Tourist Visa Extended

This morning I went downtown to the federal building to extend my tourist visa. When I entered Guadalajara in Feb, the immigration officer at the airport pulled a power play and only granted me a 30 day tourist visa which expires early next week. So I went to the Federal Building early and who' there? The jerky immigration officer from the airport. He was working with some tourists from England and was well occupied. I did my best to avoid him and make NO eye contact. Luckily I did avoid him altogether.

All in all, It took a little less than 2 hours to extend my visa. The key is to have all your paperwork ready. This includes a bank statement, copy of passport, immigartion documents, form requesting tourist visa extension, payment and receipt of tourist extension. It really wasn't bad. I was expecting the whole process to be a lot worse.

The women who handled my request was very nice. She told me, "wow they only have you 30 days, that's not right." When she asked me how much time I wanted I told her I only needed 90 days but she granted me 120 days *just in case*. She was really nice! Thank god for some nice immigration officials.

So, I have to return to the Federal Building around 2:30 this afternoon to pick up my new papers. Yea I'm legal and not being deported (at least for the moment).

Ladron in da' house

So this past weekend we had a little ladron excitement.

Someone stole Daniel's wallet (credit cards, license, money), his cell phone and my IPOD (weep). It was very hot so we had all the doors open and someone peeked in and took the items off the table. I was in the kitchen for most of the time, Daniel was upstairs sleeping. It's kind of freaky that this happened while we were home.

On Sunday, Daniel called his cell phone and a man answered the line. Daniel told him what had happened and the man told Daniel that he had just purchased the cell phone for 200 pesos at the market at 6PM the night before. Daniel noticed everything was missing around that time (he was about to go on a beer run and noticed his wallet was gone). The man apologized and said he'd return Daniel his phone, as long as Daniel would pay him the $200 pesos. They agreed but have not yet met for the exchange.

The wallet and money are gone. Luckily, Alyssa our renter found Daniel's German Driver's License and Jerrod fed-ex'd it to us. We received it yesterday. New credit cards..etc arrive next week. Until then, my mom is helping us out with any major purchases (aka - a new IPOD). Thank you mom!!!!

All in all, it could have been a lot worse. I'm just glad it is over.

El Gato Ralpy Gutierrez.....

Ah - where do I start?

Ralphy wakes us up every morning, almost every single morning. He starts up with his ronronreiendo around 4ish am, stops after an hour, then picks up the ronronreiendo again around 6:30am. Since this cat is part of our daily routine, schedule and morning conversations I had to name him. He couldn't remain anonymous so his name is Ralphy. And his last name is Gutierrez.

I finally met him today. He was outside meowing and he is actually a very cute cat. He's a fat tabby and lives across the street. He lives exactly across the street from our bedroom. The owners apparently left him outside and Ralphy was freaking out.

I am surprised someone hasn't killed him yet. He is SO loud. He's been meowing since we arrived in Guadalajara. I don't know how the neighborhood deals with him.

This week in News

Hi All -

What's going on in your neck of the woods?

Here's what we have been reading...

Britain targets giants for Olympic gold in 2012:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070302/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_olympics_london_giants;_ylt=As_zjDn56Euo.6w3clGl2BftiBIF

AP bans Paris Hilton news for 1 whole week:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/02/ignoring.parishilton.ap/index.html

Lawyer: Chief, Dog Have Same Degree:

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070302/D8NJQ0QO2.html

Video: German incest laws challenged:

http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/world/2007/03/02/pleitg.incestuous.love.cnn

Swiss accidentally invade Liechtenstein:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/ap_on_fe_st/mistaken_invasion;_ylt=Au4VsVwKCx2L9NXGqWJC1cDtiBIF

**photos generously taken from *flickr*

It's OD for a change ......

Hi y'all,
TGIF - or the spanish version GADEV (Gracias a Dios es Viernes). This was a busy week. Papa Bear definetely got me on my toes, and, as Monica already mentioned, the subjuntivo and preterito finished me off. Spanish grammer is just plain mean.
Aside form grammar rules, in school we learned this week about the Mexican legend of the llorona - which roughly translates into "the weeping one". The legends (which seems to exist in different versions in Mexico) says that its the ghost of a woman that runs at night through the streets, loudly mourning her dead children.
As the story goes, it is a young, beautiful women that marries an older man. The young woman is bored, takes a boyfriend on the side, husband comes homes, and finds boyfriend, kills boyfriend yadda yadda yadda (you get the story). After that, young beatiful woman goes nuts and one night, while it rains really hard (I guess that part is only for drama), drags her children to the next standing body of water and drowns them. Because of that sin, of course, her soul doesn't find any rest and she keeps running & crying through the streets.
What gets me about the story is (i) why does the rest of us have to suffer her nightly yammering if she commited the sin and (ii) why doesn't the "soul doesn't get any rest" punishment ever gets dished out to people that really deserve it. I mean, really, there are plenty of individuals that any jury of peers would convict to an eternity of earth wandering and lamenting but it only seems to happen to mostly mentally ill indviduals that commit some random, heinous act.
And why am I talking about this. No reason really. It's just really nothing else happened this week :-)
Hasta Luego

Tank God it's Friday

So Daniel received his test score and he passed with a 90%. He's got the subjuntivo down!!

I didn't get my test score back today. In class we watched AmarTe Duele. It's basically Romeo and Juliet meets every other teenage drama love story. It wasn't bad just predictable.

After class, I came back to find a Fed Ex package from Jerrod filled with all sorts of goodies. He was nice enough to include some trashy magazines for me (and Daniel, though he won't admit to reading them). I now have US Weekly and In Touch for my reading pleasure.

The package was loaded with tax information, our new credit cards (our cc's literally expired yesterday so the timing couldn't have been better) and a few delinquent bills. We got those sorted out first.

I'm looking forward to reading how Katy Holmes-o-crazy IS or HAS or WILL be liberating herself from the yoke of T.Cruise. So many possibilities. So little bathroom reading time.

Adios!

settled in...

Hi there,

Not much has been happening lately. Daniel has been working a lot lately and has a pretty strict schedule - gym in the morning, work, studying el old subjuntivo then more work. I'm not so good these days with the gym. I have been having a hard time sleeping and on 4-5 hours it is hard to do anything, much less sweat to the oldies. I had my first examination today and I think I did well. It was on Mexican Literature (Fuentes, Paz and Rulfo). I'm also reading Malinche, by Laura Esquivel. It is taking me longer than usual to get through the book, as I am constantly having to refer to a dictionary.

Gwyn's parents are in and it has been nice having them around. Sarita and Gwyn are cooking these great meals every night. Saturday they are having a small get together so that should be fun. I'll be making frijoles for the crew. We'll see how that turns out....eek.

I'm still peeling from my sun burn. At least I can walk, well sort of. Yesterday I tripped and fell for the second time and my knee is a bit sore, my wrist is a little swollen and my ankle is recovering. And no, I wasn't drunk. Just clumsy! Within 24 hours, I banged up my pinky toe. Holy hell, I didn't know the pinky toe could hurt so badly. Then I had the fall. About 6 hours after that I ran into the bbq and knocked it over, including hot lava like charcoal. I was really careful today and made sure to pay attention while crossing Avenida Mexico. The joke in the house is when and where will I fall again.