Bike Ride in Austin

This is a little out of order, but about 3 weeks ago Julio and I both had Saturday off and decided to take a day trip to Austin. We packed by bicycle in the truck and rented a bicycle for Julio when we arrived downtown. Austin has a great trail around the lake that's downtown. It's a very narrow lake (I always thought it was a river), but the path is pretty wide and makes a 10 mile loop around the lake. It was a beautiful day out for a bike ride and there were lots of people out jogging, biking, blading and walking on the trail. We had a great ride and got a good workout too :-)
Here's some pictures of the trail and of the huge fish we saw on the bank- it was probably about 30 lbs. Next time we're thinking of renting kayaks.

Halloween

For Halloween we had a little pre-party at Cat and Dani's house with the girls. Julio had to work that night and work early the next day. Halloween night we went to Karla's sister's annual Halloween party at the Alameda theater downtown. Her sister and husband rent out the fourth floor of an old theater in downtown San Antonio every year and hire a DJ and several bartenders. The party was a blast and we saw lot's of funny/interesting costumes. The funniest one had to be a girl that dressed as the tabloid favorite "Octomom." She had a long haired wig, big fake lips, and sling filled with eight little baby dolls. Pretty disturbing lol.

I was Madonna if you can't tell. I'd say I did pretty well for a costume on a budget :-)

Other updates:
As many of you may know, we've had quite the run-around with our apartment building since we moved in. The latest episode has been the frequent flooding of our unit after heavy rainstorms. After the third time it occurred without adequate exterior repairs being done by the management we threatened to break the lease if they didn't move us to a 3rd floor apartment with an extra room. So Friday we will be moving upstairs to a larger apartment that has an extra study with a built in desk. Although it doesn't have many of the upgrades we currently have, it is more spacious and the extra room will be especially nice for visitors (that is a hint to everyone to come and visit us!).

Friday is the last day of my internship. I signed a contract with my internship organization to write the report that I have been researching for throughout my internship. It will be a big project, but the majority of the research is done and I expect to be able to finish it by mid December. In the mornings I will continue working for the IT company. I am job hunting again, but more than searching and applying for jobs, I am keeping in touch with the contacts I have made during the course of my internship to see if anything turns up that is well suited to my interests and skills.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Julio's Dad comes to Visit

Julio's dad had bands playing in Texas and so he came to visit us 2 weeks ago. He arrived on Thursday the 22nd and rented a car to drive up to Dallas for the band's performance Friday night. Saturday night they performed in Wichita Falls just North of Dallas. Sunday we met his dad and his uncle in Austin at a nightclub where the band was playing. It was a long night since the band didn't start until 12:00 and played for about 2 hours. Then we went to IHOP with the band and had a very long drive back to San Antonio due to the torrential downpour of rain. What should have been a 1 hour drive took us 2.5 hours plus the time we took to change the tire that blew out on my car!! Julio and I both took Monday off work to spend time with Tony and rest. Monday night Tony made delicious sopes for all our friends. Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons we took him sightseeing and he cooked for us. I did make lasagna on Thursday night for those of you who are wondering why our guest was doing all the cooking!lol. If you know how well Julio's dad cooks, you'd understand. Anyways we had a great time visiting and eating lots of delicious food, and Julio even got a free laptop out of his dad's visit! haha.

Brownsville/ South Padre Island

Last Friday afternoon we left for Brownsville with Cat and her sisters Danielle and Dianna. Brownsville is Cat's hometown and is located on the border of Mexico about 4 hours southeast of San Antonio. Cat's dad lives in Brownsville as well as her stepmother and 3 half sisters. Her mom lives on the other side of the border in Matamoros, Mexico. We didn't leave on Friday until 6pm so we arrived in Brownsville around 10 and went straight to bed.

Saturday we went to a restaurant to eat super size breakfast tacos. We then went to run errands with Dani and Dianna to Pets Mart and Wal-Mart after they discovered their dogs and backyard were covered in ticks...gross. We went out to lunch at their favorite Mexican restaurant for their dad's birthday and then went home for cake and ice cream. We spent Saturday night at home playing with Cat's little sisters (Janice is 8, Ife is 2 and Sophia is 2 months old) and watching movies.

Sunday Julio and I borrowed Dianna car and drove 30 minutes to the coast to South Padre Island. It was a beautiful day and we spent 2 hours just swimming in the ocean and then went to a nearby restaurant for some fresh shrimp and cold beers :-) very relaxing.

