Driving in Mexico

This past week was an eventful week for us. We finished our adventure in Mexico, flew home on our four year anniversary, and I started my first job as a real professional.

I want to share some pictures of Mexico, but we took nearly 1,500 and it will take me a while to sort through them. I may have to post in installments.

We decided to rent a car and drive in Mexico. I would recommend it to anyone that wants lots of flexibility and a place to store their stuff while climbing pyramids. Here are some words of advice for anyone renting a car in Mexico:

1. A red light doesn't always mean stop, especially if the guy behind you is honking at you.
2. Beware of topes (speed bumps). That one is worth repeating. BEWARE OF TOPES!
3. Don't let the gasman cheat you. He might try.
4. Lane lines are suggestions. Especially when oncoming semis veer into your lane to pass traffic.
5. Shoulders of the road are for bikes, pedestrians, tricycle motorcycles, and for you when oncoming traffic is in your lane.
6. When turning left off of the freeway, pull over into the shoulder, put on your hazards, and wait until no one is behind you before turning (this one makes sense - no use slowing down everyone behind you!)
7. Hazards are good for lots of things: when you are turning, when you feel like driving slow, or just because.
8. Blink your lights to claim the right of way.
9. If there is roadwork going on, don't be surprised when you are re-routed down a dirt lane, forced to come back to the main road to wait thirty minutes for no apparent reason, then re-routed onto another narrow, bumpy dirt lane to face oncoming traffic that consists of semis, buses, and other cars for miles on end.

Now some pictures

Church door - Valladolid

Two chihueys at the Valladolid hostel. Alex wants a Chihuahua now.

The nunnery at Chichen Itza

 Izamal, la ciudad dorada (golden city). Friar Landa, loved (for making a record of Mayan culture, history, etc as he found it in the 16th century) and hated (for burning hundreds of Mayan bark books for being sacrilegious) by Mayans, scholars, and Mayan enthusiasts built much of the city using stones from the few nearby Mayan pyramids. Using the conveniently pre-cut pyramid stones happened many other places in the Yucatan.

Inside the cathedral at Izamal with our tour guide. He liked holding my hand...

Traditional dancers at Merida

um

 Mayan skull in the antropology museum at Merida.

Museum

Same museum

Alex, the Mexican revolutionary

An expensive chocolate shop/cafe. You all know chocolate originated in the Americas, right? Cocoa beans were commonly used as money back in the Mayan day.

 The cathedral doors - Merida

zonked

self portrait. Alex! Look at the camera!

We made a few friends

Still Merida 

the end.

For now. I only got through the first few days. Stay tuned!

Graduation

I am sure that some of you out there thought that "vet school" was just a big ploy on my part. A convenient excuse for why I couldn't come out to visit or couldn't participate in a certain social event. A hoax to make me feel smart and like I was actually doing something with my life. Well you were right wrong. Believe it or not, I was in actual fact a veterinary student and now I am in actual fact a veterinarian. I graduated on Sunday.

It was a lovely ceremony made even lovelier by all the wonderful people that came to support me. Thank you everyone that came, that sent a note, and that supported me all the time during vet school by asking how I was doing, understanding when time or finances were limited, and especially for the one person that had to live with me and offer love and support and talk me off the ledge a few times.

A few pictures from Nauvoo, where we visited on Saturday. Something of note: the wood floor in the picture on the right has a very neat history behind it: the building was auctioned off sometime after the saints left Nauvoo for a mere $4.40. No business could thrive there (undoubtedly because Nauvoo was somewhat of a ghost town and still is compared to its heyday when it rivaled Chicago) and eventually was converted to a family dwelling. The third floor by that time was in disrepair and was torn down. When the church rebought the building to restore it, underneath the roof the original wood floor was still intact. According to the senior sister who gave us the tour, this was the floor where Joseph and Emma danced (along with many other early saints) and where Joseph drew with a piece of chalk the route that would be taken to get to the Salt Lake Valley.

And of course, some pictures of the big day.

In the bottom left, that is me telling my sister "trust me, I'm a professional." 

Apparently I like collages today. 

Follow-up

Since there was so much interest, here is the recipe we used for Easter. There aren't a whole lot of rabbit recipes out there (since Americans don't eat too much rabbit), and I am not averse to substituting rabbit for chicken, but if anyone has good rabbit recipes, let me know!

