i´m sad to report that i´ve had one of those days.
the kind where everything goes wrong? yeah. it´s important to note, however, that this is definitely the first time that´s happened since getting to mexico.
it started with lots of homework way too early this morning and moved on to the discovery of $120 (US) missing from my possession. that ... kind of sucks.
it continued to involve a bus that stopped working and then being herded onto a different bus. that busride was 45 minutes longer than necessary and took us way out of our way - out to the farthest outskirts of puebla. after i asked our bus driver if we were ever going to get back to the main bus station, he was kind enough to flag down another bus for us to get back. i´m thinking we probably weren´t in the safest neighborhood for just getting off and getting our own bus, so that was super nice of him.
i had to give a presentation on the lady of guadalupe for sally´s class this afternoon and i didn´t finish it until about 20 minutes before i had to present. the long busride didn´t make this any less stressful. i almost had to interview some random person on the long busride because i needed more opiniones to talk about. but i wasn´t sure if that was rude or socially acceptable, so i didn´t. oy vey.
i also stepped in gum twice.
however: tomorrow at 8:50 pm, the spring break adventure to puerto escondido begins! i´m going with 5 valpo girls (krista, amanda, mel, kelly, & leah) and 2 minnesota guys (sam & dan). our busride is 15 hours (let´s be honest, it will probably be more like 16 or 17, if it´s anything like transportation in the states), so we won´t get to puerto until noon or later on saturday. we´re staying in a private bed & breakfast with two bedroomss, so we have the whole place to ourselves! i´m super excited because it has a hammock area and an outside barbecue, so we can grill fish and pineapple and whatever else we want all week long. hoorah!
the babies were fun this week, but pretty fussy. i think they basically all had colds, which explains the crabbiness. miguel slept most of the time and when he was awake, just cried and cried and cried. victor was super huggy and leo was the most content baby i´d ever seen, until poleta felt the need to fall over on top of him & knock him over, causing him to cry too. HOWEVER. poleta took her first steps while i was there! (i´m assuming...) she had only been walking around while holding on to me before, but i let go for a second and she walked to me all by herself! pretty much it was really exciting, except i felt bad because i was the only one there & i feel like maybe i should´ve gotten more excited for a milestone like that?
yesterday we all went out to celebrate amanda´s birthday at ice + grill (mongolian barbecue restaurant up the street) and then to bambuko´s for drinks (also up the street, just in the other direction). i realized it´s probably a good thing my birthday´s not while i´m down here, because we wouldn´t be able to fit everyone in the lebanese restaurant!
also: i get to eat curries AND cajun food this week! and there´s a store in puerto that sells havaianas, so i can buy some new sandals.
i bought a dress earlier this week. it´s gorgeous and was only about 25 dollars. we´re friends with the shop owner -- his name´s oscar and his shop´s right around the corner from the cholula house, so we stop to chat with him pretty frequently. we´re going to have to find a place to go where (somewhat) formal dress is required while we´re on the coast!
so that´s it. pacific coast, here i come!!!
29 March 2007
26 March 2007
babies, the beach, & seafood
remember the toddlers at the orphanage who had hepatitis (A)? well, they still have it and are expected to be quarantined until at least april 2nd. it´s kind of disheartening to begin to get close to these kids and then suddenly just get cut off and have to work with a different group of kids every week (disheartening as in i didnt even really have any enthusiasm for going for awhile there).
but then, on thursday, they let me play with babies for 4 hours! oh my goodness, did i fall in love. i was put in a ¨(makeshift) playpen¨ with three babies who were teething and learning how to walk and falling over and making cooing noises and the little girl named camila even looked up at me and said ¨... mamá.¨ (then i realized that she hadn´t said anything coherent in the 2 hours i´d been with her and that none of the other babies had said real words and i hoped to god it wasn´t her first word because i definitely should´ve gotten more excited than i did!) normally i´d be completely overwhelmed by being alone with 3 dependent babies, but it was a blast! we played with balls and sang barney songs (in spanish, i rock) and played patty cake and did tons of other fun things. when i laid 2 of them down for naps, i was given two more babies to care for (these ones with obvious developmental delays, but they were muuuuch younger). i had to feed them and give them medicine (apologizing profusely - cough medicine tastes awful!) and was totally mommy-like.
