¿que he hecho en días recientes?

well well well. deanna and leah and mi sonrisa hermana will appreciate this one: saturday morning i woke up at 9 and cleaned my room until 1pm. yes, 5 hours of cleaning. our floor hadn´t been swept since i moved in (nasty!) and i did 4 loads of laundry, along with finally decorating my wall. i decided to create a pseudo-map of mexico out of postcards from places i´ve been (aka placing them in their geographic locations in relation to the mexico city postcard i hung up in the middle... because i´m a nerd) and i also put up barack obama´s ¨i´m running for president¨ speech. complete with highlighter on parts i particularly enjoy.

saturday afternoon was expoUDLA, this enormous international fair on campus on the quad (?) between the centro social and the auditorio. there were tons of tents and booths set up and students could sample (for a very small fee) the handicrafts and food from various states inside mexico and from countries represented by estudiantes extranjeros this semester. the USA booth was manned by notre dame student and they were definitely rocking the irish pride. (mad love to erin and emily!!) at the booth for oaxaca (pronounced wah-ha-kah, it´s the state directly south of here), i was handed a small cupful of a tremendously lovely and somewhat spicy coconut liquor and then i got to eat a grilled quesadilla of sorts, made with a flour tortilla, oaxaca cheese (it´s white, it´s the best), refried beans, and onions. yummmmm!! when i proceeded to drench it in green salsa, the man at the booth stopped me and told me that the green salsa was very spicy and i might want to eat it with the less-spicy red salsa instead. obviously he didn´t know who he was talking to. gringa? yes. fan of spicy food? of course! gracias, but i can handle myself, señor.

last night leah and i went back to the lebanese restaurant for the second time in 5 days. it´s basically a small slice of non-mexican-food heaven in the middle of mexican-food-mecca. and i adore it. we´ve planned to visit it at least twice a week from now on, especially since one platter is enough to feed both of us and costs only $40 (4 USD).
this morning, we had breakfast at a place called ¨los antojitos del gordo¨ (¨the cravings of the fat man,¨ i kid you not). they serve their coffee black with cinnamon in it! and their chilaquiles were fabulous.

in mexico, it´s a common practice to sprinkle some sort of sweet chili powder on top of your fruit. it´s AMAZING. i hope they sell it in the states. because i´ll eat fruit 98348237 times a day if they do.

and at karma bagels, they serve fruit and nutella bagels. so far i´ve tried strawberry and apple with cinnamon, but i´m intrigued by the idea of a nutella and kiwi bagel. haven´t tried it yet. someday i´ll be brave and probarlo.

the fair trade coffee shop on camino real (on the way to the cholula house) serves iced coffee. it´s amazing when it´s hot out ... which it is basically every day until 6pm, when the temperature drops drastically rather rapidly.

next to the fair trade coffee shop is a restaurant called ice + grill (sam calls it ice T grill), which serves mongolian barbecue (HUGE AMOUNTS OF IT) and all you can eat soup and salad. my nueva sauce of choice includes equal parts peanut and teriyaki with a (little more than a) smidge of spicy chipotle. that´s where we go when we feel like stuffing our faces.

so basically all i did this weekend was eat. and clean!

and today, a few of us took an adventure to the barrio del artista, which is a city block in puebla full of art studios and wonderful sculptures. there´s a large market nearby, where i shopped for my mother and my sister. we also took a pitstop at the fayuca, where kelly and leah felt the need to be posers and buy fake glasses. now they look smart? (leah´s exact quote was, ¨oh, good! now i can work at starbucks because i look intelligent!¨) after the temperature pulled that not-so-fun drastic temperature drop around 6pm, we took a cab to suburbia (a large department store whose clothes remind me of urban outfitters´ ... which is rather ironic, since it´s called suburbia) and i bought a sweater to keep me warm. i should probably start thinking more about the evening´s weather when i get dressed in the morning, since i always seem to be underprepared for the cold.

that´s about it. spring break plans are coming together: 6 of us girls (and some of the minnesota guys, i think, along with molly!!) are going to puerto escondido, in the state of oaxaca on the pacific coast. i´ve never seen the pacific, so i´m super thrilled. we´re staying in a private bed and breakfast for SUPERbarrato and it has ocean views and seems lovely. puerto escondido is a surfer´s mecca, so i might take a lesson or two. then again, i might just lay on the beach and check out the super hot guys who already know how to do it... i´m thinking the latter is more than likely going to be what happens.

¡hasta luego! everyone from valpo should enjoy the next two weeks off!

ps: hinna ¡ven a visitaaaarme!