So, I´m standing on the beach, holding an iguana...

by Stephanie, who seems to have made it to Mexico

...and the man who gave it to me asks if I want to eat the iguana. The iguana is wearing a necklace.

And we´ll interupt my Sunday afternoon there to let you know that I DID get collected at the airport in Zihautanejo. The stranger that came looking for me wasn´t wearing any shoes and laughed hysterically when I put my seatbelt on. I´m glad I left it on, as I´ve witnessed 2 fatal accidents in the last 3 days.

My home is in Ixtapa: I have my own 3-bedroom apartment, with a bathroom that makes most phone booths look spacious. The ruling force in my neighborhood seems to be a dubiously organized feral cat herd. They do some dealings with a pair of floppy-eared bassett hounds, but its clear that the dirty cats are running the show. Mail and trash are left in respective piles on the sidewalk for collection. I don´t know how the cats sort the mail, so its for the best that i don´t even know my address to give it to you.

I´m working for a restaurant called Casa Morelos and at a real estate agency. I work about 7 hours a day, which for here is considered near slave hours. I am doing¨"PR" for the restaurant, and I consider it quite the apprenticeship as my boss claims to have INVENTED "word of mouth" advertising. For the real estate people, my main job is to repeat the words: "it´s not a time share!"

I know a lot more Spanish than I did two weeks ago, but I would compare my current attempts at the language to a game of Taboo: due to my very limited vocabulary, I am constantly trying to describe things using totally unrelated words. Sometimes I cheat and throw in charades. The results are always entertaining, but usually nowhere near what I was trying to express.

I even have a mobile phone. Granted, I had to borrow most of its parts from one "Enrique Bravo" and it only holds a charge for the better part of one afternoon. I´m just waiting for the calls and texts to roll in: mexico country code: +52, my numero: 755 111 7746.

Visitors are welcome, but get your bookings in, as space is filling up. And, you may want to know that my mom is predicting a border war that will halt all travel between the two countries and leave all Americans trapped here. Her wild fortune telling isn´t always correct, but this would be a VERY HOT place to have to spend eternity.

And no, of course I didn´t eat the iguana! I don´t know where YOU went to elementary school, but at Hopkins, right between "don´t get in a car with a stranger" and "don´t eat unwrapped, poisoned candy", they told us "don´t ingest animals wearing jewelry." Public education serves me yet again.