I Love Relaxation!

Our beautiful, yet deceiving first hotel...

The view of the Caribbean from our first hotel

A typical-looking street in Holbox

One of the pretty sunsets I saw alone...without a special someone... =(

My tiny bedroom I shared with Kari at the second hotel

Sorry I haven't updated my blog for a week! I had internet access all last week but wasn't able to access my blog. I had Fall Break from last Tuesday through Sunday so I went with 3 other girls from the program to a little island off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in the Caribbean. It took 20min. by ferry to get to it from a little town called Chiquila. I started the trip with only 3 of sleep, so getting up at 5 didn't go well. My tummy was not happy with me. Whenever I hardly have any sleep (less than 6 hours...haha) I feel sick to my stomach. After dealing with mono this whole summer and sleeping almost 15 hours a day, it is weird for me to not sleep at least 8-10hr. at night. So anyway, with 3 hours of sleep and getting up at 5 the trip didn't start off well. We took a first-class bus from Merida to Cancun and I slept the whole way there so I got another 4 hours of sleep. Once we got off the bus in Cancun we randomly ran into a guy that works at the hostel in Tulum that I have stayed at twice. So he showed us a good pizza place a block away from the bus station. We had 1 1/2 hours to kill so we said, what the heck?! We were all hungry by then (me included)! Once the time passed, we got on a second-class bus for another 4ish hours to get to Chiquila, the little town where we got on the ferry going to Holbox.

I put my drawstring bag on the floor and put the straps around my feet so no one could take it. But after being woken up after falling asleep by Kari screaming at me to grab my bag I did (half-asleep and a little grumpy because I didnt know why she was telling me to grab my stuff) haha.... I dont like to be woken up randomly when I am asleep. I am one that loves sleep! After falling back asleep right away, literally 1 minute later, Kari is hitting my arm saying that she didnt have her purse. Low and behold, the guy who was trying to take my stuff took her purse. She lost $2500 pesos (about $200), debit card, and camera. She was the one awake among the four of us and her stuff got stolen because she was so worried about our stuff that she didn't think about the guy taking her stuff. Once Kari saw the guy trying to get my bag, he got off the bus carrying a duffle bag, so her purse must have been in there. For some reason I decided to take my American phone even though I knew I wouldn't have service with it on the island. It was such a blessing because Kari was able to use it to call home and get her two bank accounts closed and her debit card cancelled within 15 min. of this happening. We were also able to call Val from my Mexican phone to let her know what was going on since I was the only one that had Val's number. I'm at least glad that I was prepared otherwise we would have been out of luck!

Kari was upset at first but we reassured her that everything could be replaced. She only lost about $200 in cash and her camera that only had 3 pictures from the pizza place on it. Among the 3 of us that had all of our stuff, we were able to cover for her the whole week/end. We were more than glad to cover for her since she stayed up and watched her stuff and was so concerned about her stuff that she didn't think of herself. However, we all learned 2 life lessons this weekend: don't put your things on the floor of a bus and don't believe everything you read on the internet.

When we got to Holbox, we took a golf-cart taxi to our hotel. Golf carts, motorcycles, and bikes are the only forms of transportation on the island since all the roads are made solely of sand. When we got to our hotel that we had pre-paid 3 nights for, we found out that there was no satellite tv, let alone a television set, lock boxes, or a swimming pool that worked. The hotel website said that the hotel had a working outdoor pool, satellite tv in each room, lock boxes, a dorm fridge, and A/C all for $125. However, when we got there we were informed that the pool only works during certain months and is undergoing maintenance now like every other year. We were super disappointed in the Mexican business laws because in the US false advertising is not allowed. We were all super mad that we pre-paid the room for 3 out of 4 nights so we had to stay there with nothing to do. All we had was A/C, dorm fridge, and beach front. So, we made up activities to do! We played MASH a couple times and learned more about each other as well as just sat around and talked. I loved the relaxation but it was annoying paying $125 for a night in a hotel that should have cost $60. So we started looking into other hotels on the beach and booked a room at a different hotel for our last night that was cheaper and had a full kitchen, living room, two bed rooms, satellite tv, A/C, and a beach front. So we kicked ourselves even more after finding that hotel room.

