Thursday...

Our group in the Comexus room:Kate, Jen, Jennifer, Gretchen, me, Reed, Derrick, Shawna

My presentation

Reed discusses her middle school outside Cuernavaca

Jen teaches at a college outside DF and didn't start school until October!

Kate was always snapping shots.  If she ever missed a photo op, Reed and Regina took up the cause.

This is Jessica who works in the Comexus office.  She was in charge of us over the three days.

So Thursday morning the wake up call came early.  I had traveled by plane, I had gotten up at the crack of dawn with the kids on Wednesday, and I had walked all over creation with Gretchen.  I also stayed up a few extra minutes to work on my presentation.  We got up and went to the community dining room for our order as you wish breakfast.  My days are running together, so I'm not sure who was with us that morning, but we were not all at the same table.  Gretchen and I seemed to wait for 20 minutes to get a menu.  You can see where this is going.  Then we waited to order.  Then huevos rancheros came out like they were going out of style, but not what we ordered.

Finally our food came and we had to scarf because we were on US time again.  Jessica rounded us all up to go to the Comexus building.  We walked the miles through the Zona Rosa (think East Nashville) until we got to the building.  We were welcomed by Dr. B (someone very important) and Maggie (who we had seen in DC).  We spent the next two and a half hours listening to each other discuss our school situations.  There were several in middle schools (secundarias), several in college-ish programs (tecnológicos, universidades), and maybe one in high school (prepa).  We were spread all over the country from metropolis to the jungle.  It was really neat to see pictures from other teachers' classrooms and of their students.  The presentation was even helpful on the front in; it gave us all a chance to think about our experiences- the good, the bad and the ugly.

After those hours together (we had coffee, cookies, and great entertainment), we were given goody bags with books and pens and such.  I received my insurance card.  We all piled into four taxis to head to lunch at yet again, somewhere famous.  I don't know what it was famous for.  I think it was once a hostel or some such.

I was in my Culiacán mindset, so I wasn't ready for the 45 minute taxi ride.  Oh, the city!

We ate a huge and delicious meal.  Again, enjoying each other's company.  At the beginning of our meal, we all had great visions of site-seeing at the end until our reception at 6pm.  After we ate and waited on the bill (that Comexus paid, as well as taxis and other meals at the hotel), it was already 3:30.  By then, the better plan seemed to be to go back to the hotel and rest until the reception.  I planned on getting a good two hours of sleep in.  No such luck.  I lay down, but I did not sleep.

Gretchen had spent that extra time with Jessica and Maggie trying to make her kids and husband legal.

She got back just in time for us to walk out the door as a group to go to our reception...