i´ve noticed a trend in my life toward rarely blogging and even more rarely journaling on paper (sorry mom, it´s been like a month), but i also think it´s because this is becoming less and less like a vacation and more like real life. which is a good thing! it´s not so much that new and amazing things aren´t happening, but more that i´m just becoming really very comfortable here.
on friday night, we watched the movie ¨babel¨ (it´s by a mexican director and received a large amount of the 16 oscar nominations for mexican movies this year - more on that later). in case you haven´t seen this movie, i should explain that it takes place in morocco, southern california, japan, and in a border town in mexico. the movie starts in morocco and we had to read subtitles since the dialogue was in arabic. the second part is about a mexican woman in california, and the second she came on speaking spanish, we all breathed a sigh of relief because it was finally a language we understood. also, at one point in the movie, she crosses the border to mexico and it shows her driving through tijuana with some americans and pat leans over to me and says, ¨you know, they´re trying to make mexico look so foreign to americans, but i see that and i think that it´s home!¨ so true.
our last weekend in mexico city was a good time, as always. i have to admit that i´m not really a fan of that city. it´s very crowded, polluted, and lacks any water (like a coast or a lake or a river), so i´m not the biggest fan. however, it´s impossible to come to mexico without experiencing all that mexico city has to offer, so i enjoy my visits there. i just don´t think i´d like prolonged stays - like 3 weeks or 3 months or 3 years.
the last time, we visited the basilica of the lady of guadalupe (on tepeyac hill - hellooo flashbacks to comfy hammocks and loud roosters and playwrighting in albuquerque!). the original basilica is still standing, but has shifted greatly and is kind of like the leaning tower of piza only not so extreme. now the actual image of the virgin mary is housed in a very 1960´s-style modern church and you can ride on moving sidewalks behind the alter while church is moving (without disturbing the mass) to see her up close and personal. another highlight was visiting the remains of tenochtitlan, the aztec city that was located in mexico city´s current location before the conquest. i´m a huge nerd and i´ve read a thousand books about the aztecs and the conquest, so it was pretty amazing to actually be standing where everything important happened. also, on sunday morning, we went to the chapultepec zoo (located in chapultepec park, which is coincidentally where the first mexican film was made - random fact from last semester´s spanish class that i´m sure you didn´t need to know!). i love zoos and instead of gushing about how much i love them (prompting you to scroll down to the next paragraph), i´ll just end this paragraph here.
all of last week, i was sick with a nasty cold, so i couldn´t go to the orphanage to play with the adorable little ones. i´m still hacking and sneezing a bit, but i found piña colada flavored cough drops today (why do they not sell this amazingness in the states?!?), so i´m doing a bit better. also today, i found out that the chiquitos at the orfanato have all come down with hepatitis (A or B or C? i´m not really sure.), so i doubt i´ll get to play with them tomorrow or at any time this week. regardless, i get to ride busses tomorrow and try to get my credencial so they´ll let me into the place next time i come. oy vey. does anyone know how long hepatitis lasts for?
it´s beginning to feel alot like summer here (sorry guys, i know you´re freezing up there in the north!), but my life is seriously lacking lots of my summer staples: the zoo, my friends, and graeters ice cream 4 times a week, to name a few. i miss them all, just not in that order.
this weekend was courtney´s birthday, so we went out on thursday night for drinks at bambuko´s and then to a soccer game that christopher, one of our friends here on campus, was playing in. let´s just say we were probably a large embarrassment to him. then on saturday, we went out for italian food (italian food : courtney :: indian food : anni), where i didn´t actually eat any italian food, just the most divine chocolate cake and also drank some amazing white wine. i got all dressed up in my black dress and felt oh so classy! then we went dancing at a club called barZelona, which basically reminded me of the scene in bend it like beckham, when they go to a club in germany. they played wonderful american 90´s music, a very creepy remixed version of ¨crazy¨ by gnarls barkley (don´t they know it´s danceable already?!?), and some mexican dance tunes that we´ve gotten used to hearing by now. by the way, the version of shakira´s ¨hips don´t lie¨ that they play down here is so much better than the american version. don´t worry, shakira fans, i´ll bring it back with me.