So in total, the whole week/end was spent sleeping in, laying out, swimming, napping, eating a couple times each day, laying around, laughing, and talking. Each day was like that. It was super relaxing! I could go for another one of those kind of vacations. Its so much more fun when you know you are getting credit for being able to just relax on a beach in the middle of nowhere in the Caribbean, especially when we know how cold it is at home! (Sorry, but its true!!). I really don't know what else to share because that was basically what went on the whole week/end. The only thing I struggled with was 2 guys that were one of the girls' friends from Merida came to the island on Friday so we could get a ride home and not have to ride the bus back home. So, once they came it turned into a weekend full of drinking and drinking games which are fine, but it wasn't as fun for me since I didn't participate. I had some good laughs and still hung out with them but didn't take part in what they were doing. I have respect for them and their choices even though its not something I would do. However, through all this, I got a lot of homework done and got caught up on sleep!! I know doing homework over break sounds lame, but I didn't have to complain when I got back about how much I had to do since I had already done most of it! Thanks for reading!

Tulum Trip #2

My room in the hostel. I slept in the bottom left bunk.

My sweaty tanktop from the back after the tour through the ruins. Yuck!

My sweatyness from the front. This is equally disgusting!

One of the tallest ruins at Coba.

Another very tall ruin at Coba.

Last weekend six of us girls from the program went to Tulum for a long weekend again. We stayed at the same hostel as before and had great service from the owners and some pet therapy. =) We saw more of Tulum this weekend than we did the previous weekend because we had an extra day to see more things. We saw the ruins and turtles again, but we actually went down to the beach that is at the ruins and were able to cool off and jump with the very high waves that were there that day. The ruins were more busy because it was a Friday instead of Sunday but the beach was a great break from the heat and sweating! Later on Friday one of the owner's sons took us to a private beach and we got to snorkel over lots of coral. We saw lots of pretty fish but the waves were really hard to fight which made the experience less enjoyable. On Saturday we went to the ruins in Coba which is an hour away from Tulum. It was great seeing other ruins and having to do lots more exercise in order to see all the ruins but with exercise and moving around outside came lots of sweating for me! So a tanktop being drenched in sweat on the front and back was less enjoyable but I survived. Later we went to see the turtles so the other girls could see them and I saw another 8-9 turtles and a couple stingrays! It was again great to cool off in the water in the late afternoon and early evening. However, the tide was high once again which made the water very foggy, but I still got lots of pictures of the turtles with my underwater camera. We also felt very adventurous and excited that we found a Subway by the ruins!! We decided to save a little money and buy a footlong on Saturday for lunch and save one of the six inches for supper that night. It was such a great idea and it allowed us to just stay at the hostel and relax Saturday night instead of having to bike to and from the hostel late at night with the stars above us. Sunday I got to sleep in until 9:30 (which isnt much for me after dealing with mono) but it was still great to be able to do that! We left Sunday a little after noon and got back early evening on Sunday morning. It was great to talk to our taxi driver and hear a little about his life as he learned a little about ours. It is such a great experience to converse and understand native Spanish speakers now! The spanish speaking skills are definitely improving and becoming more natural!

