Brrrrrrrrr...

A 'cold' day in Merida! Okay... so it was 73 degrees, but you wouldn't believe how fast our standards have shifted! Today was a bit cloudier, but still nice! Ready for some sun though! I refused to stay inside so I read outside on the terrace with my zip-up on, with a blanket over me. About 5 of us were all out there, and we all began reading our books, but soon we were all napping. I moved inside to finish my siesta.

Today was a very low key day. Most of the day was spent around the house. Yesterday we met with our language teachers, and today they returned to spend some more time with us. I believe Ana will be my teacher, she's such a cute lady (I think I say this about everyone I meet) and has a good sense of humor! We all had appointments with Val today to discuss our schedules/classes. I'm going to have lots of open time :) It'll be nice because then I'll have the opportunity to spend time at the various outside volunteer/internship opportunities that I wrote about yesterday. Val is excited for me to get involved in the community - I think it will be really wonderful for both my language and cultural adaptation!

A good day of hanging out with friends, lots of laughter, and ice cream with Nutella and peanut butter for dessert. Great life. We've decided to experiment with all the different things we can put Nutella on - today it was a tortilla, and it was great. We're debating opening up a Nutella quesadilla stand??

So Val had told us I think the first day, and we've quickly learned, that we will eat a lot of Jello here. So far we've had cherry, pineapple, grape, and lime. They always serve it in these little individual ice cream saucer/dishes and it's crazy firm. We tend to have competitions to see who can carve the coolest design in theirs, or get it out of the dish in the biggest chunk. Are we 5 years old? Quite possibly. The thing about the Jello is that there are always leftovers, and the cooks will leave them in our fridge for us to snack on whenever. Emily and I have made it our 'thing' to pull up a few stools around the island, grab some Jello, sit and snack. I don't think I even like Jello that much - but the mystery of finding out what flavor we'll get keeps things exciting!

Tomorrow we will go on our first excursion to Celestún. We're leaving at 8:30am and will return at 4pm. We will make one stop on the way there - the whole trip is about an hour and a half. Celestún is known for its flamingo reserve, beaches, and beautiful scenery. We'll take a boat ride to tour the area, go through mangroves, and hopefully see lots of flamingos. (Val said she went at the end of December and saw THOUSANDS, but one time she went and saw like 2... let's all hope for the best!)

Time to rest up for the busy day tomorrow - pictures to come I'm sure!!