also this weekend, leah and krista and i crashed at the cholula house and made my sister´s famous guacamole and my famous pineapple salsa. we went to the market (finally discovered where it is in relation to the zócalo without wandering around for 45 minutes first!) and bought all of the fresh veggies for only $5 (2 grocery bags worth). this place is marvelous. and i´m going to shop for produce at farmers markets from now on. in the process of slicing the jalapeños for the guacamole, however, i managed to splash on itty bitty drop of juice in my eye. pretty sure that was the most painful thing i have ever experienced. basically, think about how it tastes when you put straight jalapeño in your mouth. now think about how sensitive your eyes are when you squeeze a bit of lemon juice in them. it hurts. alot. the salsa and guacamole were divine, though, especially on top of the quesadillas we made with oaxaca cheese and fresh corn tortillas.
a kilo of tortillas (a stack of about 30) costs 8 pesos (80 cents US). if you´ve been paying attention to the news, you might have heard that corn prices in mexico have skyrocketed in the past few months, making it hard for poor families to purchase tortillas, which is a staple of the mexican diet. this means that a kilo of tortillas used to be around 30 cents and now that it´s gone up 50 cents, it´s a hardship. just something to think about.
last night was the academy awards and, although mexico didn´t take home as many awards as we´d hoped, 5 of us from the valpo group dressed up as the spice girls for a party. and pat joined us, on posh´s arm, dressed as david beckham. i was ginger, since apparently i have the most ginger - like hair (it´s gotten rather bleached out in the sun and kind of glows sometimes...). definitely a fun time, and i was overall pleased with the awards, since i´d actually seen most of the movies this year. thanks, fayuca!
and on a final note, i love the food here. maybe in a few days i´ll blog just about the restaurants i´ve been to. (like the restaurant in mexico city where frida and diego rivera got married. that was pretty cool.)
26 February 2007
21 February 2007
why i love life:
it's very chill.
today, i had my morning class at 11.
then i had time to go do my homework for my afternoon class (write a cover letter for a place i want to work... easy + fun).
then i had plenty of free time, which i filled with going to la suprema salsa for lunch with the boys and we watched the barcelona - liverpool game on the big screen there. i was mighty sad that barcelona lost and ronaldinho was not playing so amazingly, but it didn't put a damper on my beautifully mellow day.
and then it was time for my afternoon class.
then i boarded a bus that didn't end up going to the market like i'd hoped (where i was planning on purchasing ingredients to make guacamole), so i ended up at the cholula house with leah and cold leftover soup and a kevin costner movie about baseball. i'll make guacamole another day.
......i really really like this laidback lifestyle.
today, i had my morning class at 11.
then i had time to go do my homework for my afternoon class (write a cover letter for a place i want to work... easy + fun).
then i had plenty of free time, which i filled with going to la suprema salsa for lunch with the boys and we watched the barcelona - liverpool game on the big screen there. i was mighty sad that barcelona lost and ronaldinho was not playing so amazingly, but it didn't put a damper on my beautifully mellow day.
and then it was time for my afternoon class.
then i boarded a bus that didn't end up going to the market like i'd hoped (where i was planning on purchasing ingredients to make guacamole), so i ended up at the cholula house with leah and cold leftover soup and a kevin costner movie about baseball. i'll make guacamole another day.
......i really really like this laidback lifestyle.
16 February 2007
if i don´t update this soon, i´ll forget everything i´ve done (so this is going to be really long)
new experiences i´ve had recently:
last friday i spent the night on a couch in a hospital in puebla. brenda had been in the hospital for almost a week at that point with stomach bugs that had caused an ulcerated colon (actually she´d already had that without knowing it and the other problems exacerbated it to the point that she realized she had it). mel and i stayed overnight and watched a couple of hours of grey´s anatomy with her. in an update on that situation, brenda was released from the hospital yesterday and then this morning, she took a 9am flight back to chicago, so she can recuperate at home. we´ll miss her!!!!!!
