I, Muehlenhaus. U, Riedermaus.

It's almost midnight. I'm tired. But I don't feel like sleeping. You know the feeling? I reckon you do. Who doesn't. Enough said.

I miss teaching my own class. I miss the faces. It's weird. I used to kind of hate the routine of having to get up and lecture for an hour at nine in the morning, and now I crave it. I like being in charge, I guess.

I am in charge now too. The professor I am working for has given me full control of the labs. It isn't the same, though. Cartography lab primarily consists of telling students to click a bunch of buttons in a particular order before sending them off on their own to double-click and figure it out. Cartographic concepts are far less rudimentary to learn than clicking buttons, but the professor gets to lecture about those things, unfortunately.

Oh brother... my eyes are closing. Shit. And I had every intention of writing a decent length entry tonight. Ciao for now...

So I am in the middle of the jungle, or what I've been told is the ancient Mayan Empire. Flies buzzing above my head in a partially air conditioned hovel with a sign above the door reading "Internett." Scorpions all around us and poisonous vipers slithering around our sandaled feet as we sit in the hotel bar. The hotel looks a lot like something out of Romancing the Stone -- open aired with mustached men sitting around watching everyone's every move.

Istvan and Detti are at the pyramids today -- Chichenitza or something. (I don't speak Spanish or Mayan and my Hungarian is only coming in handy with Istvan and Detti during the bartering process. (One thing quickly learned here is that one must "barter" for everything -- even a glass of water.) Birgit is in the hotel room, tied up with Typhoid. At first we thought it was Montezuma's Spectre haunting her when it began yesterday at around 4 p.m. But then by 9 p.m. she had a fever higher than 35 degrees outside and was shivering uncontrollably. Vomiting began at 2 a.m., and I was actually worried she might die in the middle of the night or something -- I'm not very good at making evaluations such as these, but I was scared. Unlike the last time this had happened, food poisoning on a plane somewhere over Iceland, there weren't knowledgable persons around to help me out. So we hailed a cab at around 3 a.m. for the hospital listed in our Lonely Planet book -- that book rules by the way.

Mexican hospitals are just as you might imagine them in your most negative of stereotypes. This is one of the poorest regions of Mexico, and the hospital showed this. I was pretty convinced we would get a case of dysentry just sitting there waiting next to the people with whooping cough and limbs dangling off their bodies, but fortunately we were called forward pretty early.

Two doctors or nurses or high schoolers, I couldn't really tell, asked Birgit about her symptoms, then began taking drugs off the rusty shelf covered in dust and mold. Then they chatted a little more, and took one of the boxes back, basically communicating to Birgit that their evaluation had changed and that she didn't need that medicine anymore. They gave us a prescription, told Birgit to start taking the antibiotics, and then said everything was free. (I love state-based healthcare. I think... we'll see if their prognosis was correct first, I guess.) Meanwhile I was flipping through the Lonely Planet book for different stomach diseases that one might contract while in the Yucatan, and the only one that matched was "typhoid." Typhoid is a stomach infection caused by bad water that begins with body aches (which happened to Birgit first), a slowly rising fever, slowing of the pulse, and suddenly an inability to keep anything in you. It will kill you within about two weeks if left untreated. The only real treatment is the exact type of antibiotic they gave her yesterday. I think this was the first day she had typhoid, but I'm sure glad we didn't wait to go to the hospital. The hospital was only the beginning, however!

As we left the hospital at around 3:40, there were no cabs anywhere. So fever stricken, teeth chattering, poor Birgit and I had to walk down abandoned streets with stray dogs fighting one another on nearly every corner. When we got to the 24 hour pharmacy near our hotel, the clerk was so passed out that we couldn't wake him up, even with the help of a Mayan sitting on the curb down the block. This Mayan was very friendly for someone sitting on the curb at 4 in the morning and told us where there was another 24 hour pharmacy. We began walking about ten steps until three rabid looking dogs came charging around the corner at the far end of the block, two of which then went about mauling the third. We turned around and found a cab at the main square there.

