Meredith suggested, in
response to my last post, that I begin to keep a running tally of stay days and
go days using twitter by simply posting each day #stayday or #goday. At least
that way I would have an objective way to make a decision come October. As much
as I liked that idea, I simply cannot enthuse myself about twitter enough to log
on everyday to update the twittisphere on my stay days and go days. So instead,
I continue to highly subjectively consider my life in Venezuela.
Subjectively
speaking, this past weekend was a stay weekend. On Friday night, Ivan, myself,
Gordon and another co-worker went out to an Internations event. Internations
is, according to Facebook, "a network for expats with local communities worldwide. Join us atwww.internations.org to attend regular expat events and get info on your
destination." For us in Caracas, it basically serves as yet another avenue
for the Expat community to come together and drink. On Friday, we met in a
WONDERFUL live jazz bar in the center of the city. The band was phenom, the
drinks were so-so and the company was stellar. I met new people from the other
international school, friends of friends working at the Mexican embassy and a
guy from Canada interning at a law firm for the summer. We left around 12:30
and went to Calle de Hambre, a street of street vendors in Trinidad that serves
up ridiculous heart attacks like the one below. It was glorious and gave me heartburn
for two days.
The next morning I woke up extremely resaca (hungover) and
laid around my house until approximately 2pm. But then, it was time to get my
butt moving, because Ivan and I were hosting and haring the Hash! Already my
second Hash as a Host- I will hopefully get a Hash name soon because I totally
deserve it! :). Ivan set a nasty running trail- 10k, while I planned a
leisurely 4k walk down to the Vizcaya park. We had a small but dedicated group
due to dreary weather, but I was excited that two of my really cool neighbors,
Tania and Noel, and the law intern from Canada we had met the night before,
Trevor, joined us! Four of the boys ran and the rest of us walked. When we
returned, we had the circle, ate some pizza and then some of us who remained
headed up to my apartment to continue the evening. Unexpectedly, my apartment
turned into a disco and we literally danced our faces off to everything from
salsa to the electric slide until 1 in the morning! It was a gloriously fun
evening!
Sunday was mothers day and after Ivan and I recovered from
the night before with some delicious pastries, his entire family came over to my
apartment for pizza and hanging out. It was wonderful getting to host his
grandmother, aunt, mom and stepmom. I so enjoyed spending time with them. I
also took some time to call my loving mothers and wish them a good day. It does
suck to be apart from my loved ones on holidays, but having Ivan's family
around is so nice, since they certainly treat me like one of their own!
This workweek has been a strong one. The kids and teachers
alike are getting awfully burnt out as we draw near to the end. There are four
weeks left exactly after today. I might go as far as saying that this week was
a #goweek, but there were a few high points. I had drinks with my neighbor
Tania, who just moved in to the apartment next to me. She is delightful and we
have a lot in common. What's more, she doesn't speak English, so it's really a
test of my language acquisition, and I am happy to see how well I keep up! Also
this week some of us girls got together- Walli, Jackie, MariaElena, Holly and
I- to have a clothes exchange. We all brought jewelry, clothes, shoes, and
other items that we didn't use or were tired of and threw them in a pile for
others to go through. It was AMAZING how much stuff we all could wear from one
another. I took shoes from one person, a shirt from another and a dress from
another! And we had a really wonderful, bonding time together to boot. It's the
after hours times that get me through the tougher work weeks.
This weekend, Ivan and I are heading for the beach just the
two of us. We have done a lot of travelling together already, but all of it has
been with other people. Let's see if we can survive just the two of us! :) I'll
report back if he is still alive next week:). Until then, happy weekend to all!
No comments:
Post a Comment