todavía estoy viva

My apologies for having been MIA. It's been a busy week.. and I don't think this week (our last.. qué triste) will be any better. I'll try to get some posts up soon, I'm super behind on pictures and everything. We went to San Miguel de Allende yesterday and Querétaro today, so the backlog is growing. The majority will probably have to wait until after I get home.

In other news, Amber and I had a conversation in our sleep the other night. In Spanish. I guess at least we are practicing.

lo peor que me pasó en el DF

I fought the locker...

...and the locker won.

This is the worst thing that happened to me while I was in Mexico City. I have really poor depth perception when I'm not wearing my glasses, and I'm super smart so I don't wear them all the time. So, Saturday night I bent down to pick up my water bottle, which had fallen between my bed and the locker, and smashed my face into the corner of the locker. This picture actually doesn't do the injury justice. The wound was quite deep and bled a fair amount; I was actually worried that I might have to get stitches. Luckily, it stopped bleeding, and my tetanus shots are up to date so I wasn't too terribly concerned by the next day. It hurt like hell though.. and I got a nice bruise, which then proceeded to turn yellow. Super attractive. Just thought I'd share that with you folks.

popurrí

There is a really, really whiny little girl next door who has approximately 84 nuclear-grade meltdowns every day. She seems to have a sixth sense for when she is going to irritate the most people possible in a ten block radius.. especially if those people (*cough* me *cough*) are trying to nap. The whining and the crying and the shrieking is really just a bit much. I will definitely not miss her when I leave.. which, incidentally, is less than two weeks from now. Hard to believe we've been here this long.

This weekend we just bummed around and went to some museums. Friday night we went out with some friends from school, as it was Andrew's last night here. We went on a tour of the city with the callejoneadas; click the link to see who they are/what they do. It was an interesting experience for me in particular. I'll post some pictures & an explanation eventually.. ¡ojalá! After that we went to Zilch for a couple of hours. Jaime, Amber and I were pretty tired so we left "early" (probably around 2am).

Saturday, we got up, ate breakfast, and then went back to bed. Well, Amber and Jaime napped, but I messed around with blogger until I finally got up my Mexico City post. We eventually went to the Museo Casa Diego Rivera after we had lunch, which is a museum dedicated to Diego Rivera located in his childhood home. There were a couple of contemporary exhibits too, but nothing by which I was particularly impressed. Afterwards, we came back here and I napped.. not sure about the others. About 8:30 we went downtown and got pizza at a place called Peter's Pizza. It was super good but we had way too much food. After that, we walked around for a while and then went to El Bar. Apparently Saturday is the big night for salsa there so we wanted to check it out. At first it was okay, but after a while this guy started bothering us. He sat at our table, insisted we move to his table, we said no, so then he brought the case of beer that he had purchased to our table for us to drink. Well, we're not stupid, so none of us touched it. We didn't want to be rude so we each "danced" with him a little bit, but I swear he was on drugs. None of his sentences made sense, except when he was trying to get one of us to go home with him. At first it was just annoying, but eventually he started to creep us out. José, one of the dance instructors, and his friend (girlfriend?) came to sit with us after a while because he could see that the guy was bothering us. Eventually he picked Amber up (as in lifted her in the air) on the dance floor so we left immediately after that. I think we were too worried about being rude, because none of the Mexican women there paid him the slightest bit of attention, unless it was to tell him that NO they did not want to dance with him and NO they did not want any of his beer and NO they were not going to go home with him. We really probably should have been more firm. For my part, I didn't interact with him as much as the other girls because I ended up dancing with a different weirdo-- long hair, tight pants and ugly boots. It was an excellent combination. Really the icing on the cake was that every ten second he would say "Eso, eso es (For the intonation, it was more like "Esssoohh, essooohhh es"; translates as "That's it, there you go," because I actually kind of have an idea of what I'm doing.) It was kind of creepy but he really seemed pretty harmless so I think it was more funny.. or, at the very least, it's more funny now. At any rate, he was better than the creeper who wouldn't leave us alone. After that, we were pretty disillusioned with the whole going-out scene (not to mention pissed off), so we just went home. It didn't help that earlier in the evening, a man had run by on the sidewalk and slapped Amber's butt (and kept running). We were not exactly pleased. (Sidebar-- the same thing happened to me in Almuñecar, Spain, two years ago... except that the perpetrator in this case was a 12-year-old boy. I'm really not sure which is worse.)