i read the case summary of one of the little boys, miguel, and it broke my heart. he was put into the orphanage for protection (& he´s only 13 months old) and is in serious need of hug therapy and has a lot of development delays. he´s amazingly happy, refuses to go down for naps, and yes, he loves hugs. if you hold your arms out to him, he´ll crawl slowly over to you and then crawl up into your lap and put his arms around your neck and then you can hold him. basically i made sure that every baby got at least 20 minutes of hug / hold time while i was there. when i left, miguelito cried forever (forever as in i laid him down and then tried to comfort him for 20 minutes before leaving). this was also heartbreaking, because i feel like i´m going to be abandoning them in may. oy. anyway, i go back tomorrow and i´m super thrilled about playing with them again!
i´m currently reading about baby care on wikipedia (because i can´t seem to remember anything i´ve ever learned about this stuff!). any tips, mothers?
moving on to the weekend...
veracruz was estupendo! i slept a good chunk of the drive there (we left the udla at 6am!), but when i woke up we were driving through coffee country. big smiles! mountains upon mountains covered in banana trees with coffee beans being shade-grown beneath them. i wanted so badly to ask sally if we could pull the bus over, have every person pick a random house, and then go drink coffee with the campesinos and get to know them. in our VU sociology class, we´re reading a book about rural poverty, but we don´t actually get to have any interactions with the rural poor of mexico really. in that way, this is a very different experience than my other travels to latin america. oh and i forgot to mention that the final 40 minutes of driving there was right up the coastline. b-e-a-utiful!!!
our first stop was at the ruins of el tajín, which have tons of asian features. the ruins are very unique from anything else in mexico, but that´s what i was expecting: i´ve always been told that the structures on the gulf coast are very different than those we´re used to in central mexico. in tajín, we realized we were on the coast and were shocked by the wall of humidity and heat as soon as we exited the bus. it was fabulous and my hair curled ... a bit too much.
the first day / night was spent in the small fishing town of tecontlutla (i think?), where our hotel overlooked the beautiful beautiful gulf of mexico. i forgot to bring my bob marley cd, which was very disheartening. this was the first time i´d ever had a view from my hotel overlooking the water and it was superb! we slept with the windows open, por supuesto, and listened to the waves crashing in all night long. if i would´ve been smart, i would have set my alarm much earlier than i did to see the sun rise. no importa, i still got to sit outside and let my hair dry in the ocean air (read: curl lots) and read my book that morning. breakfast involved veracruz´s famous corn patties with salsa and cheese on top (yum + healthy) and cajun spiced beans! oh, i still love this food.
lunch was at a restaurant on the rio tecontlutla. (about 25 meters away, it ran into the ocean.) as an appetizer, they served us seafood salad with totopos (taco chips). it was divine - especially with lime squeezed on top, which is the only way i eat anything anymore. my meal was disappointing (except for the black beans and rice!!!), so i mainly ate the seafood salad.
after lunch we went on a boatride on the river to see all the native wildlife. this included seagulls (welcome to valpo?), blue herons, big seaturtles, regular-sized homer-turtles, crabs (causing us to sing ¨under the sea¨ from little mermaid), and sharks (they had already been fished and were laying in the back of a truck). then we went into a grove of mangroves, which was something straight out of ¨the notebook¨ or ¨the little mermaid.¨ our capitán let us climb around on the mangrove roots for awhile. in flipflops? yeah, fue una aventura!
beachtime came in the evening. kelly and i went for a run / beachcombing for shells. the water was un poco chilly but amazing nonetheless. then the sun went down and we headed back to the hotel pool for awhile.
dinner was comida corrida, from a vendor on the zócalo. the place we went had nothing but beef and pork (seriously?!), so i had to go to another place, get a quesadilla (always made from scratch), and bring it back to eat at the other stand. awkward. the food was amazing, though. the green salsa here is so much richer than in the states. (except i think javier has it right.) i love it!
saturday we drove 2 more hours down the coast and saw a ton of historical sites, including the first indigenous town that cortes´s men interacted with. from the top (well, top #1) of this huge mountain, we could look out over the gulf and see where cortes´s ships docked when he first arrived. the mountain we were on looked almost exactly like the highest peak of sugarloaf mountain in rio de janeiro. lovely lovely.
the city of veracruz seemed very american to me. the materials the buildings are made of are very mexican, but the structure of the city (the streets, the tall buildings) seemed very US american. it was also swarming with tourists (aka i saw like 20 other white people), which was weird. i´m pretty sure the restaurant owners and shopkeepers appreciated us a bit, since we were gringos who actually spoke spanish. lunch was on the zócalo, where we ate at a seafood restaurant. i had crab tostadas, which were absolutely delicious. i´ve never been a seafood person but i enjoyed the experience this trip!
