A very late post, but since the celebration was memorable for me I want to write it down, as the phrase goes in Spanish "más vale tarde que nunca". On the night of the 15th we went to the university to celebrate "El Grito". I actually missed "El Grito" as I wasn't expecting it to be at 11pm (since 11pm is midnight in Mexico City), I was expecting it at midnight. The main motivator for me to go was to show the celebration to Yuliia.

On the 16th, my mom had a big party at home. It was very fun. We played several games, we danced and at the end we sang karaoke. There was a lot of really tasty Mexican food.
It was a really fun night.

On Saturday, I didn't end up going to my uncle`s house because there was such a long line. Instead, Maribel, Yuliia and I went to watch my mom dance. Many groups performed little numbers in the university theater. It was cool for Yuliia to watch the traditional Mexican dances. Besides the folk dances, a group danced belly dance and my mom's group danced`tango.
After that we went home and played many board games. Cuban domino, Nerds, Marrana. Marrana was super funny as we did a "Ratonera" for punishment to the losers. A Ratonera is where a person passes between the legs of everybody and gets spanked (everybody forms in a line to deal the punishment). It was hilarious, Yuliia couldn't stop laughing even though she was the one that lost. We played all night till 4am. Really fun.

On Sunday we woke up late, watched a bit of TV, ate pancakes and then went to my father's house to celebrate Father's Day. He cooked some steaks at the grill. There was tasty potato, Rajas (cheese with jalapeño), nopales and other things. Very tasty, I had a good time. I also learned how to do some card tricks.
At night there was Nerds again and this time I was last place.

Today will be a long day full of activities because it is my last day in Juàrez. Should be fun.

On Friday, we went to the market to buy some things for the road, we would take a long trip to Lipova Dolina. The driver took us to Simferopol (a 90 minute drive), and then we took a 13 hour train to Sumy, then Yuliia's dad would pick us up and take us to Lipova Dolina. The train was a bit more modern than the other one, having a electrical outlet, a sensor telling you when the bathroom was open and slicker looking doors. Again, we were fortunate to get a room all to ourselves. Because I could connect my computer (only at night, as they don't let electricity work in daylight), Yuliia and I could watch a movie and we watched Inside Man, the Spike Lee movie about a brilliant bank robbery. The movie is fantastic (I had seen it before) and I was glad to see Yuliia enjoy it so much. The movie is clever and full of suspense, but it also makes one think about forgiveness and other important subjects. Besides the movie, I did a bit of math but mostly I read "A Game of Thrones" which I have been reading since and I am three quarters of the way through (it is amazing so far).
When we reached Sumy, I was surprised to see Anatoly (Yuliia's brother) there to pick us up with Vladimir (Yuliia's father). On the drive to Lipova I slept most of the way, but when I woke up I was in awe at the beautiful Full Moon. A moon that was at times yellow and at some times even reddish. It was really incredible. When we reached the home at 4:30am, we ate all together. We ate Borsch, green Borsch which replaces red beets with spinach and other greens. It was very tasty. It was very nice to meet Yuliia's mother and father.

Saturday was a lazy day. We stayed all day at home. I mostly did reading but at night I worked hard on my number theory homework. Saturday was an important holiday in Ukraine as May 9th they celebrate the end of World War II. Anatoly and Vladimir went out to party but I stayed home. We had a nice dinner all together.

Sunday was a day when more of Yuliia's relatives would come for dinner, but weirdly they didn't come. However we had quite a feast, with tasty pork meat, kasha (who knows what it is but it is tasty), bread and other nice things. I had a great time. At night I called my mom to wish her a Happy Mother's Day and I also enjoyed playing with Yuliia's dogs a bit. At night some guests arrived but I was working hard on number theory so I didn't get to see much of them. I also had some fun explaining some concepts to Yuliia about number theory. I was surprised how well she understood (I could tell she understood as she then explained it to Anatoly). I showed her why most numbers are not squares (the density of square numbers is 0) and then I told her how cool it is that the density of squarefree numbers is 6/(pi^2).

On Monday we went to a nearby town for a dentist appointment for Yuliia and to drop off Anatoly at the bus station. However when we got to the dentist, we found out her appointment was Tuesday not Monday. Yuliia felt much better (she was nervous about the dentist), and we went walking around shopping around the town. They have a nice looking church and a cool bazaar. When we got home, we walked a bit outside to see the Lipo tree and some other nice trees. There is a flower that is in danger of extinction that grows in Yuliia's backyard and that is pretty cool. At night, Yuliia and I tried to teach her mom (Valentyna) how to dance salsa, but she 's shy. However she seemed very happy to see Yuliia and me dance and she seemes to enjoy dancing to merengue. There were a lot of laughs and a lot of smiles.