Sunday, we went to the Museo Iconográfico del Quijote, which is a museum entirely full of artists' representations of Don Quijote. Pretty cool. As I mentioned, Rosario essentially started the museum and I believe was in charge of it until she retired. We saw her friend Paco while we were there. I think he runs it now but I could be wrong; at the very least he works there. Part of the reason that we went Sunday is that admission is free.. can't beat free! After that, we shopped a bit and then came home and ate. After lunch, we discovered that we had an avian visitor and spent the next fifteen minutes trying to chase it out of our house. The bird must have flown in through the door/window upstairs that we leave open because of the heat. When I came upstairs he was in the bathroom, and when he heard us he got really agitated, flew around the room, into the wall and then fell down the staircase opening. He seemed okay though because after a while we got him to fly out the door downstairs. After that we napped (or tried to, given that the brat next door had like seven gran mal fits over god knows what). We stayed in the rest of the evening and just kind of hung out. Fortunately the internet was working again because earlier in the day it wasn't. I think we all needed the time to relax.

We started new classes again today. This week, we have a grammar class, two conversation classes, the latin dance class, a class on the history of Mexico and a class on Mexican culture, specifically art. It should be interesting. Hopefully not too much homework this week!

Well, I'm off to relax for an hour before I have to get ready and go to salsa classes. The girls tell me I didn't look half bad Saturday night so hopefully I'm getting something out of it! Now if we could only find some place to take salsa lessons in Marquette...

el DF: parte uno

Last weekend I went to what Mexicans refer to as el DF (“day eff-ay”; Distrito Federal), or Mexico City. Some people from my school were going and after giving it a lot of thought I decided I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I promise, we were extremely careful and very aware of our surroundings at all times. We didn’t have any trouble while we were there at all, and we had a lot of fun. The city is HUGE though (something like 25-30 million inhabitants), and was definitely kind of overwhelming at times.

Kyle, Kelly and I left Thursday afternoon after I got out of classes (they finished earlier in the day). We took a taxi to the bus station to get our tickets for Mexico City. The trip takes about five hours from Guanajuato. Kyle and Kelly had gone the day before to check out the different bus lines and compare prices, and in the end we went with ETN, which was superb. Seriously, it was great. There were only three seats per aisle rather than four, and they were huge, with tons of leg room. You could even recline without feeling like you were squashing the person behind you. They gave us sandwiches and drinks before we got on the bus, and they even had played movies on flip-down TVs. The best part was that it only cost us $190 pesos each, after our student discount (50%), which is roughly $14USD. (One way, but still not bad compared to Greyhound!)

Here's Kelly and I relaxing on the bus!

We arrived about 9pm to the city’s north bus terminal (there are four total). For a bus station, it was huge. I’ve been in smaller airports.. including the one in León that I’ll be flying out of when I come home. From there, we took a secure taxi from the bus station to our hostel. Our taxi driver was super nice. He chatted with us the whole way there about the US and Mexico (he lived in LA for a few years) and was just generally really friendly. He told us he worked in John Travolta’s house for a while.. whether or not this is true is anyone’s guess, but it’s an interesting story nonetheless!

We stayed at the highly recommended Moneda Hostel. Earlier in the day we had booked a three-person room at about $17/night per person. It is only a block away from the city’s historic center, which is called the Zócalo. We didn’t do anything the first night except go to sleep pretty early.

This is a view of our room, with my bed. The window looks into a ventilation shaft.. lovely.

This is the view down our street, Calle Moneda, looking towards the Zócalo. 

This is the view from the fifth floor terrace, looking towards the Zócalo (the big building is the Cathedral).

Friday morning we got up about 9, and my roommates informed me that I’d been talking in my sleep in Spanish.. at least I’m practicing the language, I guess! We ate (free) breakfast at the hostel, and then we went on a walking tour of the city. The hostel contracts a tour company, so we just did their tours all weekend and we were really pleased with them. The walking tour was free for hostel guests, which is cool.

We started at the Templo Mayor. Mexico City was built over top of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, which covered an island of about five square miles, surrounded by a lake. So, basically anywhere you dig in the city you’ll find Aztec ruins. The ruins of the Aztec temple/pyramid were discovered in 1978 by workers laying electricity cables. It’s been restored a bit by the archaeologists to provide a better idea of what it looked like. It’s definitely strange to see an archaeological excavation in the middle of an urban area.