A surprise but a reminder

Some of you know and some of you don't know. But yesterday I had my first experience with the Mexican healthcare system because I was having most of the symptoms of a blood clot. For the past couple weeks at night when I am laying in bed, my left ankle has been very uncomfortable and just bothersome. There was no pain, but I just couldn't get it comfortable. Tuesday night I was talking to Neal on Skype and was sitting in my hammock facing the mirror that is in my room down here in Merida and I looked at my ankles and it looked as if I was getting a cankle by my left ankle. I thought that was odd because I seriously don't have extra weight in order for me to develop a cankle. So I compared my two ankles and realized that my left ankle was swollen and even on the top of my foot as well. Then after sitting for a while, my toes got purple and white so I tried to elevate my foot and my ankle and foot did not like that at all. It was giving me a tingling sensation so I knew something was up. Neal asked if I had been dealing with leg cramps because he was already on WebMD checking things out since he likes doing research on those types of things and I absolutely hate it. So needless to say he went through the list of symptoms and the only things that I didn't have was my foot feeling really warm and red discoloration. I was getting a cramp in my calf after walking down to the kitchen like Neal told me to do just to get my blood flowing, but when I did that, my foot was so swollen that it was making me limp. Next step was to call mom since she was flying in at 11PM Tuesday night so I knew she would be up. She told me not to go to my internship Wednesday morning and that I needed to go see a doctor right away Wednesday morning because I was having a lot of the same symptoms as she did when she had a blood clot in her leg in '97.

In the morning, I got up and my ankle felt fine until I was standing on it washing my face at the sink and it started to go numb again. I texted Val the director and told her I needed to see a doctor that morning so she took me to a private hospital called StarMedica and we went to the Emergency Room. I told Val my story so she could tell the doctors what was going on. We saw a doctor right away who checked my blood pressure and temperature and I had a bit of a temperature. Since the emergency room knew that the symptoms I was having were hereditary, they got me in right away. The young doctor who did the consultation in the emergency room told us to go to 2 different doctors. A neurologist and a blood doctor since I wasn't having feeling in my feet. They wanted to make sure that I didn't have any nerve damage. We went to one neurologist who couldn't get me in until 7:30PM that night so that doctor's office got us into another neurologist but we waited another hour. We had to tell our story again, so Val was getting good at it. He did an old-fashioned check with checking my reflexes and doing different tests such as the vibration thing and poking the tops of my feet to see the difference all with my eyes closed. My reflexes were much stronger in my left foot than my right but I couldn't feel the poking on my left foot that I could on my right foot. The doctor told me that there was a difference in temp and that my left foot was much colder than my right. So after all these tests and questions being answered, he concluded that I didn't have nerve damage. I was having a circulation problem so he told us that he was not the right person to diagnose anything. That was super nice because in the states, the doctor would probably order a lot of tests like an MRI or something and he didn't do this. He referred me to a vein and artery doctor who was one of his friends. So he proceeds to get on his PERSONAL cell phone to get me in right away because he was worried about it since my Factor Five mutation affects my blood and he didn't want a blood clot occurring and us not finding out right away.

So we went to the artery and vein doctor who got us in the second we walked through the door. She didn't do any tests since the neurologist told her the results he had concluded from his tests. So she did an ultrasound on my feet and on my left groin to check the pulse of the artery and the blood flow of my vein. Val was with me through everything which was a HUGE blessing but we both got a Biology Lesson 101. We found out that the artery has a pulse and pumps the blood down your leg from your heart and the vein re-circulates the blood back up through my leg. The heart beat was strong and clear for my artery on my foot and my groin so she knew nothing was wrong in my artery. She then listened to the sound of my vein and it was very clear and loud so she said I was under no risk of developing a blood clot. If the flow or pulse wouldn't have been strong and clear in my groin that would have been an indication that something was wrong. Then she asked if I have been sweating a lot since I have been down here. Val piped up right away and said, "Steph sweats more than anyone else on the program and was drenched in sweat last Friday when we went to Uxmal and everyone else that came back from the ruins was hardly sweating" and I also told the doctor that I have been sweating tons. So she concluded that I have a circulation problem in my veins because when it is warm out, your veins dialate which makes it harder to re-circulate the blood up through your leg while fighting the pulse that the artery has. When the vein is dialated, the blood flow is much slower and it is working harder to maintain my body temperature. So this is why my foot was swollen--the blood wasn't recirculating fast enough. And that is why I have been sweating sooo much! My veins are dialated and slowing down the blood flow. She finally concluded that since it has been almost 7 weeks since I have been here, my body does not regulate to the heat like everyone else's does. So all I can do is take a baby aspirin to allow my blood to thin out a little as well as keep moving around and icing my foot and ankle at night to keep the swelling down and allow for my vein to shrink a little to pick up the blood flow. The doctor tried to talk me into the compression tights and I told her I wasn't having it. I am only 20 and I don't want to wear those until I absolutely have to!