also on friday, i went to the fayuca for the first time. that´s spanish for black market. brenda´s a big beyonce fan, so we bought the movie dreamgirls (yes, it´s still in theaters. yes, it´s bootlegged.) to cheer her up. pretty much, at the fayuca, you can buy pumas for $30 and louis vuitton watches for $40. they´re all probably fake and/or stolen, but whatevs.
saturday was dubbed international barack obama day, as that was the day he announced that he´s running for president. to celebrate, some of us went to the cholula house, cooked lunch (leah made thai peanut soup and i made coconut curried lentils - it was all delish!) and we toasted him with $2 apple wine. we were torn between toasting him with champagne because he´s classy or beer because he´s a man of the people, so we settled on cheap wine.
sunday, i laid out by the pool for awhile and got my first mexican sunburn ... on the backs of my legs. nothing to complain about. i read the book ¨the bookseller of kabul¨ almost in its entirety that day, and i´d recommend it to anyone i normally recommend books to. yesterday i read magazines outside for 20 minutes and managed to burn my back... which leads me to believe that the back 1/2 of my body must not get enough sun and that i should do something about that soon. with sunscreen on, of course.
and on sunday night, leah and kelly and i walked to the centro and went to a catholic church on the zócalo. it was a franciscan church and the priest´s preaching reminded me somewhat of the way joe nuxhall announced baseball (lots of long pauses, just long enough for you to forget someone was ever talking, and just short enough that you´re startled when he starts talking again). it was a cool experience overall, though. catholic church here is pretty different (aka more laid back) than in the states.
nutella is super cheap here, so we keep buying lots of it. at karma bagels they serve it on a bagel with strawberry slices and it pretty much tastes like heaven. you can also eat it with peanut butter on a tortilla or on top of saltines with chocolate chips, or you can use peanut butter for that, too. if you go to nutellaUSA.com you can even find tons of recipes! i never knew that spreadable food was so amazing!!!
while i´m on the topic of food, i should mention that i ate kiwi ice cream (really it was more like icy sorbet) when we went to morelos a few weeks ago and it was fabulous. if anyone finds kiwi ice cream in the states, buy it, eat it, then tell me where you found it so i can do the same when i get back. also, i´ve discovered that i have a love for tostadas de pollo, which is basically a mountain of goodness on top of a crispy tortilla. this mountain involves chicken and beans and lettuce and avocados and sour cream and when you mix red and green salsa on top, it´s basically the best. and 3 of them only cost $2.50 (US).
two days ago i got bitten by a peacock and yesterday a bird flew at my head and i had to duck and cover, sufficiently looking like a huge loser. i was pretty annoyed with the peacock, seeing as i´m the only person who actually likes them here, and then it has to go a take a bite out of my foot while i´m sitting innocently at lunch. oy vey.
aaaaand i gave leah a haircut earlier this week. she now has 4 different layers and i´m not gonna lie, i did a pretty good job. but now i need a haircut...
and krista had her first intramural fútbol rápido game this week, so i now know what people yell at soccer games here. (¨go krista yeah!¨ didn´t suffice.) the game was basically like indoor only ... outside. and since it was at night, it was pretty chilly, which was the perfect weather for a soccer game. fun times were had by all (even us lamers in the stands).
there was a chance that i could see the red hot chili peppers in mexico city for only 350 pesos (that´s only $35!!!!!), but we´re going to be in oaxaca the weekend of the show. this is the greatest tragedy in my life right now. however, speaking of the chili peppers: they definitely cleaned up at the grammies last weekend, which was a-maz-ing! now if only i could see them live.
as for the future:
this weekend, we´re travelling back to mexico city, this time to see the lady of guadalupe, THE ZOO, la plaza de tres culturas (the three cultures being the aztecs, the spanish conquistadores, and the people who live in mexico city now), and diego rivera´s most famous murals in the palacio nacional. the weekend after that, i think i´m going back to the city to go to a soccer game with krista and one of our suitemates (the one who was a hooligan!). it´s pumas v. chivas, and apparently that´s a mighty large rivalry. should be an amazing time. and also, we´re in the process of planning a spring break trip to puerto escondido. more info to come on that soon. :) life is good.