View of the Templo Mayor

The Templo Mayor is kitty-corner from the city’s Cathedral (la Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción de María). The Spaniards had a penchant for razing buildings in the cities they conquered and building over them, which is exactly what happened with the construction of the Catedral Metropolitana. The Cathedral took almost 250 years to build and it is the biggest and the oldest cathedral in the Americas.

Here's me, in front of the east entrance of the tabernacle attached to the Cathedral.

If the building looks crooked, it’s because it is. Mexico City is sinking by something like 10cm/year. Parts of the city have sunk around 30ft in the last century alone, and because the weight is not evenly distributed, very old very heavy buildings are at high risk for damage/collapse. Many, including the Cathedral, actually have hydraulic systems installed underneath in order to mitigate the effects of the sinkage. Isn’t that crazy? I suppose I ought to mention why this is occuring. As I said, the Spaniards built over Tenochtitlan, and eventually expanded the city outward and outward by draining the lake (Lake Texcoco) that surrounded the island city. The soil (which is mostly clay, I believe) is very soft and unstable. Probably not the best idea Hernán Cortés ever had.

After the Cathedral, we went to the Palacio Nacional, which is the government palace. We got checked again for swine flu when we entered. They seem to be taking it really seriously, which is probably good. Hand sanitizer dispensers have been installed everywhere. The biggest reason to visit the Palacio is to see the Diego Rivera murals on its walls. It was so cool!

Here I am in front of the main Diego mural inside the palace.  ¡Qué impresionante!

After the Palacio Nacional, we stopped at the biggest bakery in Mexico City. They had giant wedding and quinceañera (15^th birthday; it’s a huge deal here) cakes everywhere, which was neat to see. After that, we went inside the post office for a few minutes; it’s gorgeous.

The staircase inside the post office

We then walked across the street to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, or Palace (Museum) of Fine Arts. The tour ended there (outside), and the three of us really wanted to go in but we decided to have lunch first. We ate at a little restaurant, tacos and such, and then went back. I loved the museum.. I am an art nerd though. It doesn’t have a ton of paintings, but it does have some really famous murals by the “Big Three”: Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco. There was also a Tamara de Lempicka exhibit, which I really liked. Unfortunately, we weren't there early enough in the day to see the Tiffany stained glass "curtain" in the theatre part of the Palacio, but we still enjoyed the museum.

Palacio de Bellas Artes

Here's me with the famous Siqueiros mural "Nueva Democracia" ("New Democracy"). It's one of my favorites.

After the museum, we went back to the hostel. Then we took a taxi to the Museo Nacional de Antropología and just barely made it there before the 5pm cut-off time. The museum closes it’s doors at 5pm, but it is open until 7pm for those who are already inside. The Anthropology Museum is often compared to our Smithsonian, and we were really looking forward to going. It was cool but I prefer art to artifacts.. it was a lot of bowls and rocks and stuff. There was definitely some interesting Aztec stuff, but overall there was just too much to see. It was really overwhelming. I’m glad we went though.

Here's me in front of "El Paraguas" ("The Umbrella"). It's a large carved pillar with a water fountain around the top.

After that, we went back to the hostel again, ate dinner there and hung out in the room for a while. They were having a party on the top (5^th) floor of the hostel (right above us; it’s like a bar/place for meals) and the music was super loud in our room, so I talked to the girl at the desk and she moved us from the fourth floor to the first, which helped a bit.. not much though because all the rooms are connected by ventilation shafts so everything echoes. But, we were all so tired that night that we pretty much passed out regardless of the music.

Here's our second room. Note the lovely colors on the walls.

Well, that was our first day in Mexico City! I’ll post about the rest as soon as I’m able.