The doctors and Val were great through everything. I wasn't nervous about anything because both doctors took their time and asked a lot of questions so it wasn't like they were rushing through my appointment with them. They were very gracious and were very slow at explaining everything because they wanted me to understand what was going on and not only Val understanding it. They also knew I am away from family and friends so they made me feel very comfortable. Thank goodness I don't have a blood clot! Val told me when we got to the hospital that if I was diagnosed with a clot, she would pitch camp in my hospital room and stay with me so that was super comforting that I was never going to be left alone. Praise God! These symptoms were a surprise but all this was a reminder of God's graciousness and sovereignty!

I am off to Tulum again! We are leaving in 30min. so I have to run! Hopefully it doesn't snow at home this week! I'll be thinking of everyone as I'm sweating like crazy in the Caribbean wishing I was in cooler weather! =)

Why do they cut pigs' heads off and sell them??

Does anyone know why butchers cut off a pig's head and sell it? All I can say is that it is disgusting. My advanced spanish class went to a market this morning for class. Don't ask me why we did because none of us can figure it out. But, I was very closter-phobic in a short period of time because there were tons of people in this market which was in a building and not in an open-air market. So, we walked by tons of fruit and vegetables as well as food stands were lots of people were eating and nothing was clean. We then walked by stands that were selling spices that had a very strong smell. Walking by the first stand was not bad, but after walking by them multiple times in a matter of 30 minutes I had had enough. On top of that, we walked through the meat market part of it which was disgusting and I have never liked them anyway. BUT then I actually look at what I'm walking passed since I was looking to the opposite side of the market beforehand and saw that I was walking by a pigs' head!!! I just about lost it. I love animals and I couldn't handle it. However, our professor thought it would be ok to stand by this area and answer some of our questions instead of going outside. We then proceeded to walk through the second level of the market which wasn't open yet so we had to walk back by the meat market, then through the chicken butchering area, then by more spices that were overwhelming. While all this was happening, I looked to Danielle who is in my class and she was about ready to lose it too. I told my professor that we needed to get out of there but she laughed and took us by more fruits and vegetables to explain what they were. We were absolutely mad at this point. Did I mention she had never been there before and didn't know where she was going which meant she didn't know how to get out!?! While walking further to ask someone how to get out, we walked by a stand that was frying whole fish and WHOLE birds. The wings and everything. I was grossed out and almost got sick when next to this stand were cages of birds and chickens and puppies and bunnies. I got so mad that they had puppies in cages and then I about broke down and cried walking past the bunnies that were not being taken care of like I took care of Oreo my bunny, that I lost a couple weeks ago. As we found the exit and were walking toward it, our prof. thought it would be ok if she walked at a snail's pace. I was about furious at this point and I hardly ever get that way. I was definitely going through culture shock through all this. This is the only time I have really had it since being down here. This market definitely fulfilled the stereotypes Americans have for mexicans even though our stereotypes are completely wrong. This morning was just way too much in so little time. So many smells and images that made my stomach churned. I'm surprised I didn't come out of there deciding I wanted to be a vegetarian! Smells and images of food normally make me not able to eat them, so I just pray I don't think about that experience anymore! Did I mention that there were tons of people in there that definitely had body odor and tons of sweat?? Then they wiped their sweat onto their palms and proceeded to pick up fruits and vegetables to sell......I have vowed to never go there again!! It even affected me so much that I needed to leave the Patronato a little early. But, I was also able to leave early because there was nothing going on. Luckily, the culture shock and subsided, but I never want to go through an experience like that again.

