the mountains two hours outside of Oaxaca. It seemed a good idea to get a break from the heat, and push our muscles around a bit.

We hopped the early bus (8 AM) out of town, landing in Cuajimaloyas around 10.

Here's our late breakfast of enfrijoladas.

And here's what I did to it. Megan- 1, Enfrijoladas-0

It occurred to me as I was gripping my handle bars with immense fear, letting out small squeaks every time my back tire fish tailed, that this was my first time truly mountain biking. Down is scary! And while I firmly believe that scary is fun--I was happy when we hit some uphill. "Happy," you question. Yes, happy for uphill chugging. That's how scary the downhill was for me. (Case in point, when going to sleep that night, I drifted off in bed and found myself instantly on a bike in my dreams, where I hit a divot, vered off road, and woke myself by falling out of my bed. I am a powerful dreamer.)

We stopped for water breaks, and lung breaks. I fell twice (biking scars!). We took a spell in the shade of some trees beside a creek to eat apples and cookies. And when we finally made the long loop back to town, we hunkered down in a tiny comedor for some local river trout. Did I mention we found time to watch a basketball tournament between neighboring villages? There was a pretty stark difference between teams; the difference being, some could play well, and others had clearly just learned to dribble the ball. The day was capped by consuming four packages of cookies--there's nothing like eating junk food after exercise--and a dizzying and packed bus ride back into the city.

That seems like a fair summary of all things extracurricular. And what have you been up to?