Castle Livin in Mexico

I really do live in a castle. It houses a laundry on the ground floor with a few apartments above. It has a real tower with spiral stairs and I have a balcony overlooking the river. Now, what can I complain about....?
There is a bug problem. Not roaches or anything nasty. Well, all of Tuxtepec has ant problems. They get everywhere and they carry away dead bugs and bits of food and all, but sometimes they get too concentrated and I have to combat them. The castle has its share. But the bug problem that is the most annoying is the flying bug problem. At night, my apartment lights attract all kinds of bugs from all around. There are no screens on the windows - and the way they're made, it's impossible to screen them- so the bugs aim for the lights inside and they get pretty thick around the ceiling. It makes having dinner parties difficult. When it's just me, I leave the balcony lights on and keep the inside lights off, but it gets dark like that.
I haven't found a satisfactory solution. Leaving the balcony lights on does seem to help a little, and keeping the doors and windows shut helps a LOT.
But Tuxtepec is the hottest city in Mexico and it won't be possible much longer to keep the doors and windows shut. You need air flow here.
So I guess I should just prepare to be invaded by insects and try to ignore it.
It's weird. They flock thickly to the lights at night, but in the mornings they are completely gone.
This is so far the only complaint about the place that I can find.
Well, except for the 3 floor hike up the tower stairs. And the lack of hot water showers - but nowhere in Tuxtepec has hot water, so that's not a legitimate complaint, I guess.
Anyway, the castle is totally covet-worthy as a place to live. I am the envy of the English department and I KNOW how lucky I am to have found the place. For 1500 pesos/month I know I have the deal of the century here :)

I miss Gilligan!!!!
He has been dead for about 2 years now. Well, let me think. He died in October of 2008. So that makes it 2 years and 4 months that I have somehow survived without my Biggie.
In the meantime, I'm just going through the motions of living an exciting life.
I am gonna try to post more regularly now.
I know, I know, I say that all the time. But really, I'm getting tired of FaceBook and I like my blog a lot better. I can say what I want easier cause I figure nobody is really gonna read this :)
Anyway, I am now living in Mexico. In Tuxtepec, Oaxaca.
I teach English at the UNPA - Universidad del Papaloapan.
I live in a castle.
I work with very fun people.
Jenni-Cita. Maggie-Gaga. And Granpa-Joe.
A man was selling these cool little dogs on the sidewalk on the way home from work a couple of days ago. I bought 2 for 10 pesos each. My thought was that I would give them to people as presnuts. But most likely I will keep them because they are super-cute.
So I took them home and arranged their leashes in the hands of the dolls with masks.
And I dreamed about Gilligan.
I was scratching his back and that spot just above his tail that he really liked me to scratch. It was so nice. And now I'm just pissed that he's gone.
Probably my life wouldn't be all roses and sunshine if Gilligan were still with me - but I like to think it would be.

Giza with Sayed

We went to Giza to the pyramids!!!! It was Sayed's first trip there but it was my 4th so I felt like an expert :) But we did go into the burial chamber of the Khafra pyramid - something I had never dared to do before. We wanted to go into the Khufu pyramid but they ran out of tickets while we were waiting in line.
But the BEST part about this trip to the pyramids was that we had out marriage papers and I got to pay the EGYPTIAN price to get in. It rocked my world. 5EGP instead of 60EGP.

In Aswan

Here we are in Aswan.
On the boat.
And then in a restaurant called the Aswan Moon. They have the BEST eggplant and tomato stew at that place. It's called mosa3a.

Sayed and Asharaf

This is Sayed with his brother Asharaf. They work together hauling tourists around Aswan in the feluca or the motor boat. Sayed built a house for Ahsaraf over the last couple of years and they are very close. Now Asharaf has to find somebody to marry. Sayed is not going to help him with that :)

More pictures of Sayed

Sayed had never really been to Cairo. Well, he did go once, 15 years ago. He hadn't been back since. But when he came with me he quickly became an expert. He had the metro system memorized after the first ride and now he advises people in his village about how to get to places in Cairo :)
Here we are on one of the bridges over the Nile. At a restaurant on a rooftop at the King Hotel in Dokki, and here is Sayed in our cheap but pretty hotel with a view of the museum behind the square.

Around Cairo with Sayed and friends

These are from different places over the summer. My friend Lindsey met me in Cairo and stayed with me there while we both worked at the museum. She has been to Egypt several times, but has always lived a bit higher on the hog than I have. Because of this, I was able to show her a few things that rich tourists usually don't see. Mostly things you wouldn't want to see, heh heh, but here are a couple of pictures from Al Azhar Park. It was Sayed's first visit to the park too and everybody LOVED it!
I am also including a picture of me, Sayed, and Barkat from a hooker bar in Cairo that Barakat insisted on going to. He wanted to drink beer and smoke sheesha and see women. So we went to this hole in the wall that I am SURE had never seen a female tourist before. I was surprised at how the prostitutes fawned over Sayed :)