On Tuesday we went to the nearby town again. While Yuliia was in her appointment, Vladimir and I went around looking for a book for Yuliia, so we walked around the bazaar, which was quite nice. It was also nice to be alone with Vladimir and have to work on talking withoug learning each others languages. I like this kind of encounters, although I must admit I have been reading even more than usual while being in Lipova Dolina as I can't really talk to anyone but Yuliia.
Back home, I've read more and now written this whole account of my trip. Yuliia and I will be heading back to the US in two days (Thursday) and then it will be time to do lots of math to catch up and also prepare to move to a new apartment, plus the playoffs for the soccer tournament are coming up. Lots of exciting things coming up.

On Sunday, my uncle had a Christmas get together. There was very good food and there were some fun conversations. It was cool to see Eric again. I had a really good time.

This Wednesday, it was time to have the Christmas at my dad's apartment (my dad wouldn't be here, because he would be celebrating with my grandparents). Yuliia was knitting a present for my mom for over 30 hours and finished at 6:30pm. We would have guests at 8pm, had to shower, dress and cook one dish. Of course, I was ready (without the dish), but Yuliia needed more time, as she also needed to wrap a couple of gifts (I had done all the wrapping the day before). The cooking finally ended at 10pm, but I am sure the guests had no trouble as there were snacks, wine and it is never boring to be in a conversation with my uncle. The food was delicious, there was Vareniki (the dish Yuliia and I cooked), beef with mushrooms (my mom's holiday dish), chile rellenos (my favorite Mexican dish), chiles en ahogada (a popular holiday Mexican dish, which is very difficult to make and also super spicy but delicious), a salad (made by my sister) and two desserts (one made by Anthea and another by Mary who also made both chile dishes). Being late with our cooking (Yuliia and I) was actually good as it gave time to my sister's boyfriend to arrive in time for dinner after having dinner with his family.

Opening gifts was fun, I was specially excited for Yulichka, who hadn't opened gifts before (not a tradition in her family to wrap the gifts). She actually had terrific presents and I had excellent ones too. I was very happy seeing the happy faces when people saw my gifts, specially Yuliia's face as it is my first Christmas with her.

After Christmas, when everyone left, Yuliia and I danced a little bit and then I called my family in Chihuahua to wish them a Merry Christmas. It was a little funny to me, to call my father and then speak to my cousin Jaime, my cousin Annie, Annie's husband Chili, my aunt Yayi, my aunt Tati and my grandmother. I like extended families. Lots of love and friendship.

I am very happy and I had a wonderful time.

The drive back from San Carlos was a bit long. I got fined for speeding when I was near El Paso. I was very surprised as I was very careful not to speed. What happened was that when I crossed from New Mexico to Texas, the speeding limit changes from 70 to 65 (only if it is night), so I got pulled over pretty quickly when I got into Texas. I was very annoyed, but quickly I got to see Yuliia and we went out to IHOP at midnight and had a nice meal together after a week of not seeing each other.

On Sunday we saw some movies and at night we went salsa dancing. It was fun. On Tuesday, I played some poker with my friends and I won (second place was my sister). On Wednesday we went salsa dancing again and it was awesome as there was a live band. It is incredible how much better dancers there are in El Paso than in Hanover.
Thursday was Thanksgiving and it was awesome. To start the day I went to play football with my friends. I didn't play as well as I would have liked but I had a great time. After football we went to my uncle's house and had a delicious Thanksgiving meal.
On Friday, Yuliia and I drove to Williams, AZ. We left a bit late because we wanted to do some black Friday shopping to buy Christmas presents. We arrived at Williams at about 11pm (more than 9 hours of driving).

Saturday we went to see the Grand Canyon. It is the second time I see it, but what an impact it makes. We took like a million pictures. We spent almost five hours looking at different views of the Canyon. It was also a wonderful day to see it as the Sun was at its full power with no clouds to spoil the redness of the canyon.

After the canyon we drove to Las Vegas which is a much longer drive that I was expecting (David had told us on Sunday that he thought it was 2.5 to 3.5 hours, but it was more than 5). When we got to Vegas super tired, we arrived to the Luxor hotel and we got lost 45 minutes looking for our room carrying many bags. We were very frustrated and finished the night in a not nice mood (a beautiful day didn't end perfect due to bad service in the hotel). The next day we started a bit sad because of the previous night, but it quickly turned into good as the buffet at the Excalibur was tasty. After that we went to the Venetian to the Madame Tussauds museum. I was very impressed with some sculptured such as Andre Agassi and Angelina Jolie but not as impressed with others such as Eddy Murphy and Brad Pitt. The museum had a very fun scary place where you would go into a sort of haunted part of the museum and actors, things and sounds would try to scare you (it worked several times).

