When the party begins

Okay now this is the vacation I signed up for! Kickin it at the beach, eating tacos al pastor and checking out some sweet Mayan ruins. Not to mention the swimming. Oh man.


Today we went to the Mayan ruins Dzibilchaltún. I'm just going to start by saying the Mayan people were absolutely genius. Dzibilchaltún is famous for a temple called "El Templo de las Siete Muñecas" (the temple of the seven dolls). At the spring and fall equinoxes the sun shines directly through the two windows on the walls of the temple. 

It was such a beautiful thing to see and really humbling. It was fun to speculate the correlations found in the Book of Mormon. 

"This city was once lead by the administrative and religious elite". Reign of the judges, anyone? 

At one point my roommate Morgan stopped and just said, "I wonder if we're standing where King Mosiah stood?" 

It was just cool to think that one day we will know the mysteries of the world. But until then, look at more cool pictures of me climbing on stuff. 

When we came into the site, they said we could climb on everything. Challenge accepted. After I climbed on the temple, I felt super guilty. Just like I had disrespected an entire civilization. Who do I think I am climbing on an ancient Mayan temple? 

"Everything you see here is a reconstruction, the temple was destroyed long ago and this is a representation according to records we have." Let the climbing resume.

After we had time to check out the ruins and climb every rock in sight, we went over to what is called a cenote. It is basically a sink hole and they are all over the Yucatán. 

The Yucatán has tons of underground rivers. Every once in a while there will be access to them from the surface. They are the most refreshing thing I have ever swam in. Perfect temperature and great ledges to jump off of. 

Being a Brown, of course I had to jump. That's just what we do. So I did, backwards.

Terrible form. Also, sorry for the immodesty.

It was so sweet and tons of fun. Sometimes I forget how much I love being in the water. It's just pure bliss for me to swim. However having a fish swim with you, inside your swimsuit is not so great. Guh-ross. Speaking of fish. I couldn't wear sunscreen while swimming because of them. Since cenotes are natural water resources, there are fish that live there. And apparently sunscreen is pretty lethal for them. Luckily I had already put on three applications when they told us this.

Once we had our fill of the cenote, it was off to the beach. We went to a beach house of one of the host families that was literally right on the beach. We ate tacos al pastor and played ultimate frisbee in the Gulf. We're Mormon, what else are we supposed to do? Provo meets Mexico. It was such a beautiful day. After a while in the gulf it actually got hot. I had to get out of the water because it was too hot. We're not in the Pacific anymore, Todo. It was crazy.

I live with the 3 tannest girls in the group. What a joke.

So much to be grateful for.

So this whole week has been pretty chill for us four. I should probably lay the background of my stay before we get too far ahead of ourselves in this lil adventure of ours.

First day of school!

First off, I'm living with three other girls that are on the study abroad as well. Morgan Hawkes is on the left then Alli Reitz and Audrey Woodland. Why yes she always has her eyes closed in pictures, I'm glad you noticed. I could not have asked for better companions on this trip.

We started classes on Wednesday, and boy we started them. We are diving right into Mayan culture in one of my classes and I already have a presentation on Tuesday of next week for my Spanish class. As much work as it is, I am loving it so much. I forget how much I love learning things I'm interested in. I know this is what I'm supposed to be studying because I just get so excited about learning new words and learning their culture poco a poco. This is seriously the best experience I could ask for and I am going to learn so much.

¡Bienvenidos!

I realized my true heritage yesterday in our travels. I am through and through a Brown. We get frustrated with inefficient travel time and we like to take charge when no one else steps up to the plate.

Travel started Monday morning at 4 when I woke up from a terrible dream that all possible travel woes happened. But this dream was in Gayleen format so there was a sketchy character that was threatening one of my family member's lives. This took the form of Alli's creepy old grandpa that was on an episode of Criminal Minds stalking on my sister. 


Once my fears were quelled and we got to the airport by way of my fantastic sister Michelle, all went well. We caught our connecting flight in Phoenix and were Mexico bound. The real fun started once we got to Mexico. We were a pretty big group so it would turn out to be tricky to coordinate everything. We flew into Cancún and were going to take a bus to Mérida. Long story short, we bought kind of the wrong tickets and had to let our director know where to pick us up. It wasn't a big deal, our host families just had to re-route their pick up destination. 


After 9 hours of traveling (that doesn't count the tiring time spent trying to figure out how to get where we were going, that is pure air/bus time), we made it to Centro. Our host parents, Carlos and Elisa, were waiting for us with their two precious daughters, Ximena and Elisa. Upon arriving at their house, we met Cici and Dana, their two dogs. I am sold. I adore this family. Elisa told us we are to consider ourselves as part of the family. She then counseled me to take sunscreen with me everywhere I go. Don't worry, I have 7 bottles with me. Not even a little joking. 


I'm trying to put things in perspective here and get the most out of my experience. I have 7 weeks to go to the beach and go shopping, but the time I spend with our host family is priceless and every moment I can be with them and glean from them is precious to me. There are beaches all over the world and just so I can say "Thanks, I got it in Mexico" is no reason to miss opportunities that are all around me. 


We spent 45 minutes playing Telefono Descompuesto (Telephone) with the girls and Elisa and it is something I will always remember, cheesy as it sounds. The girls are rock stars at English so we would mix it up Spanish to English and back. All this while drinking legit Jamaica. 


Bring on the humidity and bugs (and reptiles-so help me-that eat the bugs). I am loving every nasty sweaty moment. 

I've joined in.

So I have been thinking about doing this for a while now, but was unsure of a lot of things.

A. I've never written a blog before and it seems kind of odd. I write about my life and people read it. I feel like you all would get bored with that. Which leads me to my second point.

B. Am I cool enough to have a blog? Oh wait. Yes. Next.

C. No offense to all the bloggers out there (myself included?), but I feel like having a blog makes you a yuppie. "Oh I just wrote the best blog post about my feelings, you should check it out."
*Disclaimer. I am not trying to offend, I have just heard "you should check out my blog" too many times. I love reading blogs, just not of people that can only convey their feelings via their blog. I love keeping up with everyone's blog.

But since I am leaving for Mexico, I figure A and B are out of the question because Mexico will be a great experience and I want to not only share the adventures I have with my friends and family, but I also want to keep a record for myself that I can go back and relive the "glory days".

I'm going to Mérida, Mexico. Don't worry, it's not the drug cartel part of Mexico. I will be along the gulf right across from Cancún. So I'll be roughing it for sure. White sand beaches and all the sorbete an Americana could dream of. 


I will be doing a study abroad down there for about 8 weeks. I am stoked for the food. And we get to live with host families, which will be a great experience. I am terrified of getting on the wrong bus and ending up in the wrong city (not that I've ever done that though. Right, dad?). And am going to miss those closest to me back home. My mom's awesome texts, my niece and nephews there to welcome me home, my sister's amazing cooking and the time we spend just talking, my brother-in-law's Spanish jokes and handy Spanish phrases, "no manches!" and of course the most wonderful boyfriend any girl could ask for. (I promise this won't turn into an "I miss Bart" blog, but let's be real. I am going to miss him so much). But it will be an absolutely amazing experience and I figure if I go into it with a mindset that I probably will get lost, and say something wrong in Spanish, it's an adventure. That is why I'm doing this, so I can blog about it. Just kidding. I know I will grow and learn so much from this and can't wait to get started. 

Let the rampage begin.