so i was planning on writing this long and crazy story about my weekend two weeks ago, but i'm just much too busy w/ school to do it justice. so i won't do it justice. i'm just going to point-form it. sorry.
i also waited 'til after this past weekend just to see if insane weekends are the norm here, and i'm relieved to say that they aren't. alright, here it is:

- friday: uneventful. my housemate and i go for a TGIF drinking get-together (i think my beer intake will be upped SIGNIFICANTLY this year--yiiiikes) w/ the staff and then watch t.v. for four hours straight after work

- saturday: not very eventful. kim and i explore downtown a bit more, have lunch (2-for-1 daiquiris on the isla cuale--this town is going to kill me w/ alcohol), get a little lost, and then it's confirmed that people are fascinated by my ethnicity (a man working in a travel agency literally gets up from his desk, walks across the shop and out the door after us to ask me if i'm japanese or chinese and to--yes, i am serious--reach out and touch my eye...i slowly back away...i swear this is true--a couple of days later, i'm taking the bus home from school and another random man gets up from the seat in front of me and turns around, smiles at me and says something like "bonita" and touches my chin!!! is this going to become a common occurrence?!)

- ahh, sunday: holy shite. a quartet of us (all new teachers) decide to go exploring and agree to take a little daytrip south to mismaloya, where night of the iguana and, get this--predator (the sign there proudly proclaims this)-- were shot and explore a few other towns as well
- one of the guys brought a car down, so he drives. we pass through a tunnel (we're driving through mountains) and then we're about to enter another tunnel when the pickup truck in front of us loses one of the people it's carrying in the back. seriously. this middle-aged-looking woman literally flies out of the truck and rolls onto the highway.
it sort of went in slow motion from there--
i could see the woman lying on the side of the road, unconscious (she looked really pregnant too, btw), and i could see the truck stopping suddenly in front of us, and immediately i could tell that we were going to smack into that truck. there was no way we could've breaked in time. we braced for impact, and i remember hearing the sound of the glass from the left headlight smashing.
fortunately, none of us got hurt. unfortunately, there seems to be no such thing as car insurance here (at least it's not mandatory), so my friend will have to pay for the car damage himself (the whole front of the frame is all banged up). he was afraid the radiator was busted and the car would die, so we actually fled the scene and made it back to the boys' house. i have no idea what happened to the woman. we did see ambulances heading towards her though.
we've since heard that if you're involved in a traffic accident here, they arrest everybody, whether it's your fault or not. at first i felt guilty for leaving the scene, but now i have mixed feelings.
so, yes.
that was quite a day.
and it didn't end there.
believe it or not, we eventually took the bus up north to sayulita (beach town good for surfing) for the rest of the day.

ha--and sunday was also the day we discovered that a picture of all the new teachers at the school was published on the cover of the town newspaper. our faces and names, plastered on the front page. greaaaat. this small town thing sure is gonna be interesting.

there's a lot more to say, but i'll save it for later. SO BUSY here. gotta head to a staff meeting now.
i caught a cold from the students, too. ugh. i'll survive.

for now, i'll leave you w/ my housemate's pic from the malecon (the one above is from sayulita).