we spent the late afternoon (lunch was at 4. did i mention the different eating hours here? lunch is 2 or 3 or 4 and dinner is 7 or 8 or 9 or maybe 10:30 like last night...) wandering around the boardwalk and eating shaved ice covered in syrup and chili powder. mine was guanábana flavor... a very yummy amazing tropical fruit. i´m in love with everything coastal and i absolutely must live on a coast in the near future.
while i´m thinking about it, veracruz reminded me alot of saint augustine, FL, probably because it´s so colonial. the boardwalk area reminded me of beirut (syriana-style), however, because of all the oil tankers docked there. it´s definitely an oil town, and the pemex headquarters are right there on the coast. i´m sure there´s a beach somewhere, but the entire coastline by our hotel was filled with oil oil and more oil. very different. (and it reminded me of matt weber, of course, with his plot involving oil ships and what he considers to be ¨ghandian¨ methods of conflict resolution...)
leah and i slept 11 hours on saturday night on accident. what started as a nap at 8:30 pm continued until 7:45 am. whoops!i had some really random dreams involving the red hot chili peppers and leah leaving for breakfast without me. however, i made it to breakfast, which was at a famous restaurant that serves the richest cafe con leche you can ever imagine. pre-sugared, which reminded me of nica. they are also famous for their black bean / scrambled eggs. yummy!!!!
the rest of the day was spent at small historical sites (forts and old jails and looking at gold that was found in shipwrecks off the coast and whatnot) and then we headed back to puebla, where it was chilly. boo. it was amanda´s 20th birthday, so we went out to dinner to celebrate. i´m going back to the coast (the pacific coast) on sometime early saturday. we have a very long 15 hour busride from puebla to get there.
oooooh, the fun times! :)
but then, on thursday, they let me play with babies for 4 hours! oh my goodness, did i fall in love. i was put in a ¨(makeshift) playpen¨ with three babies who were teething and learning how to walk and falling over and making cooing noises and the little girl named camila even looked up at me and said ¨... mamá.¨ (then i realized that she hadn´t said anything coherent in the 2 hours i´d been with her and that none of the other babies had said real words and i hoped to god it wasn´t her first word because i definitely should´ve gotten more excited than i did!) normally i´d be completely overwhelmed by being alone with 3 dependent babies, but it was a blast! we played with balls and sang barney songs (in spanish, i rock) and played patty cake and did tons of other fun things. when i laid 2 of them down for naps, i was given two more babies to care for (these ones with obvious developmental delays, but they were muuuuch younger). i had to feed them and give them medicine (apologizing profusely - cough medicine tastes awful!) and was totally mommy-like.
i read the case summary of one of the little boys, miguel, and it broke my heart. he was put into the orphanage for protection (& he´s only 13 months old) and is in serious need of hug therapy and has a lot of development delays. he´s amazingly happy, refuses to go down for naps, and yes, he loves hugs. if you hold your arms out to him, he´ll crawl slowly over to you and then crawl up into your lap and put his arms around your neck and then you can hold him. basically i made sure that every baby got at least 20 minutes of hug / hold time while i was there. when i left, miguelito cried forever (forever as in i laid him down and then tried to comfort him for 20 minutes before leaving). this was also heartbreaking, because i feel like i´m going to be abandoning them in may. oy. anyway, i go back tomorrow and i´m super thrilled about playing with them again!
i´m currently reading about baby care on wikipedia (because i can´t seem to remember anything i´ve ever learned about this stuff!). any tips, mothers?
moving on to the weekend...
veracruz was estupendo! i slept a good chunk of the drive there (we left the udla at 6am!), but when i woke up we were driving through coffee country. big smiles! mountains upon mountains covered in banana trees with coffee beans being shade-grown beneath them. i wanted so badly to ask sally if we could pull the bus over, have every person pick a random house, and then go drink coffee with the campesinos and get to know them. in our VU sociology class, we´re reading a book about rural poverty, but we don´t actually get to have any interactions with the rural poor of mexico really. in that way, this is a very different experience than my other travels to latin america. oh and i forgot to mention that the final 40 minutes of driving there was right up the coastline. b-e-a-utiful!!!
our first stop was at the ruins of el tajín, which have tons of asian features. the ruins are very unique from anything else in mexico, but that´s what i was expecting: i´ve always been told that the structures on the gulf coast are very different than those we´re used to in central mexico. in tajín, we realized we were on the coast and were shocked by the wall of humidity and heat as soon as we exited the bus. it was fabulous and my hair curled ... a bit too much.