Labor Day Weekend

For labor day weekend Julio and I both took Sunday and Monday off work. We wanted to take a short trip, but money is tight and Cat's boyfriend Ben was in town visiting so we decided to stay home. Friday we went to dinner and bowling since there was a pretty intense rain storm that prevented us from going to First Friday downtown. Saturday we had a "couples night out" with Cat & Ben and Dani & Brent (Dani is Cat's sister). Sunday we went to Lulu's for brunch with Cat & Ben. Lulu's is a local restaurant that was on the Travel Channel's "Man vs Food" a few weeks ago. For those of you that haven't seen the show, basically the host, Adam, travels around the country to partake in food challenges-- which are usually just super size versions of some type of food, or eating a large quantity of something. He came to San Antonio and ate at 3 local restaurants here: Chunky Burger, where he ate the spiciest burger- it had jalapenos, serrano peppers, habanero peppers and ghost peppers which are 16 times spicier than habanero peppers...ouch; at Big Lou's Pizza he ate a ginormous pizza- I don't remember exactly what the measurements were, but each slice was the length of his arm...he didn't eat the entire thing luckily; and, at Lulu's he ate their famous chicken fried steak smothered in queso and the giant cinnamon roll.

We ordered the 3 pound cinnamon roll to split between the four of us and didn't even finish all of it. Ben and Julio split the chicken fried steak which was about a foot long and looked pretty disgusting. After brunch we went to check out one of the local art museums. The McNay is a very unique art museum. The feature exhibit was a collection of international art collector,Tom Slick's paintings. He had a few Picassos and Georgia Okeefe paintings. The museum had a nice impressionist collection, including a few Monets, and a great sculpture garden. The building itself is also pretty impressive. Above are pictures from the courtyard that had beautiful tiling and fountains. After the museum we had another barbeque at Dani and Brents house and game night afterwards.

Sunday Julio and I did some flea market shopping, but didn't really find anything interesting. We went to one of the Thai restaurants that I went to a lot in college so Julio could try out the bubble tea-- a tea filled with tapioca balls. He didn't like it. Sunday evening we just relaxed at home and rented a movie.

My Birthday

So..... I did actually make a post about my birthday the day after, but I got distracted and when I came back to my computer, my internet froze and my blog hadn't been saved. Anyways, birthday was good- I had to work Saturday, but Saturday night we went out with friends to a new french bisto/ chocolate bar called Coco's. The atmosphere was very posh and they had delicious chocolate martinis, which is their specialty. The dessert menu was also pretty extensive. Julio and I shared a chocolate lava cake with raspberry sauce. Afterwards we went out to a new night club that had opened nearby Coco's. The club was nice- they played good music and we had a fun time dancing with friends.

Sunday was a day of feasting. Cat took me out to breakfast and then Dani and Brent had a BBQ for me at their house. They grilled chicken, steaks and sausage, and baked me a cake. Very sweet :-)

New Job

On Thursday I started a new part-time job. I really wasn't getting enough work hours at the lawyers, so I had been looking for another part-time job since June. Fortunately, one of the client companies of the International Business Development Center, which is a part of the Free Trade Alliance where I do my internship in the afternoon, was looking for a part-time employee and my boss referred me to him. The company is called GlasIT Consulting, Corp. It is an IT consulting company based in Monterrey, Mexico. The company entered into the IBDC "incubator" program which is for foreign companies wanting to expand their market into the U.S. Client companies are assisted with everything from market research for their product to physical office space and training programs. My work will consist of several different things: researching, contacting and recruiting potential clients in the U.S., coordinating technical interviews and meetings between consultants in Mexico and customers in the U.S., and serving as the point of contact between GlasIt consultants and consulting recruiters (negotiating salaries, gathering details about projects, matching consultants to specific jobs, etc.). The other part of my job is translating and revising various documents (consultant resumes, website, etc.) and assessing the English proficiency of consultants wanting to work in the U.S. My boss' name is Jesus. He is in his late 40's early 50's and is very friendly and patient. The first 2 days of work were a little overwhelming because not only was I trying to understand what exactly the company's core business was and what their expectations were for my position, but also I had to get accustomed to switching my brain back over to Spanish mode and learn many new technology related vocab terms. Luckily Jesus was understanding of the fact that I'm not a techy and emphasized that my job is to represent the company and build relationships with American clients through my knowledge of both languages and cultures. So far I am enjoying my job and am happy to have the opportunity to use my Spanish on a day to day basis.

The GlasIT office is several cubibles located inside the IBDC center at the Port of San Antonio. Although this location is pretty far from our apartment (it takes me 25 minutes to drive there in the mornings and about 35 minutes to get home in the afternoons), I just stay there all day and do my internship at a different cubicle in the same office. The office environment is very different from the Alliance's downtown location in the International Center. Even though it's not as nice, my supervisor (the director of the IBDC) told me that he thinks I will like working here because it's much less office work and more opportunity to interact with the client companies. Besides GlasIT some of the other companies at the IBDC are: Archer&Moreno Realty- a real estate and property management company, Continental Green Produce- importers of avocado and producers of guacamole and other avocado products and Gamea- a company that designs and sells promotional material such as plastic coca cola tables or corona umbrellas.

I work at GlasIT in the mornings from 8:30-12:30 and then do my internship from 1:00-5:00. On the weekends I work for the lawyer, anywhere from 8-15 hours. I began an office/file reorganization project at the beginning of the summer and told him that I would finish it, so we'll see how much longer I'll be working weekends. It's fine for now and the extra money helps a lot.