last friday i spent the night on a couch in a hospital in puebla. brenda had been in the hospital for almost a week at that point with stomach bugs that had caused an ulcerated colon (actually she´d already had that without knowing it and the other problems exacerbated it to the point that she realized she had it). mel and i stayed overnight and watched a couple of hours of grey´s anatomy with her. in an update on that situation, brenda was released from the hospital yesterday and then this morning, she took a 9am flight back to chicago, so she can recuperate at home. we´ll miss her!!!!!!
also on friday, i went to the fayuca for the first time. that´s spanish for black market. brenda´s a big beyonce fan, so we bought the movie dreamgirls (yes, it´s still in theaters. yes, it´s bootlegged.) to cheer her up. pretty much, at the fayuca, you can buy pumas for $30 and louis vuitton watches for $40. they´re all probably fake and/or stolen, but whatevs.
saturday was dubbed international barack obama day, as that was the day he announced that he´s running for president. to celebrate, some of us went to the cholula house, cooked lunch (leah made thai peanut soup and i made coconut curried lentils - it was all delish!) and we toasted him with $2 apple wine. we were torn between toasting him with champagne because he´s classy or beer because he´s a man of the people, so we settled on cheap wine.
sunday, i laid out by the pool for awhile and got my first mexican sunburn ... on the backs of my legs. nothing to complain about. i read the book ¨the bookseller of kabul¨ almost in its entirety that day, and i´d recommend it to anyone i normally recommend books to. yesterday i read magazines outside for 20 minutes and managed to burn my back... which leads me to believe that the back 1/2 of my body must not get enough sun and that i should do something about that soon. with sunscreen on, of course.
and on sunday night, leah and kelly and i walked to the centro and went to a catholic church on the zócalo. it was a franciscan church and the priest´s preaching reminded me somewhat of the way joe nuxhall announced baseball (lots of long pauses, just long enough for you to forget someone was ever talking, and just short enough that you´re startled when he starts talking again). it was a cool experience overall, though. catholic church here is pretty different (aka more laid back) than in the states.
nutella is super cheap here, so we keep buying lots of it. at karma bagels they serve it on a bagel with strawberry slices and it pretty much tastes like heaven. you can also eat it with peanut butter on a tortilla or on top of saltines with chocolate chips, or you can use peanut butter for that, too. if you go to nutellaUSA.com you can even find tons of recipes! i never knew that spreadable food was so amazing!!!
while i´m on the topic of food, i should mention that i ate kiwi ice cream (really it was more like icy sorbet) when we went to morelos a few weeks ago and it was fabulous. if anyone finds kiwi ice cream in the states, buy it, eat it, then tell me where you found it so i can do the same when i get back. also, i´ve discovered that i have a love for tostadas de pollo, which is basically a mountain of goodness on top of a crispy tortilla. this mountain involves chicken and beans and lettuce and avocados and sour cream and when you mix red and green salsa on top, it´s basically the best. and 3 of them only cost $2.50 (US).
two days ago i got bitten by a peacock and yesterday a bird flew at my head and i had to duck and cover, sufficiently looking like a huge loser. i was pretty annoyed with the peacock, seeing as i´m the only person who actually likes them here, and then it has to go a take a bite out of my foot while i´m sitting innocently at lunch. oy vey.
aaaaand i gave leah a haircut earlier this week. she now has 4 different layers and i´m not gonna lie, i did a pretty good job. but now i need a haircut...
and krista had her first intramural fútbol rápido game this week, so i now know what people yell at soccer games here. (¨go krista yeah!¨ didn´t suffice.) the game was basically like indoor only ... outside. and since it was at night, it was pretty chilly, which was the perfect weather for a soccer game. fun times were had by all (even us lamers in the stands).
there was a chance that i could see the red hot chili peppers in mexico city for only 350 pesos (that´s only $35!!!!!), but we´re going to be in oaxaca the weekend of the show. this is the greatest tragedy in my life right now. however, speaking of the chili peppers: they definitely cleaned up at the grammies last weekend, which was a-maz-ing! now if only i could see them live.
