Mexico – Page 11 – My Thought Spot

Birthday trip

Thursday finally came! It was a day for which I had been planning for 5 weeks. It was my wife’s birthday and I had big plans.

The goal:
Totally surprise my wife and take her off on a two day vacation without the kids.

The setup:
I had friends who had agreed to keep our kids for two nights. Our son was in on the surprise since he would have to help me conceal a few details. Also, he needed to know what was going on to help avoid any blowups with the baby while we were gone. But he was only fully aware of the surprise 24 hours before.

Since I was not sure how comfortable my wife would feel leaving our kids with our friends, we had to test the water. One week prior to the event we scheduled a double date in which the friends were to help me do some secretive questioning. A personal crisis on their part caused us to move our date to their house. They told us about a trip out of town they took while leaving their kids at home to be cared for by the oldest daughter (18 years old). They had a wonderful time and wondered if my wife would ever be willing to leave our kids with them for a day or two. She said, in her ever present reserved tone, that she would feel comfortable about it.

Heading home that night, she looked at me excitedly and asked, “did you hear them offer to keep the kids while we go out of town?” She was no longer reserved. She was thrilled. And so was I, but for a different reason. I got confirmation that my plans were headed the right direction.

The details:
My wife and I had planned to take the kids ice skating in the morning and then we would go to drop the kids off “for lunch.” That was all my wife knew. It was a fun game since the kids didn’t know anything about ice skating, and my wife didn’t know anything about leaving the kids for 2 days.

We were to spend Thursday afternoon through Saturday afternoon in Valladolid. It is a city (I think the third largest in the state) just under 2 hours from where we live. I had a few activities planned, but mostly just lounge around and read.

The execution:
In the morning I tried to act as normal as possible. It was not hard. Normal would mean that I still had not bought her the gift I was planning. And it certainly was not wrapped. At least this year I had the gift, but it was still shoved in the bottom of a drawer unwrapped.

Valladolid She mentioned that she needed to go to the store that morning before ice skating and lunch. That was just what I needed. It gave me a chance to wrap her gift and put the finishing touches on my big plans. While she was gone I found a gift bag from Christmas and re-purposed it. I dropped in the token gifts I had bought the day before. Then I went to the website of the hotel I was whisking her away to and downloaded a few pictures for a printed announcement I was making. With the pictures I added text that read something like “Happy Birthday! A 2 day (kid’s free) trip to a tropical city.”

When she got home from the store, we met her at the door and sang “Happy Birthday!” and gave her the gifts. The final gift was an envelope with the pictures and announcement of a tropical vacation, but she was not allowed to open that. I winked at her and told her that it was one of those kinds of gifts she needed to open in private without the kids around. This (I hope) built suspense throughout the morning. She was instructed to take the envelope with us and I would tell her when she could open it.

Everything went as planned.

We had a good time ice skating. The rink opened just last week. We then took the kids over to our friends’ house. I had been taking clothing and necessary items over there a little at a time for a few days. I could not take too much at once or my wife would have suspected something. When we did take the kids over, we just needed one (really packed) backpack with final items such as toothbrushes and pajamas. I also had to snag some shoes at the last minute. The pack made it into the car and into the friends’ house without any suspicion.

We were off to have lunch. At this point our son knew we weren’t coming back, but our daughter and my wife did not know. Of course the friends knew.

After we ordered our meal, I allowed her to open the envelope. She was thrilled and showed no hesitation. After I told her all the things I had taken over for the kids, she seemed comfortable that I had covered most bases and was ready to head out of town without having to see them. If we had not forgotten to get the telescope we were borrowing from our friends, we would not have gone back at all. We actually got the telescope while parked a few houses away, that way our daughter would not see us.

We got to the hotel and it was a bit rainy. We just sat around and read for a while. We decided that it was a bad night for using the telescope and just walked around the main square–after the rain stopped. We had a cup of coffee and some junk food off a street vendor.

Friday we took a short walk and then went to breakfast. I think we finally got the day going a little after 10:00. We went to a couple of different cenotes (see pictures) and then came back to the room and read some more. Somewhere in there we ate too much pizza for lunch. In the evening we walked to a convenience store for a coffee and some cookies. That was supper.

We grabbed the telescope and stared at the moon for a while. We tried looking at Mars, but it was too close to the moon and straight overhead. Looking at anything in this telescope that was right overhead was hard. So, we just enjoyed the moon until the clouds got too thick.

Back to the main square to see what we could eat off the street vendors. NOTE: Eating from street vendors is not recommended. Proceed at your own risk. Don’t blame me.

This morning we were so energetic that we came back to the room to have a nap after breakfast. We finally picked up the kids in the early afternoon.

Our friends seemed to have had a good time. Our son was tired and ready to go home. They played hard. Our daughter cried that she had to leave as well as a couple of the younger kids of our friends (they have 9 and a bun in the oven).

A very successful weekend. We have not taken too many vacations like this, but each one is special.

Mission accomplished!