After Madame Tussauds we had a nice coffee at the beautiful Venetian hotel before we ran to the Bellagio to watch the show O which is a very famous show by Cirque Du Soleil. The show was very impressive. I thought it would be better as I enjoyed "La Reve" a lot in March and many people told me this was much better. I think they liked O better because they saw that first and La Reve takes a lot of its ideas from O. After watching the wonderful O, we drove to New York New York to watch the show Zumanity also by Cirque Du Soleil. It is labelled "the sensual side of Cirque Du Soleil" and that is because the show is about sexuality and it has a lot of numbers with topless women and a very sensual number with two men. I liked the show very much, I thought it was very creative and it had amazing acts plus a very artistic feel.
On Monday, we woke up late and had the buffet at the Luxor (again very tasty). After eating I played poker for about 75 minutes while Yuliia had her first experience in slot machines. Yuliia lost $22 in the slots while I won $98 at poker. I had a lot of fun playing, but the highlight was a $10 I won while playing. Yuliia was getting impatient waiting for me and was walking nearby to get me to see her, a guy noticed her and said something about a fifteen year old in the casino. I pointed out she was 22, which I knew because she was my wife. He didn't believe me and said he would go all in to prove she wasn't my wife. I said "Really?" and he retracted (no way he would bet close to $300 for that), but he said he would give me $10 if Yuliia would come and kiss me on the cheek. I got the $10 that way.

After poker, we went to the show Criss Angel: Believe a show between the magician and Cirque Du Soleil. The show was very interesting as it had a lot of magic tricks but with a story behind it. I loved it. I like magic shows a lot, but here it was interesting to see art and magic combine for a very interesting experience. I was expecting some crazier magic though at the beginning because they showed a clip of some magic tricks Criss Angel has performed in his TV show Mindfreak.
After the show we walked in the Forum shops of Ceasar's Palace and just enjoyed our last night in Vegas.

On Tuesday morning we left the hotel and went to get some crepes to the Paris hotel. Saw a lot of people as there was an FSA convention (Federal Student Aid), I have no idea what sorts of things they do at an FSA conference but the keynote speaker was the Secretary of Education (maybe the next president if the Cylons attack us) and I thought that was interesting. We went to buy souvenirs, and then it was time to hit the road. At the beginning of the drive we crossed Hoover Dam and we stopped because I wanted to see it (it is awesome) and then drive time. It took about 12-13 hours of driving and we got to El Paso at 3:30am (this time with no speeding ticket).
Slept five hours, woke up and got ready to leave El Paso. After many hours on flights and buses we got to our house in NH at 3am.

A lot of fun things have been happening in my life and a lot of happiness. I am happy to be in New England again and ready to do lots of math and more fun things with Yuliia.

Life is beautiful.

After a billion hours of traveling (18), I got to my home, but was planning on leaving as soon as possible to reach Chihuahua and discuss math olympiad stuff. I called David and he told me it was okay to arrive the next morning. Hence I stayed home and played Nerds with my mom, sister and Flayz, I am so bad at that game it is silly. I had a good time, then slept three hours (12am to 3am) before I had to wake up to take the bus to Chihuahua to get there before 10am.
Took the bus, arrived at the hotel where the olympians are staying and then we went to the university on a university bus. I taught for about 2 hours (I think I did a poor job) and it was fun.
Went to have dinner with my family (grandparents, aunts and my father). After dinner I took the university bus with the olympians to go back to Juarez. We were supposed to discuss olympic stuff but we mostly just chatted and I also was on the phone for over an hour (I miss Yuliia).
When I got home I played Nerds, then watched two episodes of Seinfeld, then I went to sleep.
Finally after many days of constant traveling, I will stay in my home for over 9 days. 9 days of peace. I will probably read lots of comics and hopefully do some math (I came prepared with a couple of papers I want to read).

I am in Chihuahua right now. David picked me up yesterday and we drove to Chihuahua (with his wife Diana). We arrived at the Bachilleres 4 High School at 3pm just in time for the class David was giving (with tiny help from me) to high school teachers of the city of Chihuahua with respect to Olympiad problems (hopefully we´ll get teachers to teach fun math to their students).

Later that night, I went to my grandparents´ house and saw my grandparents (duh!), my aunt, my cousin and Angelita (cleaning lady that I know since I was a baby). I had a nice time talking to them. My grandfather is in really bad shape, he is in his bed all day, mostly sleeping and he can barely speak (he doesn´t say much unless he has to answer questions like "do you want more milk?"). It is quite saddening to see my grandfather so weak. I don´t know if I´ll ever see him again. In happier news it is a joy to see my grandmother. My grandmother and my aunt remind me a lot of my sister.