amigos, betabeles y joyas

Well, we decided to stick around here this weekend and try to do some museums and stuff. Tonight is the last night here for our friend Andrew so everyone is going out.. hopefully no salsa tonight though! I went to the class at El Bar last night and I was the only one who showed up for some reason so I basically got a private lesson. Afterwards I met up with some friends from school for someone's birthday and we went back to El Bar and danced more. My feet/legs hurt so bad today! After that Kyle, Andrew, Rebeca (an American friend of Andrew's who works at the CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange) and I went to a bar called Los Lobos and the boys played pool and Rebeca and I chatted a bit. It was weird, they played all American music.. things like Pink Floyd and Metallica, not exactly what you'd expect in Mexico! After that, we went to Zilch (which is kind of a bar but  more a venue for live music) and met Andrew's friend Marcos and his girlfriend. From there, we went to a little place called Why Not and sat for a while. We hadn't been out too much so Andrew was showing us around different places. All of them are so different.. and they have such funny names! It's really strange too that all of them play American music, especially "classic" stuff. They even played David Bowie at Why Not. One thing that is definitely different about being here compared to Granada is that I've met so many people from all over the place. I feel like I'm networking quite a bit. I'm really interested in what Rebeca does with the CIEE. It's funny, too, our undergrad majors/minors are really similar-- she was a sociology major with a Latin American studies minor, with Spanish mixed in there somewhere too. If you don't already know, I have a double major in Spanish and Sociology in Liberal Arts, with a double minor in Art History and Latin American Studies. I'm planning on pursuing a Master's degree in Social Work once I graduate next May.

In other news, I've discovered that I actually really, really like beets (or at least, really fresh Mexican beets). Rosario gave them to us at dinner a few days ago and I was skeptical but I've made sure to eat or at least try everything she's given us and as it turns out, I like beets and I can tolerate bananas. My mother is probably proud. I love Rosario. She is hilarious. Yesterday she was telling us all about the difficulties of finding bras in the appropriate size here, as well as about her love for high heels. Today she gave us each a present! She bought each of us a necklace. We've talked quite a bit about jewelry (since she loves that too.. she loved my rings), so she bought each of us a different necklace. They are all stones hung on leather cord. Mine is three jade stones, since that's my middle name; Amber's has two amber stones (for obvious reasons!) and a silver charm; and Jaime's is three pieces of red coral. They're perfect for each of us!

OH and this is really exciting too. In probably April, I realized that I'd lost the white gold & tanzanite earrings that Charlie had bought for me. I was pretty upset about it, since they were pretty expensive and I have a matching necklace. Well, last night I found them. Here. In Mexico. I was so shocked. They were in a little ziploc bag with a bunch of my cheap earrings which had made its way from Marquette to Clarkston to Guanajuato. It's absolutely ridiculous, but I am so excited!

Anyway, Jaime and Amber and I are going to go walk around and get ice cream before we meet up with everyone. One of these days I'll manage to get pictures on here!

a mitad de camino

Well, I have a post about Mexico City ready but right now I can't upload photos for some reason so I'll have to wait & figure that out.

Our trip is halfway over! This week, we have two conversation classes, a grammar class, pronunciation and diction, legal terminology, and salsa/merengue dancing. I have also started going to El Bar weeknights for salsa lessons. Monday and Tuesday I danced salsa for two hours each day! I am getting a little better but I still feel like I have two left feet half the time. It doesn't help that the majority of the Mexican guys at dance lessons are quite a bit shorter than I am. There is one little one that looks like an Hispanic Mr. Bean! It's kind of funny. I am really enjoying the lessons though, and they are cheap! Because we have a mutual friend, and because he seems to like us, the dance instructor in charge is letting Jaime, Amber and I take the lessons 4 times/week for the next 3 weeks for $300 pesos, which is less than everyone else got charged. It works out to something like $23USD.. so not too bad. I am really enjoying it and I think I am actually beginning to get something out of it. So far this week Jaime has had a big paper to work on for a class at NMU and Amber hasn't felt very well, so I've gone by myself. I wasn't there alone though; there are like three other Falcón students taking the lessons as well.

We are talking about what we want to do this weekend. Right now we are talking about going to San Miguel de Allende and Dolores Hidalgo on Saturday, and Morelia/Pátzcuaro on Sunday, and maybe Querétaro the following weekend-- our last weekend here! Nothing's been decided yet though. I want to see as much as I can while I am here.. so far the trip has been excellent!

un montón de fotos

So, sorting my photos out is going to take a bit longer than I thought, given that I took more than 500 this weekend... I'll do my best to post ASAP!

un buen fin de semana

I got back about 2:30am this morning local time from an awesome weekend trip to Mexico City!! Details to follow.. just wanted everyone to know that I'm alive and well =]

now.. classes til 4pm!

una aventura

This weekend will be an adventure! I won't blog til probably Monday because I'll be super busy and I won't have my computer. I'm super excited and I'll have a million pictures to put up when I come back.. look forward to a long post or two!

nopales y el Mega

This post is somewhat pointless, but whatever.

