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| Christmas crackers without poppers |
A
belated Happy New Year! Is there a more overused cliché than “where did the
time go”? It’s probably up there at the top of the most over-used list. But,
seriously! We are already two weeks into 2016! Our December was hectic and went
by quickly but we finished with a quiet Christmas and New Years. Christmas Day
was beautiful weather, so we ate our traditional Christmas turkey dinner out on
the balcony overlooking the bay, complete with British homemade crackers. These
were without poppers, as I don’t think those exist in PV. At least, we had the
ambiance of having the crackers.
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| Fireworks and lanterns viewed from our balcony |
On New Year’s Eve, after sharing a meal with a
lovely Mexican couple that we’d just met while waiting in the queue at the
restaurant, we went home to watch the fabulous fireworks from our balcony. In addition to several displays all over the
bay, people were sending up lots of lanterns. The display provided by the city
was spectacular and stretched to a bit longer than 30 minutes, which was longer
than the one on Independence Day. It was all rather breath-taking!
2016
has started off incredibly busy with charity events. Corazón de Niña, a charity
that we visited in December and decided to become involved with is in need of
some help organizing tours of their home. It’s a children’s shelter for abused
and neglected children, and it’s such an amazing safe shelter for 40 kids. I
agreed to help get their weekly tours organized as these are used to help get
donors. Steve has rescued several of their laptops that weren’t working and has
fixed software issues as well as installing new keyboards on all of them. He’s
finding it a challenge to work on the software installations only in Spanish! I
think he needs the challenge!! He’s now spent the last couple of days at the
home sorting out other computer issues so his technical Spanish should be
improving.
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| Happy winner of my donated bracelet |
ThePURR Project, a no-kill shelter for cats, is another charity that we are
actively involved with. You probably saw the photos in my last post of 150+
cats at the shelter all being fed treats at the same time. This week we had a
fashion show as one of the major fund-raisers for the year, and I got to
participate as one of the models. There were fittings and emails and all sorts
of communication throughout December and the first few days of January. But I
got to try on lots of new clothes, so it was fun. The week leading up to the
event was crazy, and I learned a couple of days before the event that my
trousers and tops that I was to provide were changed from white capris to long
white trousers, and I also had to add black trousers. Then my list grew again
with the addition of both white and black tops. It was a bit of a last minute
scramble to get the exact items that I needed. I also agreed to provide a
rhinestone and leather bracelet that I’d made as a raffle prize. I’d sent two
photos of entirely different bracelets along with descriptions to the organizer
so that she could choose which one she wanted as a raffle prize. She got the
descriptions mixed up and printed the wrong one in the program. I scrambled the
night before making sure that I had both available along with everything that
went with them.
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| I can do a little more that this |
We’ve
recently begun our Spanish lessons again after having a break over the
holidays. I’ve been trying to speak Spanish to people in shops and stores, and
I know that I’m murdering their language, but at least, I’m trying! A week ago
I had to do some unique shopping, meaning not the usual food or clothes
shopping. I had to get some photocopying done for Corazón, plus purchases from
a fabric store, and a beading store. It meant that I had to ask for things and
interact with store clerks and not just point. I wanted to buy some amethyst
bead chips but didn’t know what the word was in Spanish, so I asked the girl
for purple chips. She didn’t have what I wanted but she was able to understand
what I wanted. I also had to understand when the clerks told me the cost. The
supermarkets have digital displays that tell you how much you have to pay, but
fabric and bead stores and even smaller stores like the one that sells
batteries don’t have them, so you have to listen for the amount. While standing
in a long queue at the fabric store, I listened as the clerk told each customer
how much their bill was to see if I could understand. Numbers are one of my
(many) downfalls, and when the clerks rattle them off so quickly, it’s even
more difficult to grasp what they are saying. I was so excited when I was able
to understand most of the amounts and especially the total of my purchases. I
was even more excited to be able to tell Steve when I got home that from the
time that I'd left and completed all of my errands and returned, I didn’t speak
one word of English! I know it’s not much but I was excited anyway!! I’ve asked
our teacher to work on numbers in our Spanish class on Thursday because I need
a lot more practice.
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| So beautiful! |
Saturday, we went to the theater here in PV to watch live streaming of The Nutcracker and it was amazing. I wasn't sure that I wanted to see it on a screen but we got to see the dancers up close and watch the expressions on their faces. It was just beyond beautiful.
Downtown
is full of tourists as we are in the peak of the “high season”. It’s so good to
see all of the shops busy as this is when they can make their income for most
of the year. Is it the beautiful weather we've been having, or maybe the great exchange rate between the dollar and peso is
helping tourism, as Mexico is now ranked as one of the best vacation spots in
the world. Perhaps this is a good time for you to plan a visit to Puerto
Vallarta? Do these pictures entice you to visit Paradise?
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| Moon from our balcony |
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| Just before sunrise - again from balcony |