Ugly American circumvents jewelry store security

I have mentioned the whole idea of the ugly American in the past. I recently had another encounter with one.

I was interpreting for a group while they went shopping in Mexico. The group was in a hurry to move from one area of town to another. Everyone had made their purchases at one of the jewelry stores when the ugly American found the perfect gift for his daughter. They were a set of earrings that probably only cost $6 or so.

The way the store works is you tell the lady which item you would like to purchase. She then writes up a receipt that you take to the cashier whom you pay. Depending on the store, you either have to take the receipt which is now stamped “paid” to the original clerk to get your item, or she brings it to you at the cash register. Either way, the person who handles the merchandise and the person who handles the money are separate people. They each have a copy of the receipts to show what they sold and what they received money for. It is a process that is slow, but leaves a very good paper trail.

This man was in a hurry and insisted that the clerk handling the merchandise take his money and let him leave the store. She was very hesitant to do so, but she also wanted to make the sale. She took the money and he ran out the door.

The problem is, that though this system basically says that the store does not trust its employees, one or both of these girls could lose their job over this. The system has been circumvented. Both girls could go into cahoots and make everything right. But now, you have two people who know that the other has stepped over the line of procedure. When something comes up missing and the boss does an inquiry, they can both say that they know for certain the other girl has gone outside the process at least once.

Whether either girl will lose their job over it is not the point. This is not the way we do it in the US. But the ugly American does not know, nor care. He wants it done his way or it is wrong. He does not want to be inconvenienced by a different system.

I tried explaining it to him. He seemed concerned that someone could lose their job over it. But mostly he was frustrated that he had to go through all these steps to buy the item he wanted. Never mind that he got a nice set of silver earrings from Mexico for a great price and could have enjoyed the experience of something new. The ugly American wants to go to new places but wants it to be just like home.

Happy New Year!

New year’s eve party
We had a good time last night at some friends’ house. We are not much for staying up and ringing in the new year. I do stay up past midnight quite often, so it is not unusual for me to be up for the change of day/year, but not my family. Last night was a rare treat. Our friends threw together a last minute bash and called us yesterday afternoon. Our family, theirs and another missionary family met together about 8:00 to sit and talk in the new year.

We had too many snacks and candy. We did run out of drinks though. When you have 19 people hitting off of just 13 liters of Coke, Sprite and Diet Coke for 4+ hours, you tend to run out.

Shortly before midnight we walked our party down to the park to shoot off our fireworks. The noise was impressive. Most of the neighbors just shot theirs off in the streets. We were the only ones at the park.

Traditions
One of the customs here is they take a piñata that is an old man. He represents the old year. You burn the old man. Often they will fill him with fireworks and as he burns the thing explodes quite violently and impressively. The neighbor’s party had one and we watched from behind the crowd as he exploded. When the explosions got more violent, the Mexicans were running and hiding behind the Americans. I think that was because the Americans did not have enough sense to get further back.

We saw people carrying suitcases, which is a representation of having a prosperous year of traveling. We were told, but did not see, that the people will eat 12 grapes which represent having a blessed 12 months of the coming year. Another tradition that we did not see is that the people will throw a bucket of water out into the street. That represents throwing out all the problems from the previous year.

First run of the year
We got home a bit after 1:00 and I got to bed pretty quickly so that I could get a good start on the year’s running. I did an 8.6 mile run. That is the longest run I have had in some time.

New year’s day party
Today we were invited over to the house of another set of friends. With parents that live here in town and a visiting set of parents, there were 13 of us to eat lunch, play games and generally have a good time. This family is the family that is our closest friends here in town. We really have been blessed to have so many good friends around us.

An example to us all

Yesterday I was going to town on a bus and had a strange and embarrassing thing happen to me. A man made me feel like a clod for not buying a bookmark from him. He stood there in the aisle of the bus praising me for reading a book. He did all of this in such a way that if I said or did anything I would look like an idiot. I tried to ignore him as much as possible.

Listen to the audio to get the full story. [2:28 min]

[audio:reader_example.mp3]

Come look at the broccoli

Today we went to the convention center. They were having a computer show. According to the newspaper the company that was the host to the show wanted to make it an annual show like CES is in the United States. While it may someday have that status, I assure you that it has a long way to go.

There were several manufacturers there which have large presences in Mexico. There were also individual vendors selling their products at the show. We had fun, but it only took 15 minutes to see the whole show floor to get an idea of who might have what we were looking for. Then it took another 15 minutes and ask our questions at four vendors’ booths just to find out they did not have what we needed.

We went away empty handed. But, that is exactly why my wife went with me. She figured it was safer if she went with me so that I would buy much less.

We got there 5 minutes before the doors were to open. Of course, they opened several minutes late.

While we were standing in the large hallway, our children had been running around looking at the gigantic fish tanks and 3D models of local plantations.

Our daughter came to me and started pulling me over to one of the models and said that I had to see the broccoli. Huh?

I went over and looked at the trees as she pointed and said, “This yummy broccoli.”

[audio:broccoli.mp3]