We ate cactus today. It was surprisingly not bad.. kind of like a cross between poblano peppers and green beans. Rosario had made it in a weird cold salad though, with tomatoes and some vinegary dressing, which none of us were too fond of. I'll have to try it again sometime, maybe in some other dish rather than by itself.

We finally made it to the Mega after we ate dinner. It's actually in a small shopping mall, which we didn't know. We poked around there a bit but there wasn't much inside. We broke down and bought some junk food at Mega. The food here certainly isn't bland but I crave salt pretty frequently. Hopefully our stash lasts a while... and hopefully we can keep it hidden from Rosario! I think we might be in trouble if she found it...

Now, it's off to do some homework. not hard, but definitely not what I'd prefer to be doing right now.

León, elecciones y “¡Aquí no hay momias!”

Saturday morning we went to León. We had breakfast at 9 and then got ready to go. We took the bus from the Plaza Embajadoras, which is near our house, to the Central de Autobuses (bus station). We waited about 10 minutes for the bus, and then it took us about 30 minutes to get to the bus station. The city busses are not exactly in the best condition, and people don’t exactly drive safely, at least not by American standards. This seems to be the norm anywhere outside of the country though; I noticed the same thing in Peru and Spain. Another strange thing about the busses here is that the drivers let vendors and such on the busses. At one stop, first we had a guy asking for donations for some kind of alcoholism support organization, then there was a guy selling chocolates, then a man selling peanuts. It’s kind of irritating, especially because Saturday we just wanted to get to León.

From the bus station, we bought tickets to León, and then waited for about a half hour. The city of León is about 45 minutes away. This trip was better because they use what are essentially charter buses for inter-city travel and it was basically all highway. I wouldn’t say the ride was comfortable though because it was hot and the bus just seemed really dirty; none of us wanted to lean back against the seats. I talked a bit with the lady next to me. She had a three month old baby who was very interested in my necklace. She gave us some advice on where to shop when we arrived.

Right across the street from the bus station in León is a huge market with people hawking leather goods like boots and (faux-mark) purses. All the vendors kept yelling at us—Amigas, come in, come see our goods, try this on, etc. It really got pretty old after about a minute and a half, especially since every booth seemed to have the same things. We walked for a little bit and then found the Plaza de Zapatos, which is an entire shopping mall with only shoe stores in it. By this point we were more than a little overwhelmed. We finally figured out that we really had wanted to go to a mall called the Plaza Mayor, so we took a taxi across time and shopped there. I bought a few pairs of earrings, a dress, and a white pullover. It was super difficult to find any kind of sweater or sweatshirt or anything because León is a lot hotter than Guanajuato (because it is at a lower altitude).. it figures. I did find the pullover at Sears on our way out though so I was pretty happy about that. There were all sorts of American stores in León: Sears, Wal-Mart, even Sam’s Club. It’s just strange to see them down here.

We need to go to the Mega, which is the big supermarket here, within the next couple of days. We need to buy laundry detergent. That’s one big difference between our homestays in Spain and our homestay here—in Spain they did our laundry for us. Luckily the school has washing machines we can (pay to) use, so we don’t have to go to the laundromat, which would entail dropping our clothes off (something I am definitely not comfortable with!)

Anyway, back to the weekend. Saturday night we got back around 9, which was a lot later than we’d planned. After we changed and ate, we walked to the Centro and met Gonzálo to go to his party… which turned out to not actually be his party, nor a 4^th of July party. It was more a party for Saturday, which just happened to be the 4^th of July, which just happened to have a bunch of Americans at it. It was okay though. All of us were complemented on our Spanish, which was nice to hear. I also got to speak a bit of Portuguese with someone there, which was cool. I really miss taking Portuguese; I am going to look into being the teaching assistant again this fall for the introductory class. It will be a lot different without Susan. I do know Milton though; he actually took over teaching our Portuguese class for part of the semester my freshman year. So, hopefully being the TA for him will work out. Anyway. We were able to get to know some of the students from our school better, which was nice. We don’t really have much time between classes or anything, and what with taking six hours of class per day we have a more rigorous schedule than everyone else.