the first day / night was spent in the small fishing town of tecontlutla (i think?), where our hotel overlooked the beautiful beautiful gulf of mexico. i forgot to bring my bob marley cd, which was very disheartening. this was the first time i´d ever had a view from my hotel overlooking the water and it was superb! we slept with the windows open, por supuesto, and listened to the waves crashing in all night long. if i would´ve been smart, i would have set my alarm much earlier than i did to see the sun rise. no importa, i still got to sit outside and let my hair dry in the ocean air (read: curl lots) and read my book that morning. breakfast involved veracruz´s famous corn patties with salsa and cheese on top (yum + healthy) and cajun spiced beans! oh, i still love this food.
lunch was at a restaurant on the rio tecontlutla. (about 25 meters away, it ran into the ocean.) as an appetizer, they served us seafood salad with totopos (taco chips). it was divine - especially with lime squeezed on top, which is the only way i eat anything anymore. my meal was disappointing (except for the black beans and rice!!!), so i mainly ate the seafood salad.
after lunch we went on a boatride on the river to see all the native wildlife. this included seagulls (welcome to valpo?), blue herons, big seaturtles, regular-sized homer-turtles, crabs (causing us to sing ¨under the sea¨ from little mermaid), and sharks (they had already been fished and were laying in the back of a truck). then we went into a grove of mangroves, which was something straight out of ¨the notebook¨ or ¨the little mermaid.¨ our capitán let us climb around on the mangrove roots for awhile. in flipflops? yeah, fue una aventura!
beachtime came in the evening. kelly and i went for a run / beachcombing for shells. the water was un poco chilly but amazing nonetheless. then the sun went down and we headed back to the hotel pool for awhile.
dinner was comida corrida, from a vendor on the zócalo. the place we went had nothing but beef and pork (seriously?!), so i had to go to another place, get a quesadilla (always made from scratch), and bring it back to eat at the other stand. awkward. the food was amazing, though. the green salsa here is so much richer than in the states. (except i think javier has it right.) i love it!
saturday we drove 2 more hours down the coast and saw a ton of historical sites, including the first indigenous town that cortes´s men interacted with. from the top (well, top #1) of this huge mountain, we could look out over the gulf and see where cortes´s ships docked when he first arrived. the mountain we were on looked almost exactly like the highest peak of sugarloaf mountain in rio de janeiro. lovely lovely.
the city of veracruz seemed very american to me. the materials the buildings are made of are very mexican, but the structure of the city (the streets, the tall buildings) seemed very US american. it was also swarming with tourists (aka i saw like 20 other white people), which was weird. i´m pretty sure the restaurant owners and shopkeepers appreciated us a bit, since we were gringos who actually spoke spanish. lunch was on the zócalo, where we ate at a seafood restaurant. i had crab tostadas, which were absolutely delicious. i´ve never been a seafood person but i enjoyed the experience this trip!
we spent the late afternoon (lunch was at 4. did i mention the different eating hours here? lunch is 2 or 3 or 4 and dinner is 7 or 8 or 9 or maybe 10:30 like last night...) wandering around the boardwalk and eating shaved ice covered in syrup and chili powder. mine was guanábana flavor... a very yummy amazing tropical fruit. i´m in love with everything coastal and i absolutely must live on a coast in the near future.
while i´m thinking about it, veracruz reminded me alot of saint augustine, FL, probably because it´s so colonial. the boardwalk area reminded me of beirut (syriana-style), however, because of all the oil tankers docked there. it´s definitely an oil town, and the pemex headquarters are right there on the coast. i´m sure there´s a beach somewhere, but the entire coastline by our hotel was filled with oil oil and more oil. very different. (and it reminded me of matt weber, of course, with his plot involving oil ships and what he considers to be ¨ghandian¨ methods of conflict resolution...)
leah and i slept 11 hours on saturday night on accident. what started as a nap at 8:30 pm continued until 7:45 am. whoops!i had some really random dreams involving the red hot chili peppers and leah leaving for breakfast without me. however, i made it to breakfast, which was at a famous restaurant that serves the richest cafe con leche you can ever imagine. pre-sugared, which reminded me of nica. they are also famous for their black bean / scrambled eggs. yummy!!!!
the rest of the day was spent at small historical sites (forts and old jails and looking at gold that was found in shipwrecks off the coast and whatnot) and then we headed back to puebla, where it was chilly. boo. it was amanda´s 20th birthday, so we went out to dinner to celebrate. i´m going back to the coast (the pacific coast) on sometime early saturday. we have a very long 15 hour busride from puebla to get there.
