Señora Mo Mason: Cuernavaca - Meeting my host family

I finally met my gracious host family tonight. They are Marisa and Alfonso Ortiz. He is a semi-retired insurance broker and she is his office manager. They work from their beautiful home in Cuernavaca. Their spacious guest room will be my home for the next two weeks. It is lovely! When I arrived, there were lots of people in the house. It turns out that Marisa and Alfonso's son Mauricio was visiting with his wife and five sons for the day. It was so fun to get to chat with the oldest son, Mauricio, about school, food and his passion, soccer! We actually spent time watching two soccer tournaments while waiting to eat dinner.

Since I arrived late afternoon, I missed the traditional Mexican meal time which is usually around 2:00 or 2:30pm. Marisa kindly waited for me to arrive to serve her meal. We had homemade salsa verde (very hot, but fabulous!), homemade corn tortillas (no substitute can ever be found in the store for these), guacamole (from Costco suprisingly) served with chorizo, steak, a vegetable medley of broccoli, eggplant and red peppers and noodle soup with cubed cheese. It was delicious after a long day of pretzels, bottled water and granola bars.

I am sharing the guest suite in this home with another teacher. She is from Massachusetts and arrived about an hour after me. We are already hitting it off really well. We have so much in common and seem to really be at the same place in our personal lives and careers. They did a good job of matching us. I can usually tell quickly if a rooming situation isn't going to work. Since we have our own rooms, it would take a lot for me to feel uncomfortable. Speaking of comfortable, did I mention the private balcony that overlooks the backyard? It's a rough life!

Tomorrow will be another marathon type of day. Marisa told me that she will drive us to the school at 8:00am for a speaking exam followed by a twelve hour (yes, 12 hour) trip to the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon in Teotihuacan. I have climbed these pyramids before and my memory is of them being super cool, but super hot! I am going to put on lots of sunscreen, my best hiking shoes and tank top. A solid breakfast will be very important.

All in all, this day was exhausting, but I am settled. I think I will do just fine here in my new home!