Figuring things out…

So…just a few short weeks ago, I was writing about my first driving experience in Mexico.  My first few runs were at night, just around the neighborhood.  Well….fast forward to today and I’m driving ALL over town…sorting out who has the right of way, who’s honking at who …and sharing the road with other cars, vans, buses, scooters, pedal carts, bikes, and pedestrians (peatones – a new vocab word for me ) 🙂

Two nights ago, Andrew and I ventured out to find his new orthodontist…poor guy has had a broken bracket in his lower mouth for past 2 weeks, but it took us some time to get an appt set up here and have his records sent from MN.  She was very nice, but there was one moment when she pulled out a tray of orthodontia “tools” and one thing looked very much like a HUGE shot needle.  I looked at it, Andrew looked at it, we exchanged glances and she picked it up…only to use it to squirt some sort of solution out of it onto another instrument that she was using. Andrew and I breathed again 🙂

Since driving there, parking and handling most of the orthodontia appt in Spanish, we felt a bit drained so I treated him to a Chai at the neighborhood Starbucks after and they put his name as Andrés on the cup, which I loved.

Another thing we’ve figured out this week is finding the US Consulate office here in Playa (I needed to get some documents notarized for some work I’ll be doing from here remotely)…the office is FANTASTIC…it literally is just that tiny red hut! check out how cute it is!

also…Anna and I read in a Playa paper about a local Animal Welfare organization working here in Playa and outlying communities.  Anna is really interested in animals (once when she was around 4, my mom was trying to encourage her to play with some dolls…she turned to my mom and said, “Nana, I don’t like people, I just like animals” 🙂

So…Anna and I attended a volunteer training there yesterday morning and got a tour – it was really interesting and impressive to learn about their efforts in this community.  We are planning to go back sometime soon to volunteer. I know many of you friends and family are interested in animal welfare issues, you may find this organization interesting to read about…

 

cocosanimalwelfare.org

one last thing…we’ve figured out a GREAT place for fresh made churros! Luckily (dangerously?) it is just outside of our local grocery store.  This afternoon, we were at the store trying to cool off a bit and stopped there for a snack 🙂 YUM!!!

oh…and for those of you following our air conditioning story…we FINALLY got it fixed today after a LOOOOOOOONG week of high 80s inside and 3 days of workmen here  – yay!!!!! we’ve been so hot for so long that when the temp got to 83 in the house earlier tonight, Andrew said, “I’m even feeling a bit chilled” 🙂 ha!