as for the future:
this weekend, we´re travelling back to mexico city, this time to see the lady of guadalupe, THE ZOO, la plaza de tres culturas (the three cultures being the aztecs, the spanish conquistadores, and the people who live in mexico city now), and diego rivera´s most famous murals in the palacio nacional. the weekend after that, i think i´m going back to the city to go to a soccer game with krista and one of our suitemates (the one who was a hooligan!). it´s pumas v. chivas, and apparently that´s a mighty large rivalry. should be an amazing time. and also, we´re in the process of planning a spring break trip to puerto escondido. more info to come on that soon. :) life is good.
13 February 2007
a quick update on the kids at the orphanage:
i've fallen in love with a little boy named daniel. he's probably around 4 and i think he's autistic. he doesn't talk but definitely smiles mighty big every time he sees me. and i definitely held him for half of the day today. and if i wasn't holding him (or wiping his nose, he has a cold), we were playing with a bouncy ball and he was dragging me around the room after it.
i taught two girls named belen and vanesa how to ride bikes today. kind of. they were tricycles. they learned how to put their feet on the pedals and move them so they could go places. i was pretty impressed, even though i'm not really sure my instructions were good. ("put one foot here and the other one there. now move your legs. continue!" ahhhh, broken spanish...)
there's one little boy named pachenco and he's awesome. today he was definitely the best dressed little guy in the place in a red polo shirt. and he's very outgoing and kind of has an attitude with the other kids, but i pretty much adore him anyway. he gives great hugs.
vanesa has an obsession with my glasses. and she waves ¨hola¨ and ¨adios¨ to anything she sees (airplanes, a social worker walking through the building...) and blows kisses. cutest!
there's another little boy named luis angel and he's pretty much the smallest kid i have ever seen in my life. he likes hugs too.
the girls all wore disney shirts today, with pictures of the princesas and la sirenita, etc. so adorable!
basically all these kids are precious and i like them alot.
today was much better than my first time there, when i was in charge of 20 kids, some of them babies, running around and hitting each other. that's not very cool when i don't speak the language. today was much more organized and i actually feel like i can do good things there. yay! :)
i've fallen in love with a little boy named daniel. he's probably around 4 and i think he's autistic. he doesn't talk but definitely smiles mighty big every time he sees me. and i definitely held him for half of the day today. and if i wasn't holding him (or wiping his nose, he has a cold), we were playing with a bouncy ball and he was dragging me around the room after it.
i taught two girls named belen and vanesa how to ride bikes today. kind of. they were tricycles. they learned how to put their feet on the pedals and move them so they could go places. i was pretty impressed, even though i'm not really sure my instructions were good. ("put one foot here and the other one there. now move your legs. continue!" ahhhh, broken spanish...)
there's one little boy named pachenco and he's awesome. today he was definitely the best dressed little guy in the place in a red polo shirt. and he's very outgoing and kind of has an attitude with the other kids, but i pretty much adore him anyway. he gives great hugs.
vanesa has an obsession with my glasses. and she waves ¨hola¨ and ¨adios¨ to anything she sees (airplanes, a social worker walking through the building...) and blows kisses. cutest!
there's another little boy named luis angel and he's pretty much the smallest kid i have ever seen in my life. he likes hugs too.
the girls all wore disney shirts today, with pictures of the princesas and la sirenita, etc. so adorable!
basically all these kids are precious and i like them alot.
today was much better than my first time there, when i was in charge of 20 kids, some of them babies, running around and hitting each other. that's not very cool when i don't speak the language. today was much more organized and i actually feel like i can do good things there. yay! :)
06 February 2007
bliss.
this weekend´s trip to the states of morelos and guerrero was definitely one of the highlights of mexico so far.
it started out not-so-fun, with a bit of motion sickness-induced throwing up on the side of the road about 15 minutes outside of cuernavaca (ending a 3 year streak with none of that), which successfully earned me the nickname ¨the vom-bomb¨ (thanks to krista, of course). after that, though, everything was marvelous!