Sunday was election day here, and everything was closed. We thought that was interesting, given that things don’t close in the U.S. for elections. Additionally, Mexico prohibits the sale of alcohol from something like 10pm (?) the night before and during the entire day of elections. It’s kind of sad that that seems to be necessary here. I guess voter turnout is pretty low, and they think that shutting everything down makes it more likely for people to vote. So, Jaime, Amber and I basically did nothing all day. We ate breakfast, then Jaime and Amber napped while I talked to Charles for a while online. Luckily we have internet here (most of the time) so we’ve all been able to keep in pretty much daily contact with our boyfriends. Otherwise there would probably be some grouchy girls in this casita! We had lunch around 3:30, which was tortas—sandwiches made of nice fresh rolls (bolillos), pork, salsa, and avocado. They use avocado a lot here; I am really beginning to like it, even plain. Oh, and the guacamole is excellent! We made some last week in our cooking class; I’ll post the recipe one of these days (after I translate it!). Our house mom always tries to feed us way more than we want to eat; she usually tries (and sometimes succeeds) in guilting us into having seconds. She told us Sunday that she was NOT going to send us back to our families looking like mummies: “¡Aquí no hay momias!” She then told us that mummies belonged in the museum, not in her house, and that she was going to send us home muy cachetonas… that is, very fat-cheeked. Just what I need.

After lunch I fell asleep for a couple of hours, then we went for a walk because we were kind of bored. We didn’t really do much the rest of the night… although, my mother will be happy to learn that I ate a banana. I still don’t really like the texture, but I am getting used to them. I still think they ruin fruit salad, though!

This morning we started our second week of classes. This week we have grammar, two conversation classes, pronunciation and diction, medical terminology, and salsa dancing. I think we are also going to take salsa lessons at El Bar, which is the salsa place we went to last week. Going 3 nights per week for the next month is 320 pesos, which is about $25 USD. The exchange rate is pretty ridiculous—right now it’s about 13 pesos to one U.S. dollar. We finally managed to exchange the rest of our money today. We were so pissed by the time everything was said and done. The office manager for the school told us to bring traveler’s checks, that they were the safest and most convenient way to bring money, etc etc. Well, he was totally wrong. They have been nothing but a giant pain in the ass. We had to skip a class to go to the bank (Banamex) last week because of it’s hours, and then we could only exchange part of our money because of some limit. This weekend we found an HSBC in the Centro that is open until 5pm. So, after classes today we took a bus there (a clown got on our bus, by the way), we waited in line forever, and they wouldn’t change them. You’d think being a “global” bank (which we have in the U.S.) they would exchange American Express traveler’s checks, but noooo. So, then we walked a bit til we found Bancomer, waited in line forever, and they wouldn’t change them either. Apparently, they only exchange traveler’s checks between 9am and 2pm, even though they are open until 4pm. We finally found a place to change them (casa de cambio), so we did, even though the exchange rate was crappy. But, we needed to pay Rosario, so we really didn’t have much choice.

After that we came back here, ate, I fell asleep for a while, read a chapter in a book that one of the guys from school had loaned me (Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell) and then we went on a walk. We were going to go to salsa lessons but Jaime and Amber didn’t feel too great and I fell asleep so that didn’t happen. Annnddd then we just kind of bummed around. We had a little bit of homework, I talked to Charles and some friends from NMU for a while online, and then I wrote this monster entry. I probably ought to blog more frequently so that my posts are shorter.

cambio de planes

Paco, a friend of Rosario's, came to breakfast today. They worked together at the Quijote museum until Rosario retired; I believe he is in his early 40s. Anyway, he told us that the museum (along with everything else in Guanajuato) will be closed this Sunday because of the elections. So, we will have to go another weekend. We also want to go to the Diego Rivera museum (which is located in the house in which he grew up) as well as the Museo de las Momias (Museum of the Mummies), for which Guanajuato is most well known. In fact, some of the mummies from the collection will be at the Detroit Science Center this fall! the exhibition is titled "The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato" and will open on October 10, 2009.

Four and a half more hours and we are done with classes for the weekend!

el banco, la salsa y planes para el fin de semana

We FINALLY managed to get to the bank today. We've had a lot of trouble because we brought travelers' checks (per the school's recommendation.. not the best idea) and the bank opens after we start classes and closes before we finish them. We actually made it there on one of our breaks on Tuesday but they wouldn't cash the checks for us because even though we had our passports, they wanted copies of our passports. We will still have to go back though because we were only able to cash a portion of our travelers checks.. but at least we have money now! As a sidebar, we also found out that the bank we used (Banamex) is actually Citibank in the U.S. It's funny how everything is connected globally now.

