What’s the plan for 2019?

Photo by Rakicevic Nenad on Pexels.com

Well, I don’t know 100% yet….. I’ve been thinking of a few goals that I want to achieve, so I hope I actually do achieve them.

-Learn Spanish. Next year is all about Spanish for me. Study Study Study. For me, this is the main goal of mine. I really want to be able to tick this one off!

-Exercise more. With my wedding only a few months away, I just want to look better and feel better in myself. I just want to be healthier.

–Find a job I like. I don’t even really know what I want to do in my life, even being aged 28. But I just want something that I’ll enjoy doing. I don’t want to wake up and begrudgingly have to go to a job that I don’t like.

-Save money. First I need a job, then I want to save some money. We have been spending our money on travelling rather than saving for the future. Which…. I really don’t think will help us much when we’re older. (and having no savings to actually live)

Of course I still wants LOADS more things, but I think for me these are the important things that I want to achieve. I’ve no idea what will happen next year for us; will we stay in Mexico? Move to Ireland/ Spain…even France could be an option for us. Yeah It’s great to have the option of moving to all these places, and I know that maybe if you have a child or have a stable job that you love, then it’s hard to just ‘move up and go’. But at the same time I would like to have that ‘this is where I’m going to live indefinitely’ feeling. I want to come home to my own house, watch television on my own tv, and have my own bedroom. I don’t particularly enjoy living out of a suitcase either.

Plus I’m 28 and I just feel like it’s time to start thinking of settling down.

So, we’ll see how 2019 turns out!

Aisling

 

 

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Christmas in Mexico & in Ireland

Photo by Kevin Bidwell on Pexels.com

I’ve had Christmases in Ireland, China and Mexico, and out of all of them, Christmas day in China was the worst. Bar one, where we were both off work and we spent the day eating christmas pudding and opening Christmas presents which my Mum sent me, drinking beer and watching Christmas films on my laptop in our freezing apartment. That was a very special Christmas day for us and I really enjoyed it. The others weren’t very good, with one of us/ or both of us working. (They don’t celebrate Christmas in China).

Of course I LOVE this time of year at home in Ireland. I love my Mums cooking; roast potatoes, roast beef, veg, stuffing, gravy….. oh I’m getting hungry just thinking about it. Then we would usually have pavlova (my Dad’s favourite dessert) and an Irish coffee in the evening. The fire would be blazing, the christmas lights all on, and I just really love Christmas time at home.

But this time I’m not celebrating Christmas at home. I’m in Mexico, and the weather itself makes me not think that it’s Christmas time at all! The weather is a balmy 23 degrees, with around 14/15 degrees at night. So not exactly freezing weather!

My husbands family don’t celebrate Christmas either, so the lack of a tree and lights at home also makes me doubt the time of year!

So, let me explain to you the differences between a Christmas in Mexico and Ireland.

In Ireland, usually Christmas eve is busy; we are wrapping the last of the presents, maybe running to the shops to buy that one last gift, and preparing the feast for the next day. Many religious families will go to midnight mass. This is usually in the late evening and not midnight as it suggests.

Christmas day we usually wake and open our presents. Religious families will usually go to mass first and then come home to open their presents. My family aren’t religious anymore so we don’t go to mass.

Then at around 1-3pm we have our big Christmas dinner, dessert and then for the remainder of the day we just laze about, eat crap, drink Irish coffees and watch Christmas films on tv. This is my families routine so maybe other Irish families may differ!

Every shop is closed on Christmas day…. even the airports! You will rarely see anyone on the streets, as everyone will be indoors with their families. (plus it’s too cold to be outside)

So, Mexico now!

From what I’ve gathered, Christmas Eve is when people have their big dinner. Usually it will be later on in the evening, with fireworks being heard outside. The gifts are usually opened after the big dinner, and usually after 12AM, because it’s now Christmas day.

Then, Christmas day is rather strange. I saw that a few shops/ restaurants were open, with employees chatting to each other because there’s nobody actually dining in their restaurants. I noticed that there were a lot more cars than I expected. Why are there people out? Are they not inside with their families celebrating and spending time together?

I prefer the way it’s celebrated in Ireland more, I feel like in Mexico they only celebrate it at night and only for a few hours, and during the daytime it’s just sort of like a normal day, whereas on the 25th in Ireland, that whole day is dedicated to just being with family.

Maybe next year we will celebrate in Ireland!

Aisling

Buying My Wedding Dress

So, I’ve managed to bag a bargain! My wedding dress cost a whopping……. €130! A. Wedding. Dress!

Buying a wedding dress was one thing that I was worried about having to splurge on. I simply don’t want to/ can’t afford to buy a dress that I’m only going to wear once. I know it’s a special day for me and all that, but no, even then I just can’t bring myself to buy a dress for €1,000 or more.

We were having a look around at dress shops here where we live, but most of them were just too fancy for me! Big puffed out dresses which just don’t appeal to me at all.

Source; gettyimages

We decided to head to Mexico city and have a look around. The first shop we went into had lovely dresses, and we saw a few wedding type dresses too, so I decided to try them on, and this is where I found mine! The shop is called ‘Massima‘ and I must say many of them were very nice.