An Uplifting Morning

On Sunday I had the privilege of going to church with the visiting professor, his wife, and my roommate down here. We went to a little church in the city but it is kind of on the outskirts (or at least it feels like it) because you go down a old-beaten-cow-path-looking road. The people were so welcoming it was almost overwhelming. I know I shook everyone's hand and some of the people twice. The church service had a very family-oriented feel to which made it very comforting. There were probably 30-40 people there including the four of us which was a lot of fun. The songs were really fun to sing to since they used a projector. It was even more of a cultural experience though (besides having the whole service in Spanish) because they didn't play an instruments. They used a CD player with the songs already on the CD to follow along to. It was great when they played one song on the CD and had different words up on the screen, but still sang to it! Haha...I probably had the biggest smile out of everyone because it made me realize how dumb it is in American churches that everything has to be perfect and run smoothly even though we are there to worship our Savior and Creator who doesn't care how we perform or sound, as long as you are praising HIM. I also liked how the service was very informal and there were no expectations because they were not there to perform for each other. They were there to perform for their Savior.

The singing time of the worship service was even more uplifting because there were girls with tamborines trying to keep everyone together but were also dancing around and sometimes would lose the beat, but everyone moved on and wasn't phased. I loved that! There was also no formal structure to the message since there were 3 different messages given by 3 different people. But again, there was no need for technology or sources. The only thing they used was God's Word and their lips to speak. They did not speak from a powerpoint or paper. It was solely the words The Holy Spirit was putting on their tongues. I wish I could have understood everything, but I caught a lot of it. However, malfunctions with microphones and how they speak in the microphone affected it but who cares! They were speaking the words that we all needed to hear. I just kept praying that I would get the message that the Holy Spirit knew I needed to hear. And he definitely did! I have been struggling with busyness of everything down here and putting reading God's Word on the back burner. One of the messages was strictly on that so it was great to get encouragement from the Holy Spirit from a person of a different race, nation, and language. That is when you truly know that God is not just only our God, but everyone's. I felt that my faith was truly renewed after that service because of that revelation that God is so good to speak to me through someone I have never met and who knew nothing about what I was going through.

The last part of the service was probably the most touching and made me the most annoyed with American Christians. I'm sorry if that offends some of you but hear me out. "Christians" in America go to church because it is the thing to do. Some even go on Wednesday nights but everytime but those times are for themselves and they live selfishly. (I fall into this category as well). We don't show our emotion in church because we are there because we feel we have to be--not because we WANT to be. So many people go to church to impress others and focus more on themselves than worshipping with the body of Christ as one to their Father. This made me very upset and annoyed that people don't pray out loud during services, they don't raise their hands when they sing because they are so self-conscious and wrapped up in themselves, and for heaven's sake, why can't we sing and shout to our Lord because thats what we would naturally do if we would let ourselves. But the opposite happens. We take control of OUR body that God created and hardly clap or move around while we are singing praises to our Lord. We stand there like scarecrows and if a mexican believer or anywhere else where they truly rely on Christ for their every needs would walk into one of our churches, they would probably question if we really wanted to be there. The sermons are a bit long here, but does anyone want to be sleeping or actually end up falling asleep, no! They are listening to the voice of Christ through the speaker because they trust that God is wanting to speak to them!

As I keep rambling, I will finish up with the most memorable experience of attending church that I have ever had. There were missionaries from Guatemala there and one of the missionaries took the conviction of bringing all the sins of everyone in the congregation onto herself. She was hurting just as all of us were hurting. She didn't even know me but she was crying over me as she had her hand on my neck praying for me. Half the time I didn't even know what she was saying, but I teared up because this woman had so much compassion and was almost yelling prayers up for my sake. She did this for everyone mind you, while the pastor was praying over the microphone and this lady's brother was singing praises through the microphone. There were others praying or singing outloud while crying and trembling because of the pain they had caused their Savior and how they have sinned against HIM. Why don't we all pray at the same time or while the pastor is praying pray our own prayer or sing because we feel called to. That was the most open church service I have ever experienced and wish that we had the same in the states. It is quite embarassing thinking of how private, reserved, and self-conscious we all are about our faith. No wonder America is crumbling. The so-called "Christians" that say one thing and do the next are the ones that are most afraid of sharing their faith because they are afraid someone will say "no" to them or not be their friend anymore. It is time we stop doing this and proclaim our faith about The One who has truly paid the price for all the sins we have committed thus far.