He took us to the pharmacy, the person there was still awake, we got the anti-poop medicine she needed and some electrolyte powder, hopped in the cab and made it home at around 5:15 in the morning. At this time the restaurant beneath us began preparing breakfast by washing, and clanging quite loudly, every piece of silverware and porcelain they owned. I still haven't slept. But the good news is that the drugs seem to be working. Birgit is still in bed, but we have cable television for the first time in weeks and she had an opportunity to see Henry VIII, which is an insanely long film that is not actually that informative, and a few Telenovellas. She still can't drink anything but her fever is down and we're just hoping to let the medicine do its work. It should be fine now.

Tomorrow, if she is feeling okay, we are taking our rental car to Merrida. We heard that they just found the Avian flu in the neighboring state of Chiapas. We'll be wary of stray chickens. The coast the first week was great! We didn't swim too much, mostly just relaxed and ate a lot of fish. We went to a UN jungle/lagoon bioreserve and saw a bunch of crocodiles and poisonous creatures. I took numerous pictures, but for some reason I took out the cord I need to attach my camera to computers; so I will have to upload those upon my return.

Almost out of time here. That's all for now. We're fine, but looking forward to coming home. Hasta luego.

Hmmmm... way too long since posting to this. It even feels dusty. But what better time than right before I depart for the tropical paradise that is the Yucatan Peninsula. (At least, this is what I have been told, although no one will verify that it is still a paradise after the hurricane that ripped through it last autumn.)

I survived the semester teaching. Great class. In the end I realized that perhaps I successfully taught them something and that they didn't think I was a total bore. (Personally, I find that the boring professors rarely said much that stuck with me past the final exam, whereas the exciting, hyper-active ones that had little knowledge to disperse (i.e., myself) often said things that still haunt me to this day. For example, my old Estonian professor who showed three hours of slides he took of polar bears devouring seals on icebergs that were floating by his boat near Svalbaard, Norway -- to find Svalbaard you must look about five hundred miles straight north of Norway toward the North Pole. (I digress again.) The point is... I had a blast teaching, even though some mornings it was a struggle to get up and out of bed to lecture about migration, which on a whole is a topic that I do not find 1/100th as interesting as many of the human geographers in our department seem to think it is. But what do I know, I'm not even sold on the fact that urban geography is a real subdiscipline. So to hell with it...

Where was I? Ah, yes. The holidays. At least, that is where my brain is now after watching four bowl games in a row, albeit passively, and eating and drinking continuously, although not necessarily excessively, for the past two fortnights. Birgit and I spent Christmas in two places at once again, going up to Duluth the night before Christmas Eve and hanging out with my family before racing back down and celebrating Christmas with her family for two days. Birgit's sister has a birthday between Christmas and New Year's, poor soul, completely lost in the holiday melee, which we celebrated on the 27th and 31st with two parties. Or what... I'm getting confused. I don't even know how to write about the holidays they were so busy and I was so out of it. I'll dissect them by paragraph -- Duluth first, everything else second.

We went up to Duluth. I had a great time hanging with my Mum and Christ again in front of the gargantuan fireplace. I had a good heart-to-heart with my parents and Birgit. Then went and tried some weird Shokra thing to make my Mum happy, who is always worried about me being depressed. This time she might be right. I haven't been feeling overly even-keeled in recent months, partly because I'm not sold on the fact that what I'm doing is a worthwhile endeavor -- geographic research, that is, not teaching, as much as I dislike 9 a.m. chats about migration, teaching is most often quite rewarding. So while debate the merits of going to see a therapist about life, the universe, and worthless, low paying careers, my Mum thought it would be good for me to go see her homeopathic therapist that is trained in the ways of Shock-Ra or something. (I never really did catch how to spell this mystic inspired thingy; I just always assumed it meant they used electric shocks, which freaked me out to no end.) So after nearly a bottle of wine I blundered into having myself scheduled for a meeting with “the Shock-Ra lady” the next morning.

