I know I haven't updated since the day I arrived in Mexico -- but it has been a busy busy trip. After the flight delays here is the beautiful place we were... only for one day:
After the first day it all kind of went down hill for a while. We made the 2.5 hour curvy drive to the refinery and eventually to our second more permanent hotel in Tehuantepec, Mexico. When we showed up they did not have our reservation and had no rooms available...supposedly. They refused to call anyone else because it was a holiday in Mexico (Ides of March in the U.S.). They told us to find a new hotel for the night and that we should come back the next day.
Unfortunately, the hotel where we didn't have a reservation is the ONLY nice hotel in town. My other advisor and I ended up staying in a shady hotel... the name of which no one could pronounce...it wasn't even a Spanish/Mexican name. As soon as we walked in it had that hostel smell and two light bulbs. We decided to stay in one room together and put suit cases in front of the door...just in case :)
We eventually got settled in the nice hotel and Jason and Mary (Other UOP advisor and his wife --they've been on a lot of my trips :) ) arrived. Two days later we were all very sick for almost a full week. No matter what medicine we took..we could not get better. 10 days later I am finally feeling back to normal. Through the sickness and through yesterday we were working 12 - 14 hr days.
We completed loading the reactors last night around 10 pm so me and my advisor took today off!! It was nice to sleep in and we made an adventure to the beach. The beach was not as nice as Huatulco ( the first night) but its still the Pacific ocean! The waves were dangerous so we just sat on the beach and got a little sun. Here is a picture of me in the sun:In other news there are Walmart stores here called Aurrera Bodega. If you thought Walmart's in the US are busy on Sundays... these are worse. It was nuts!! Its nice to be able to find some normal safe food though. So -- it looks like I won't make it home for Easter :/ but I should be back some short time after. Hope to see everyone when I am home! Miss you guys!
Happy Easter! The room you stayed in with your suitcases up against the door reminded me of a place I stayed in London with two friends. The door handle on our door was so loose, we were afraid the lock wouldn't hold, so we piled our suitcases on a chair in front of the door.
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