It’s been three years since I packed up 2 large cardboard boxes, a newly purchased 7′6″ funboard, my weary cat, said goodbye to my Los Angeles peoples and moved to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for good. 3 years since I started this blog, in an unrealistic goal of documenting my transition to a new country. The actual date, Aug.23rd, came and went unmarked in a flurry of mini-trips to La Ticla, Guadalajara and most recently, this past weekend to Yelapa. It’s been a rough summer spiritually speaking. Events in the work life have been up and down and a complete and utter lack of swell has turned the spring/summer into a giant snooze fest. The good thing about living in Mexico is that as you northern cats all pull out your fall and winter clothing, our summer rages on til the middle of October and really doesn’t settle into anything resembling fall until the beginning of December.
So I guess it’s customary to look back on the the past year and reflect on all the good adventures I’ve had and this year was full of adventure, for sure. In fact, this was the year that I came full circle in the lust/hate/love sequence that most ex-pats go through when moving to a new country. This was the year that I grew to love Mexico for what it is, no fairy tales, no illusions, pure sometimes-not-so-easy love. for better or for worse. I’m very thankful to my wife, Marcia, for without her I never would have made it out of the ‘hate’ section of the sequence (actually most ex-pats don’t make it out of this section, they pack up and go home).
So without further ado, here’s what I did this past year:
We got engaged, my good friends Dave and Lisa came to visit, took a guerilla architecture tour of Guadalajara,went to Quintana Roo to visit Marcia’s mom, went to Guadalajara (again), we decided to get married earlier then originally planned and started the wedding + honeymoon planning, went surfing at La Ticla for the first time and got totally schooled, sent out our wedding invite, surfed at La Gloria, counted down my last week as an eligible bachelor and solidified the honeymoon plans (2 1/2 month trip?!?) Marcia + Edmundo got married! (wedding pics), the epic 10 week honeymoon: Bali, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and India (took 8000 photos?!), caught some nice waves upon our return, lost all of my pre-wedding photos in a hard drive crash, went surfing at The Cove and almost got lost at sea, released my first (and worst) Word Press theme: QPwilm!, endlessly edited and posted photos from our honeymoon, caught several really good days of surfing at Burros, got adult braces, designed the new Roots logo, Beth’s new logo and her photo site, art+philanthropy’s logo, and my own photo site, started documenting my friends, pondered on the iphone coming to mexico, finally got to visit Guanajuato, took a trip to New York City and to Croton-On-Hudson, NY (the place where I grew up), went surfing in La Ticla (again) and tragedy struck on the way down, wrote about how to add fancy Flickr slideshows to your blog entries (like mine), i finally cut my hair, wrote about my experiences traveling and being a photographer, ushered in the summer rains (and they still haven’t stopped), went back to La Ticla (again), got a new surfboard, surfed the massive waves caused by Tropical Storm Henriette and finally, we spent the last two days packing! we’re all packed up and ready to move, tomorrow is our first day in our new house. What a year!
It’s fitting that this post is being written today/tonight as this is our last night in the apartment that Marcia and I moved into 2 1/2 years ago, just after we met. Tomorrow, we’ll start anew in our brand new house (rented - but it’s a house with a yard!). It’s a new chapter for us. We’re reminiscent of all the good times we’ve had in this dinky little apartment and looking forward to a change but all change comes with uncertainty, so we’re definitely a wee bit hesitant.
Please wish us luck!
Great post Ed.
All the luck to you guys !!