i fell in love with cuernavaca, a city that´s surrounded by rocking cliffs and abundant amounts of green trees. it´s the city where cortes (as in hernán cortes, the conquerer of mexico) settled and we visited his palace there, which is decorated with TONS of beautiful diego rivera murals! morelos is also the home of emiliano zapata, and he´s much more beloved in the city than cortes is. after dinner on the zócalo, we watched some random guys breakdance. it was awesome - until it starting raining pretty hard! what´s with this rain all of a sudden??
sunday we went to more pyramids, which i don´t really remember because i took dramamine and was rather ... drowsy. (drowsy is an understatement. i was sleep-walking.) then we drove a couple more hours through some of the highest mountains i have ever seen to reach the most beautiful city in all the world....
TAXCO!
since i can´t upload my own pictures on here, i´ll recommend that everyone look at this picture:
http://www.tiwy.com/pais/mexico/fotos_2003/taxco/taxco_panorama_t.jpg
that´s basically what the view was from my hotel room - and we slept with our windows and curtains thrown wide open so we could look at the lights all night. leah even slept outside on the balcony!
taxco is a silver mining town, so we went shopping for silver (i bought earrings!) on sunday night. leah, mel, kelly, and i found a rooftop restaurant to eat at (near the large church, if you look at the picture) and it served chicken curry, so i was in heaven for all 5 minutes it took me to hoover that meal! it was also super bowl sunday, and since i´m with lots of chicago and indianapolis fans, we watched the game.
i loved cuernavaca, but i ADORE taxco. everyone should go there.
i´m wearing one of meghan´s soccer sweatshirts from high school and today at lunch, i was approached by the soccer coach and asked if i wanted to play for udla´s team. i laughed for a few minutes before i was able to tell him that i am completely incapable of playing soccer. then i thought that maybe i should´ve joined the team just for the workouts... which means i´m going to start running on my own very soon.
it started out not-so-fun, with a bit of motion sickness-induced throwing up on the side of the road about 15 minutes outside of cuernavaca (ending a 3 year streak with none of that), which successfully earned me the nickname ¨the vom-bomb¨ (thanks to krista, of course). after that, though, everything was marvelous!
i fell in love with cuernavaca, a city that´s surrounded by rocking cliffs and abundant amounts of green trees. it´s the city where cortes (as in hernán cortes, the conquerer of mexico) settled and we visited his palace there, which is decorated with TONS of beautiful diego rivera murals! morelos is also the home of emiliano zapata, and he´s much more beloved in the city than cortes is. after dinner on the zócalo, we watched some random guys breakdance. it was awesome - until it starting raining pretty hard! what´s with this rain all of a sudden??
sunday we went to more pyramids, which i don´t really remember because i took dramamine and was rather ... drowsy. (drowsy is an understatement. i was sleep-walking.) then we drove a couple more hours through some of the highest mountains i have ever seen to reach the most beautiful city in all the world....
TAXCO!
since i can´t upload my own pictures on here, i´ll recommend that everyone look at this picture:
http://www.tiwy.com/pais/mexico/fotos_2003/taxco/taxco_panorama_t.jpg
that´s basically what the view was from my hotel room - and we slept with our windows and curtains thrown wide open so we could look at the lights all night. leah even slept outside on the balcony!
taxco is a silver mining town, so we went shopping for silver (i bought earrings!) on sunday night. leah, mel, kelly, and i found a rooftop restaurant to eat at (near the large church, if you look at the picture) and it served chicken curry, so i was in heaven for all 5 minutes it took me to hoover that meal! it was also super bowl sunday, and since i´m with lots of chicago and indianapolis fans, we watched the game.
i loved cuernavaca, but i ADORE taxco. everyone should go there.
i´m wearing one of meghan´s soccer sweatshirts from high school and today at lunch, i was approached by the soccer coach and asked if i wanted to play for udla´s team. i laughed for a few minutes before i was able to tell him that i am completely incapable of playing soccer. then i thought that maybe i should´ve joined the team just for the workouts... which means i´m going to start running on my own very soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
