Abby and I woke up this morning after a wonderful night of sleep in our hotel and got ready for the day. I worked with my dad and Verizon to get my phone working! Yay!!
We took a shuttle from the hotel to the airport, a much better option than the taxi last night and so now we know where to go when we make the return flight! We made it through security (much more lax than in the US…didn’t even have to take our shoes off!) and then grabbed some coffee from Starbucks. Good news, the app works here so that was exciting! I don’t know that I will get used to paying $144.00 for a venti coffee and muffin, but I keep reminding myself that 1 US Dollar is about 19 pesos so it really was about $7.50 (not bad for airport prices)!

We then made our way to our gate and had about an hour or so before we were to board, I practiced my Spanish by reading every sign and video screen I could, I have been very impressed by the hotel and airport staff as all of them speak very good English which has been good for me! ☺️ I did get one compliment on my pronunciation of “Queretaro” but I’m trying not to let it go to my head! I’ve decided that I need to stop responding with “sí” because then they think I speak Spanish better than I do and it just causes confusion!

Our plane was just a little puddle jumper, only two seats on either side of the aisle and probably only 20-30 rows total. It was a pretty short flight as well, only 28 minutes in the air, we barely got up and started coming back down! You could really feel the plane moving though because it was such a small plane and there were several times my stomach did a flip! 🤢

Abby and I were talking last night about how when we fly it always reminds us how small we really are in comparison to the whole world! It also reminds me of the beauty that God gives us on the Earth (or just above it in the clouds)!

Fr. Jeremy picked us up from the airport with three of the boys that live with the community all year round (Juan, Omar y Esteban). They had a few errands to run so we went into a town called Ezekiel Montes. Fr. Jeremy needed to have a copy of a key made and the boys needed new shoes. We also stopped for lunch and had some delicious pork carnitas!

The shoe store was crazy! I have never seen so many shoes in my life! They have then organized by style, size and gender so there were cases upon cases of shoes. They only have one shoe of each kind sitting out and then you tell a worker which shoe and size you need and they go get it. In the end we got 8 pairs of shoes for the three boys with us and a few back at the mission. I wish I had taken a picture of the store, but I forgot…I’ll try to do better to remember to get pictures of our travels!

After shoe shopping we stopped for Mexican ice cream! It was delicious, less creamy than what we have in the states, but the flavor was delicious. I had chocolate and cappuccino and Abby had strawberry, all three were very good!

When we arrived on the mission Fr. Jeremy and the boys showed us to where we would be staying. We have an entire house to ourself (called la cabaña) and will just be sharing with one other gal who is also visiting for a week or so, her name is Sarah and she is here with her friend Robbie. The rooms are great and it is so quaint! The house is right next to the sheep shed and the cow shed, so when you walk outside you can smell it a bit and we can hear the sheep and a rooster from our room!  

The sisters’ convent is also right next door and though we have not been there yet, that is where we will have prayers and Mass most days. We took a few hours in the evening to get unpacked and settled in at the cabaña and then Fr. Jeremy picked us up and took us to have dinner with the muchachos (older boys). After dinner he took us to the bodega, which is like their pantry and let us grab some fresh fruit (bananas, mangos and oranges). From there we went back to his house so we could try to connect to the wifi (his is the only house that has it) however, it is pretty locked down so that the boys can’t just connect to it and even with the password we were unable to connect. Which means that since we are out in the valley of two mountains I am not going to have cell service while we are at the mission. However, we will go into town several times and so I will do my best to have my blog posts ready to go and load them all at once!

So, while we were at his house we used the computer to send an email to our parents informing them of the lack of cell service and wifi. (See what good daughters we are! 😘 Love you mom and dad!) Fr. Jeremy gave us some eggs so that we could cook breakfast a few mornings and then we walked back to the cabaña and spoke with Fr. Jeremy for about an hour just about life here vs. in the states. We also shared stories of our time at Benedictine. (Fr. Jeremy is also a BC grad, though he graduated in 2006, so well before Abby and I were there.)

Then it was time for bed. Sarah and Robbie were taking a bus from Mexico City into Queretaro and so Fr. Dan went to pick them up, but we won’t get to meet Sarah until tomorrow morning!

Driving through the mountains today to get to the mission was definitely the highlight of the day, it was absolutely breathtaking and I wish we weren’t on a bumpy road in a van so that my photos would have turned out better (they are a little blurry), but I am positive that Abby and I will be taking several walks while we are here, so I’ll get some photos then!