This is not normal for me. I’m kind of a cynic about everything – organized religion and pagans both. Supernatural beliefs and science – inclusively. But it was the holidays, and I figured that making my Mum happy would be good karma – not that I believe in that… well, whatever…

So the next morning I awoke with a splitting headache and Birgit grinning at me like a skatergrrrllll watching her friend attempt an ill-advised ollie off a grain elevator. Shock-Ra… well, what can I say. It was therapy with a foot massage. No electronic shocks and no real therapy. Not really a message either. More gentle than I remember Paxil being – during my teen angst years I had a stint with the ol’ anti-depressants – but also less long lasting. So I am still kind of suffering from holiday stress syndrome, but my feet feel refreshed. I am not sold on Shock-Ra, but it was an experience that will hopefully make for a short story someday. All I remember is almost laughing when the Yanni music came on, but I kept my composure.

Christmas at my folks was more fun than it has been in recent years. I am kind of over any anger I had with my sister. She seemed more civil this time too. Perhaps more confident in who she is and what she is doing. I don’t know. Maybe I am… but I doubt it, as I am the one dabbling with Shock-Ra or whatever. I met her new partner, Becky, who seems very cool. Far more real than any recent partners I’ve met of my sister’s. My niece, Clair, loved the Hello Kitty doll house Birgit and I bought her. She mostly received furniture and other rather boring stuff – at least in the eyes of a five year-old – so we were totally on her A-list the entire night. As is typical with my family, it wouldn’t be a get-together unless something bizarre happened; so one relative once removed was arrested on the way to pick up salad dressing. There was a slight delay in dinner plans as my sister and her partner went to bail this person. This person isn’t a relative, and wasn’t even originally going to stay for dinner, but because we felt guilty for sending him to go get the salad dressing for us, I think my parents copped the money to bail him out and fed him anyway. Duluth… it is surreal!

Came back to the Cities. Christmas at the Muehlenhaus house (say that 10 times for fun) is always a good time. They have a really nice house for hosting, with a pool table, fireplace, bar, and plenty of vintage vinyl from the 60s & 70s. A lot of Neil Diamond and Gordon Lightfoot, as well as some German classics that Birgit’s dad brought with him back in the day. Birgit’s cousin, Thorsten, was in town too. I hadn’t seen him since he came to visit me in Budapest. It was good to hang out again, even if mostly we just shot pool and drank wine while shouting over Dire Straits or whatever Birgit’s had on at the time.

Birgit and I had been mulling getting an Airedale for sometime. We had written breeders and the whole like. Birgit’s parents just got a new little golden lab. It is cute, I will give it that. It is even good for a couple of smiles. But after about a half-hour, it gets a wee-bit annoying. After an hour… it won’t stop chewing on people’s hands, feet, toes – it even got a piece of Birgit’s dad’s nose. It’s a crazy little devil. More terrorist than teddy bear right now, as it is teething. Needless to say, Birgit and I decided not to get a dog at this point in our lives. It didn’t help that every time Birgit touched it giant welts would form up and down her neck and arms, etc. She is more than a little bit allergic, unfortunately. Merde!

Christmas ended and so is this lame ass blog entry. Who really cares? But I just felt the need to dust this thing off. As alluded to at the beginning of this, I’m off to Mexico on Thursday with one of my best friends ever and his really cool wife. Originally we planned a trip to paradise at 4 in the morning at a Hungarian pub on the street where the #6 tram goes by. The whole point was to meet up with these guys over Christmas and New Years so we could avoid all of our in-laws and families, etc. But tickets were too expensive then, so we decided to go to paradise after dealing with our families, etc. It is kind of harebrained, but hey, the last time I was in Mexico – at my roommate’s wedding in the middle of the Chihuahua province, which is really nothing more than a very high altitude desert with nothing to drink but beer, tequila, and for those that are most adventurous, cactus juice – I had quite the experience. I can only imagine that camping in a malarial forest will not let me down!

More news if I survive… until then, Happy New Year ya’all…

If I had more energy, I would have given you a specific run down of the Shock-Ra lair. It was priceless. Maybe when I get back, if I feel like it.