I also read Batman: Year One by Frank Miller. I had read this before but I only remembered one scene from the comic. The comic is short, but it is fantastic. It shows Batman when he begins and how he makes many mistakes and learns from them to become a much better crime fighter. It was also nice to see how "Long Halloween" continues the storyline form Year One as a possible Year 2 or Year 3, since the mafia boss in Long Halloween was introduced in Year One, also it gets his scar from a fight with catwoman. A strange thing was how catwoman goes from being a prostitute in Year One to being a high class lady in Long Halloween, I guess stealing all that money got her to a higher status. The comic is great and it is short (only 90 pages). I highly recommend it.

Went to my uncle's house to congratulate him on his birthday and to watch the EuroCup match Spain versus Russia. My uncle is form Spain and my grandparents are from Spain so naturally my mom feels Spaniard and I got a little of that, so I always root for the Spanish team in futbol (I would probably root for Mexico if they play each other). The game was pretty good and Spain won 4-1. The first half was close, but it looked like Russia didn't come out to play in the second half, maybe the late minute second goal from Spain at the end of the first half was too much of a psychological blow to the Russian team, or maybe Spain came out with a much better team in the second half. In any case, Russia almost made the game 3-2 when a player missed an easy shot (in minute 89). It would have been much better for Russia to lose 3-2 instead of 4-1.

I went to eat to "Sinbad" with my uncle, my mom, Anthea, Lencho and Emmanuel. I love eating there, I like their lamb curry a lot. I hadn't seen Emmanuel in a long time (or talked to him) so I was very happy to see him. After eating I went to his house to hang out a bit. We played "FIFA 2008" on the XBox 360. He beat me twice, but I managed to beat him once. The game was quite fun, the controls are a little different from what I am used to in a FIFA game (usually on defense, the strike button is the one I would use to strip away a ball, but in this game it is the pass button for that and some other button is to change players which it would usually be the pass button before).

My mom gave a salsa lesson and while my house had salsa/merengue music, I danced a song with my sister and then one with my mom. She tried to teach me a new salsa move, but I didn't get it right away, I need to practice it.

At night, I went to see David and Perrito to discuss some Olympiad stuff. We went to IHOP as we usually do. I really wanted some pancakes, so eating there hit the spot (although I probably should have ordered more pancakes and less eggs). We discussed some Olympiad stuff, but mainly just joked around. As usual I had a great time with them. We are very confident of the performance we'll have this year in the Olympiad. We think we're going to win (Chihuahua hasn't won since 1997). Manuel got a silver medal in the Centroamerican math Olympiad (held in Honduras last week) and looks very strong for next year. Memo is going to Spain for the International Math Olympiad next month and is the second best in the team, so he should be the best in the country next year (as the number one graduates from High school this year and doesn't compete next year).

I did a lot of things in the morning. Going to class, getting tea for the Math department, organizing a book drive to raise money for charity in Latin America, get a form that I need to get my advancement to candidacy. It was fun being productive.

My uncle arrived at Hanover at 3:45pm. I gave them the tour of the Math department and they met my office mate Amir and his girlfriend Rachel and we ended up talking for over an hour, which was very fun with my uncle making funny remark after funny remark. After that we went to my uncle's hotel to register and stuff, then we came back to Dartmouth and saw the Orozco murals. We spent a good while there analyzing the murals. I really like the paintings, I think I should go there more often, it is quite a masterpiece.

For dinner we went to a Thai place. We spent there a long time talking (between slow service and wanting to talk at the end of the meal). With my uncle and aunt, I usually talk about politics, so that's what we talked about.

My uncle and my aunt got to see my house and then we said good bye.

It was a nice day.

Had a good day. Had a meeting with Carl and we discussed a probability problem. I'll prepare something for next week.

I went to the comic bookstore today and I still haven't received my "All-Star Superman" comic that I ordered a while ago but there were several really cool comics that arrived that I bought. Right now I am reading "The Dark Phoenix Saga" an X-Men classic. I don't think I can be considered knowledgeable in comics without reading this saga (like not being able to consider yourself a filmie if you haven't watched the Godfather). Looking forward to reading it.

I picked up my mom and sister from the Manchester airport and I was very happy to see them. We drove around Manchester and then Lebanon and then Hanover. I didn't find a Wal-Mart (to buy towels for my mom and sis). We ate at EBA's as it is the only open restaurant at midnight. I ate some fries and my mom and sis ate salads. The waiter spoke Spanish.

Back home, it is quite late and I am ready to sleep (not before reading one more chapter in the Dark Phoenix saga). I will sleep on my comic book couch (I usually read comics on my couch instead of my bed) while my mom and sis sleep on my bed. I am looking forward to tomorrow as salsa dancing will be epic.