miscelaneous-ness

this is going to be rather disjointed, i´m sure, because i´ve been busy lately & i´d like to write it all down. i´m sorry in advance.

to get back to campus from the cholula house, it´s necessary to take about a 2 minute busride down the recta [one of cholula´s main streets] right to the UDLA entrance. if walking back to campus, it takes about 20 minutes going to the back entrance. on tuesday, we accidentally got on a san andres bus going to the UDLA, which takes a 45 minute hike through the neighborhood of san andres [where the UDLA is; the cholula house is in san pedro] before getting back to campus. it was a pretty sweet ride, because i saw lots of parts of town i hadn´t seen before [for instance, most everything on the other side of the pyramid] - essentially, we got a bus tour of town for only 4 pesos!

one of the best parts of mexico is its randomness, so here is a list of some of the random things i saw on this busride:
1. a random mound of earth and bricks with trees on top [i later realized it is an unexcavated archeological site... i think]
2. fields filled with flowers on the 2 far sides of the pyramid
3. 234 of the 365 catholic churches cholula has to offer
4. one was white and turquoise and covered in small cherubs
5. celebration flags hanging across streets, leftover from easter
6. a place to go paintballing in someone´s backyard
7. animals: ostriches, cows, horses, chickens running down the street, some lambs
8. football practice at the UDLA, where 1/2 of the players were on their hands & knees and the other half were walking along behind them, kicking them in the rear end [???]
9. a kid who stood up in the back seat and waved at everyone we passed, saying it was his dad and brother
10. a pulquería

on thursday night there was an earthquake off mexico´s west coast. it rocked acapulco pretty bad [about 5-6 hours away], shook buildings pretty nicely in mex city, and some people here in puebla felt it. unfortunately, i was in bambuko´s and didn´t feel a thing... maybe because i was swaying a bit on my own or maybe because it´s essentially a bamboo hut and it probably moves in the wind anyway.

friday morning, a couple of us had to go to the bimbo bread factories [yes, isn´t bimbo a funny name for a company??] for our business class. it was pretty interesting to see how bread and tortillas and donuts and hot dog buns are made, and the factories actually were pretty clean and it didn´t look like the working conditions were too awful. it was funny, though, because i had toast when i woke up that morning [made with bimbo bread] and ironically re-joined the vom bomb squad right before leaving for their headquarters. hmmm... needless to say, i didn´t eat any of the free carb-filled treats they gave us in our goodie bags por gratis!

last night was jess´s 20th bday celebration, again at bambuko´s. i actually got dressed up last night, and go figure - on the way to the bar, i walked under a tree and some bird poop landed on my shirt. [the bird´s here are far too well fed. they poop on everyone!] my drink of choice last night was called a ronaldo... hoorah for brazil fútbol love!

speaking of soccer, krista and andrea and i had a lazy movie-filled afternoon and watched ¨goal 2¨ [xoxo david beckham!] and ¨the other side of the world.¨ i also climbed the pyramid again with mallory yesterday morning. picture taking and book reading ensued at the top. it was cool to actually be acquainted enough with the town to be able to point out things like the udla campus, the intersection of forjadores and the recta, the cholula house[´s whereabouts], and the zócalo. then mallory fell down the pyramid. don´t worry, she´s okay, and no, i didn´t push her. we ate some amazing guanábana popsicles on the top too.

today pat and jess and i had a pueblan adventure - the best kind! we were supposed to go to a couple of museums so we could give presentations about them in sally´s class on tuesday. unfortunately, pat was supposed to present on the natural history museum, which we discovered to be closed after we paid 8 USD to take a taxi there. instead, we ended up wandering around the battle of puebla forts [the reason for cinco de mayo - yes, it originates right here in puebla!], which involved bushes that had been pruned into the shape of a cannon and some illegal foto-taking.

i was supposed to check out the historic UAP building [the universidad autónoma de puebla], which was still standing, but definitely not open to the public. so we wandered awhile, looking for the contemporary art museum, but instead stumbled upon a parade of teenagers wearing traditional clothing from different parts of mexico and then into the ruins of what was apparently the first franciscan convent in puebla. they made bricks there and we saw what was left of the ovens. i suppose it was interesting, but definitely not what we needed for our projects.

we tried to go out for tamales yesterday, but were unsuccessful. if you ever come to mexico, you´ll have to be patient, because businesses have very erratic hours of being open. you may WANT something, but it´s pretty likely that it won´t be open when you want it. like the fair trade coffee shop that´s never open at 9 or 10 or 11 am when i desperately need some café. maybe it opens at noon? oh, and jess and i ate molotes the other night as well, which are basically fried quesadillas filled with whatever you want and covered in crema and salsas. mine were potato and cheese and - of course - i´m in love.

apparently we only have two weeks left of classes, 1 week of finals, and then it´s back to the USA. this is very bizarre for a couple of reasons:

1. i never really though about what it would be like to return home, just about what it would be like to come here
2. i´m going to have some severe culture shock
3. i´m going to have to change my habits, including how to answer a phone, how to dispose of tp, how to say ¨excuse me¨ when passing someone in a crowd, how to signal that i agree with someone in conversation, how to signal that i disagree with someone in conversation, how to tell someone to ¨come here¨, how to bless someone when they sneeze, how to eat my food, and ... many other things. you guys are going to have to bear with me!
4. i have no idea what i´m doing this summer or where i´ll be
5. i will be tanner than you :D
6. i have no substantial travel plans after this, which is very very weird
7. i will no longer be in the minority / everyone around me will be speaking english / be able to understand what i say
8. my life will seriously be lacking in soccer. i wish this summer was the world cup instead of last summer so it´d be on all the time like here! boo.



next weekend is our last VU trip -- we´re going to a market in a town that starts with a Q about 4 hours away, but still in the state of puebla for just one day. jess and kelly and i are talking about heading to san miguel de allende, this really artsy town north of mex city, one of these weekends as well. other than that, i think i´m pretty much done travelling in mexico, which is shocking! i´m going to have to come back sometime and hit up the state of chiapas [in the south] and the yucatán area, among other things.


and then i have to pack up my room and lug it back north of the border in only 2 suitcases... ay yi yi.