No hablo Inglés

I officially arrived in Minatitlan, Mexico on Sunday afternoon. We walked off the plane to a definite tropical climate. After passing the 2 person manned customers we made it to our hotel - Hotel Terranova. Hotel Terranova is the only 5 star hotel in the region and is located in the town of Coaztacoalcos in the state of Veracruz. We have not seen the main part of Coaztacoalcos but we are in REAL Mexico. English speakers are not as common as they are in Cancun.

Beth (Project Chief) and I arrived in the refinery on Monday and it turns out that none of our contacts truly speak English. We struggled a lot but today was much better. We have had several Spanish lessons with engineers in the office and they made us try a drink called Agua de Chaya. It is a drink filled with a ton of vitamins. The plant Chaya has more vitamins than spinach and is grown in Mexico and Texas and is known to cure things like diabetes or high blood pressure.

So we have also spent a lot of time in the central control room to monitor temps and pressures etc. The operators are now insisting on making us breakfast. It should definitely be interesting but we are going to bring some back up food just in case. So far the food that we have eaten (mainly in the hotel) has been absolutely delicious. Attached is a picture of the hotel lobby kind of --- I will try to post better pictures later.

Happy Thankgiving!