Also, a few more pictures from the race, courtesy of the pro sports photographers, just so you can see how beautiful we are when we run.

running together before parting ways around mile 9

pain

never so glad to cross a line 

(why doesn't anyone else look like they hurt?)

can you see him? he is just behind the pregnant lady. 

saying ouch inside

(what? I got beat by a pregnant lady?!?)

ouch

 my name is Alex and I have big leg muscles. And a look of sheer determination.

Two days

Stuff has happened in the last two days. Significant stuff. For instance, yesterday, Alex and I nearly killed ourselves running the Champaign-Urbana half marathon. I am honestly not sure if it was harder than the marathon we did 3.5 years ago, but it sure felt like it was at the time. It was SO hard to push myself the whole 13.1 miles, and especially the last mile. However, I knew that I could suffer a little now and be much more pleased after the race about my performance than to slack a little and know forever that I could have done better had I just tried harder. We certainly didn't set any world records, but we met our personal goals (we were shooting for an 8:30 minute mile and came in at an 8:02 and 8:16 minute mile averages).

tired kids

(the next time you see Alex, please comment on his awesome post marathon pom-pom hair)

I also learned that it is not as simple as one might think to drink water while running.

And then today, I had my final ICU shift at the veterinary hospital. Kiss it goodbye - vet school is over.

A couple of Easter pictures:

We were grateful to be able to eat home-grown meat for Easter.

Finally, Ruben wanted to say hi:

Piano tuner

I haven't been posting a lot recently. I think it is because I finally realized that I am not going to become rich and famous from blogging. I think that more than 7 people would have to read it for that to happen.

Some fairly exciting things have happened in our lives recently:

- Juno had another litter (6 this time!)
- We got a new camera.
- I got a job.
- I have a week left of clinics.
- Alex has more than a week left of school.
- Spring has sprung.

In bad news, we have one unsolved tragedy/mystery. Remember the beautiful forsythia in our front yard? It straddles the fence between us and our neighbor, being mostly on the neighbor's side.

This year, right at the beginning of the yellow bloom, our neighbor took it upon herself to trim the WHOLE THING down to bare nubbins! I am still mystified. Does she hate the color yellow? Allergic to forsythia pollen? Miserable and wants us to take it out on the world? I don't understand.

Back to a happy note, we got our piano tuned today! It was fascinating to watch. It requires such precision and strength, and a good ear of course. I learned from our piano tuner that during the Great Depression, many existing piano makers folded and sold their names to other piano making companies. Nowadays, it is not uncommon for a single maker (usually in China) to have the rights to 20 piano brands and only make one type of piano. In fact, sometimes when you buy a piano from them, you get to choose your list of brand decals to have put on the front of your piano. 

I learned that Steinways are the best pianos to get if you want your piano to retain its value. Steinway is a German family company and many decades ago, one of the sons of the family went to New York with the piano design and started making pianos. German Steinway sued Steinway USA for using their design and the lawsuit lasted something like 70 years. Finally they worked it out and Steinway USA now has to pay a royalty for every Steinway they make. I would love to own a Steinway. Oh by the way, a new normal sized Steinway grand piano would cost almost as much as our house. 

Finally, I learned that 42% humidity is a piano's favorite humidity.

So let's see if I can figure out how to post some pictures from the new camera.

Easter bunnies 

Easter eggs

Easter piano guy

A riddle

Once again, the adventures of veterinary school have taken me away from the plains of central Illinois. Let's see if you can guess where I have been. Here are some hints:

It looks like this at the end of March

But when the clouds finally clear, there are some gorgeous sites

 The desert sagebrush...

and the mountains... not something you see in Illinois.

And everywhere you look, there are sheep! Even places you don't look. (And everything you see, including clumps of wool, piles of snow, and rocks start to look like sheep.)

(Warming up chilled lambs in a lamb jacuzzi)

Stinkers. Moms put up with so much.

(Getting weighed)

Here's another hint: It's a federal facility, so you can't ride in the back of the truck.

Me, Nicole from UC Davis and Melissa from University of Wisconsin.

There's also a real live veterinarian, Dr. Liz Adams.

She's a super rockstar.

Since there are so many sheep, you might come across something strange every now and then.

(two headed. He (they?) didn't make it)

Final hint: while I was here I was able to make my sister's birthday cake.  Thank you, David Lebovitz, for an awesome recipe.

And of course I visited this whipper snapper.

 Look at her awesome hair!

The end. If you still don't know where I was for the sheep part, I will give you a final hint. Ok, that wasn't really a hint.