We were exhausted today for some reason, and after dinner Jaime and I napped for an hour and a half (not sure what Amber was up to). We all went for a walk to "el Centro" after we got up, which is the center of the city where the majority of the action is. We looped through it yesterday but thought we'd try to better acquaint ourselves with it today. On the way we ran into Gonzálo, who is one of the teachers at the school. We walked with him for a while and when we passed a salsa bar he knew he offered to take us up so we could see it. Well, we did.. but then they made us "dance" (learn) salsa for an hour! The impromptu lesson was kinda fun but none of us had anticipated it and we were pretty worn out after. We went to a nice little cafe by the University of Guanajuato afterwards. He is having a party or get-together of some sort for the American students on Saturday for the 4th of July, so we are looking forward to that.

Saturday before the party at Gonzálo's we plan on taking the bus to León to do some shopping. I want to try to pick up a sweater or sweatshirt or two because I've been pretty cold. You'd think Mexico in July would be ridiculously hot, but the temperature here is really mild because the city is at a fairly high altitude. The temperature is in between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit every day.. which is nice, but unless it's above 70 I am freezing. It's the "rainy season" here, which means that there have been passing rain showers every day. Of course, I didn't bring an umbrella either. It's not too bad though.

On Sunday we plan on going to the Museo Iconográfico del Quijote, which is a museum dedicated to artwork depicting Don Quijote (sorry, this link is in Spanish.. but you can get an idea of what the museum is like). One very interesting thing we learned today is that our house-mother, Rosario, was actually in charge of starting the museum 20-some years ago. She is a really interesting person. Last year she received an archaeology degree.. and she is 70 years old! So far we are really enjoying our homestay.

Pictures to follow soon, hopefully!

la primera entrada

I should have done this long before now, but I finally jumped on the blogging bandwagon. By now I have traveled somewhat extensively, and as I don't enjoy journaling it is often difficult to remember the details of my trips after the fact. I will be residing in Guanajuato, Mexico for the next five weeks and I thought it better now than never to begin blogging about the experience, both to keep track of where I've been, what I've done and when, as well as to share my adventures with friends and family.

I arrived here on Sunday 6/28 with my friends Jaime and Amber; we all went to Spain together in 2007. We flew from Detroit to Houston to León-Guanajuato. Overall the travel went well, except we flew on an itty-bitty plane from Houston to Mexico and it really kinda sucked. When we de-planed there was someone from the health ministry monitoring the passengers with a heat-sensing camera, presumably to look for potential swine flu carriers. We thought that was pretty interesting. So far, there haven't been any reported cases of swine flu in the state of Guanajuato. Fortunately for us we didn't have any problems with customs and in fact the customs officials were pretty nice to us. We took a taxi from the airport to our homestay in

 Guanajuato, which took about 30 minutes plus some extra time for the taxi driver to find our street, which is in a neighborhood called Pastita.

Our homestay "parents" are named Rosario and Sergio, and they are in their seventies. They have been super nice to us. Rosario likes to sit with us while we are eating and talk our ears off. She is really funny and doesn't at all act like she is 70! She is a really good cook, too.. but she feeds us waayyy too much food, especially Amber! We are hoping to lose some weight while we are here (we walk at least an hour every day, if not more) but this might be an impossible task with Rosario shoving food in our faces every time she sees us.

Our school is called Academia Falcón and it is about 15 minutes away from our house. We start classes every morning at 8:30 and end at 3:30. This week we have two conversation classes, an advanced grammar class, a salsa/merengue dance class, a class on the Mexican muralists, and a cooking class. Our schedule will change each week, at least in part. So far we are really enjoying our classes. The school is similar to the one we went to in Spain two years ago (Castila), but so far it seems a lot better.

 

We have only explored the city a little bit so far because we have been so tired after our classes. Plus, Mexico has national elections this Sunday, so there has been a lot of commotion in the streets with political campaigning. Hopefully we get the chance to really get around Guanajuato this weekend. The city has a really confusing layout because none of the streets are straight, but amazingly (Jaime and I got lost all the time in Granada) we haven't gotten lost yet!

I will post pictures of Guanajuato soon, but here is a picture of Amber, Jaime and I from Spain. [Amber is wearing orange and Jaime is in white; the other girl in the picture is Erin, another NMU student.]