Stream of Conciousness Post (with bullet points to aid understanding)

• I made granola bars today. As a devotee of Quaker Chewy bars I was very pleased to see they turned out almost the same. When I have Chewy bars in the house I limit myself to one a day, I now have have an entire batch sitting here and a recipe...this could create an out of control situation.
• Biking and running this past week I have encountered 3 dead dogs, 7 dead frogs, 1 dead snake, 1 dead marmot-looking thing and 1 dead baby monkey. Bad week for the animals, good week for the vultures (which we have a ton of).
• My host Aunt, also our neighbor, has 2 chihuahua dogs who just had puppies. One of them had to have a C-section. My aunt and a friend asked me one afternoon if I wanted to go for a ride with them, just for something to do, but forgot to mention the fact that we were actually taking the dog to the vet. We arrived at said "vet", who I'm sure is a trained vet, but his "clinic" is a little room on the back of the house next to the horse stalls. Typical around here. I spent the afternoon watching the dog have surgery. I'm shocked I didn't pass out, seeing as I don't care at all for blood, but it was really interesting. She had two puppies. Only one survived. The whole thing only cost $60. Which, apparently, is neither cheap nor expensive for this type of procedure.
• I've started teaching adult English classes in my town on Monday and Tuesday nights. I waited to start them until I felt like I was well settled and known enough in the town and I'm glad I did. People, mostly, now know who I am and why I'm here and the classes are going well so far.
• This Sunday I went with one of they guys from my English class, and his female cousin, on a "hike". I put hike in quotations because it was mostly a: bush-whacking, log-crawling, stream and marsh crossing adventure. Hike does not appropriately describe it. The most interesting, infuriating and ironic part of the whole situation is that this adventure took place about 100 yards from a well maintained road. Why did we go the hard way? You ask. Well, I believe it was more about my companion being able to show off his machete skills. I repeatedly suggested we walk on the road, but my words were wasted, as that clearly was not an option in his mind. When we got to the top of the hill we were climbing we had a little picnic, on a cement pillar. There was much commenting on how beautiful it was to be in the unobstructed nature there at the top of the hill, but no one except me seemed to notice the whole way up we followed canals and piping that bring water to the town . Concrete and pipes are a really beautiful part of the natural landscape, if you ask me.
• Last Sunday we all went over to the "Fiestas" in Marsella, the town next to ours. There was food, fair type stands and snacks, a ferris wheel, dancing and handi-craft exhibits. I learned some interesting things:

1. Ferris wheels are called Chicago wheels in Spanish
2. "Shoshuy" means Chop Suey in Spanish
3. On fair rides, like the aforementioned Chicago wheel, it is acceptable to assemble them with bent nails where screws should be. I didn't notice this until I was about 30 or so feet in the air. Not going on one of those again.

That's all for now... more thoughts to come.