Pictures of the Caves of Loltun

Sorry I couldn't fit these on the other blog! It was so hard to choose which pictures to put on here since I took 80+ in the cave alone!

The tour guide's dog that looked like the dog I had before we got Barklee...oh Paiger..

One of the slippery hills we had to get down while stepping on all different rocks...

The stalactites hanging from the ceiling! I had never seen any in person before this trip to Mexico!

The entrance of the cave...it was incredible and stunning!

Making the plunge...I didn't know it would be lit, so I was starting to get mad that I didn't bring my flashlight...even though it would have done absolutely NOTHING!

Jam-packed day

The famous arch that is seen in all tourist books about the ruins of Labna. The arquitecture is phenomenal! Why don't we have more arches in the US???

The pyramid where the temple and official offices were probably at. As you can tell, it hasn't been competely exposed because there are tons of rocks and grass under the upper-exposed part. I also took a picture in front of it so you could get an idea of how big it was!

The Sorcerer's Pyramid. I seriously don't remember what its official name is, but its Magician or Sorcerer something...! Sorry! This building looks huge while standing in front of it, but its even larger when you see it in the distance, just like in the picture below it. There are archaeologists working on this ruin trying to repair lost stones. This ruin is not able to be climbed either. However, I don't think I could have mustered up courage to climb it for how steep it was!

That is the Sorcerer's pyramid far in the distance. I hope that helps you understand how massive it is! It is absolutely beautiful! I'm excited to take Mom, Dad, and Neal to this site!

Thanks to our tour guide, (who called me angelita, which means "little angel"..haha..) he got a picture of me coming down the pyramid we were able to climb up and down on. It was very large and I of course was hanging onto over step because it was very steep! Zach, who is to the right of me in the picture just started running down the steps and I yelled at him to stop because it was freaking me out, but of course he is a guy and didn't listen! =)

On Friday our group went on an excursion to three different places. We went to the caves of Loltun, a mayan site called Labna, and Uxmal which is another archaeological site full of buildings with mayan arquitecture.

We spent a couple hours at Loltun because the cave tour took a little over an hour. It was such an amazing experience to be in deep, dark caves, but luckily they have proofed it for tourists so there are lights all through it. Our tour guide said that when people were first discovering the caves with torches, they would never come back out because they would never be able to find their way out, and I can understand why. The part that struck me the most was that when they were putting money into making the caves accessible to tourists was that they found a skeleton of an infant. But luckily, it wasn't there. It is now in an archaeological museum. We even got some pet therapy throughout the whole tour because the tour guide's dog decided to come along. She was sooo cute and she looked like the first dog I had.

After the cave tour we moved onto the mayan site of Labna where we were able to understand the difference between developed and un-developed Mayan sites. Labna is definitely an un-developed site because archaeologists ran out of money when they were exposing the buildings and ruins so there are a couple buildings that are sort of exposed and not fully exposed because there are still tons of rocks and grass all over them. There are mounds that look like little hills, but really there are buildings underneath them.

After Labna, we went to Uxmal and got to climb a big pyramid (I got over my fear of heights once again!). Uxmal is absolutely beautiful and very developed even though some of the buildings have not been exposed yet. There are archaeologists still working at the site repairing missing stones on some of the ruins. The site is absolutely huge, but definitely worth all the walking, climbing stairs, and sweating!! Luckily, there was a pool and restaurant just outside of the ruins, so we were able to fill our tummy's and cool off for a bit. Uxmal is just under 1 hour from Merida, so we all took a short nap in the van and had a relaxing night since we were all VERY worn out from the day.