I really liked two but I felt one fitted me a little better than the other. So there you go! I read that one woman tried on about 100 dresses, so I was thinking to myself  ‘Am I just not trying enough or what?‘. But after seeing that dress all the others that I saw in other shops just didn’t appeal to me anymore. I was set on that one.

We had to make some altercations to it so we are picking it up next week. I also bought shoes from a shop literally next door from the dress shop, so I pretty much have everything with regards to what I’m wearing!

I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about finding one now. I just have to look after my weight; this dress doesn’t stretch!

The address for this shop in Mexico city is: República de Uruguay, Centro, 06060 Ciudad de México, CDMX

Aisling

Loving The VIP Cinema

We don’t usually go to the cinema very often, mainly due to the fact that many of the films don’t appeal to us, but because I was feeling down the past few days, we decided to go to the cinema to cheer me up. We wanted to see the new Wreck it Ralph film, but unfortunately it was only in Spanish. We kept looking and we found that the new Fantastic Beasts film was out, and in English, so we decided to go to that one!

We noticed however that this was only being shown in the VIP cinema, but we decided to go anyway, and experience it!

So we arrive and the VIP cinema was apart from the main one, and the employees had fancy suits on them and everything just looked expensive and fancy! We pay and then we look around the sitting area; theres a bar with beer, fancy seats, and it was just very posh compared to the normal cinema. We went ahead and bought popcorn, two drinks, nachos and cheese in the normal cinema, and then walked to the VIP which was right beside it. We didn’t know it at the time but if we had bought the food and drink in the VIP area, it would have been more expensive, so lucky us! We go into our room and I was shocked with the seats! They are huge! They are all grouped in two, so you can sit beside your friend etc.

We found our seats and I was surprised at how fancy it was. There was a light beside us, a moveable glass table to put things on, the seats can recline so much and you can relax with your feet up. There’s even a place to charge your phone! The middle part of the two seats can move out of the way so it becomes a sofa. It was so cool.

Then we see that there is a menu and you can press a small button and a waiter comes and takes your order from the menu they provide. They have all sorts; burgers, sushi, salads, desserts, beer. We didn’t order anything else but other people did while watching the film. The waiter would quietly come, take the order, then reappear with the food on a tray.

The seats were also really really comfy! I just loved the experience. These tickets were pretty much double the price of the normal cinema, but we don’t expect to do this much. Maybe once or twice a year maybe? I don’t think we have any of this in Ireland. (From what I know anyway, maybe in Dublin there might be).

But anyway, I really enjoyed the experience. The film was terrible by the way! If you love films that are supposed to be full of action but are instead just minutes and minutes of dialogue and about 4 actions scenes, then this is the film for you! I was actually pretty bored watching it, so I wouldn’t really recommend it, but…. being a VIP was good!

Aisling

A Mexican Birthday Party

Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com

So one of my fiancés aunty just turned 70, so all her family and relatives were invited for a small party in one of my fiancés uncles restaurants. Now I’ve been to a few of these ‘gatherings’, and on a few occasions I really didn’t enjoy myself.

I’m not saying the people at these gatherings are terrible people, they are not at all! They are all just so nice, friendly and every single one of my fiancés relative are lovely people. I’m very lucky to be joining such a loving family. So it’s really not about the company.

My problem is that I can’t speak Spanish well enough to communicate. Well I can speak some Spanish, but I definitely cannot give my input on anything other than ‘What’s your favourite food’, ‘What did you do yesterday?’… etc.

I usually feel sad when I’m at these parties, just due to the fact that I can’t talk. I can’t join in. I can’t give my opinion on anything. So I usually just sit there, look around, and smile when there is a joke being shared. I just feel so uncomfortable. That’s why I usually get anxious going to these events.

So we arrived in Mexico city and we met everyone and thankfully I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. I really enjoyed the day. Although I still didn’t understand pretty much anything, I wasn’t as anxious or stressed when I didn’t understand. I think this was due to the fact that there were about 20 people in the room. Usually I get more anxious when it’s a smaller group.

So I think thats what helped the situation a lot. The thing is I want to talk to people, I want to make jokes, I want to join in, I want people to see the real me, and not the one that just sits there and doesn’t do or say anything. My fiancés family don’t know what I’m like, and I really want to show them. So it’s difficult. I feel like they see my body but not my personality.

I suppose I want them to see ‘Look, this is who your nephew/cousin is going to marry…. sometimes she’s funny, she enjoys talking about this or that… she seems like a nice person, I know why Rafael is with her’.

I guess I just want to seem interesting, because when someone doesn’t speak your own language, it’s hard to get to know that person and find out what they are like. Then you kind of ignore the person because whatever you say to them they won’t understand, so you just keep away from them.

And I don’t want people to think that of me. I think my fiancés relatives are beginning to see what I’m like though. Most of them speak English so that helps ALOT! But you know, when they are together they just speak Spanish.

There are a few more gatherings (Mexican families LOVE family gatherings) so I hope they will go ok too. I just wish my Spanish was great, and I could blabber to all of them. Not perfect, but good enough that I can speak fluently, confidently and get my point across. That’s all I want for the moment.

It’s very frustrating… and these are the times when I really miss Ireland and being able to speak English to everyone.

Aisling.