oooooh, the fun times! :)
21 March 2007
families & familias (and food)
this weeked was filled to the brim with families! i hadn´t realized how much i´ve missed families since i´ve been here. i suppose the valpo group is like a family (with 10 sisters and 1 brother? ay yi yi.), since enrique always herds us together by yelling ¨¡vamonoooos, familia!¨ but that doesn´t change the fact that i´ve missed families who have long histories together.
the family-ness started on friday night when we went out for pizza on the zócalo with dan´s family, who was visiting from minnesota. let me just tell you that he has the cutest family ever. if you put his mom in a line of my mom´s cousins mary, pinky, and chris, and you wouldn´t even be able to tell that she wasn´t one of their sisters. she´s adorable. she used to teach in puebla, so she´s semi-familiar with the area and speaks impeccable spanish, definitely putting me to shame. his stepdad gave mallory tons of advice for going into peace work in the future, which was really interesting to hear about. and he has 3 younger brothers, all of whom are hilarious. i taught them all about how to put spicy sauce on their pizza and they made me miss pete a ton. it was a good time!
saturday was st. patrick´s day... another reason to miss my family! this place is seriously lacking in all things irish. krista and i woke up and danced around the room to the boondock saints music for awhile (and we tried to watch the movie, but it was from the fayuca and didn´t work out so well), then went to breakfast, where we wanted potatoes, but ended up with quesadillas and chilaquiles instead. flavorful, spicy food on ireland-day? oh no no no. they didn´t even have irish cream for my coffee! we were pretty depressed.
then we went into mexico city to stay with our suitemate andrea´s family. (on the busride there, we watched ¨walk the line¨ dubbed in spanish. it was a little bit awkward - lacking southern accents! - but still good as ever. love johnny cash!) we had chinese food for dinner (the lights went out so we ate it partly by candlelight) and listened to bagpipe music in the car on the way there. we were pretty amazed at the globalization: irish music, chinese food, & gringas in mexico city...
then andrea took us to an irish pub to celebrate st. patty´s day!!! it was basically the best ever. krista and i split 2 pints of guiness (beer? yes, sometimes that happens on special occasions.) and some bailey´s and we watched live music. the waiters were all wearing green hats with shamrocks and i talked one of them into letting me wear his for awhile. then i got one to take home at the end of the night. it was a good, good time.
i should mention that now that i´ve seen mexico city from the perspective of someone who lives there, instead of only speeding through tourist sites, i don´t dislike the city as much.
sunday was the puma´s (soccer) game. we bought shirts and learned lots of the cheers and i finally saw someone get red carded! very exciting. the game ended in a tie, but it was really exciting toward the end, because the pumas had been losing 3-1 at the half and came back to tie it in the last 10 or so minutes. after the game, we stood around in a mob of screaming, cheering, singing fans for about a half hour and i learned more of the songs / cheers. it was a glorious time. i miss having a team i care about within an hour of me.
immediately after the game, we (sweat and beer stained clothes and all) went to andrea´s grandparents´ house for sunday lunch / dinner with the family. basically, her family is a smaller (with 5 less uncles and 16 less cousins) version of the metzes who speak spanish. they were so amusing! everyone was talking a mile a minute and we were attempting to stutter out answers to all of their questions (and not really succeeding) and i´m pretty sure they were all making fun of our horrible spanish the entire time. for lunch they served carnitas (pork) and barbacoa (lamb). i swallowed my pride and tried the lamb (blech?), but mainly stuck to bean quesadillas and guacamole in fresh tortillas. dessert consisted of strawberries with vanilla ice cream (!!!!!!!!), some tequila, and a huge mug of coffee. i love the way mexicans eat.
sunday night, the clásico (yes, another soccer game) was in mexico city, so we watched that on tv. it was between the chivas (a chiva is a goat, btw. talk about a good mascot!) and club america, two huge teams here. CA´s goalie was beyond phenomenal, so it was a really fun game to watch. chiva´s lost by 1.
i forgot to mention that for breakfast on sunday, andrea´s mom took us to a huge market in the middle of the city and we ate at a ¨quesadilla bar,¨where you pick your fillings and they whip you up a quesadilla (make with fresh tortillas!) really fast. mine were filled with cheese and potatoes. heaven!
wednesday is market day in cholula, so krista and i got up early this morning to go buy food. we had quesadillas again (this time only with cheese) and bought beans, rice, lentils, and garbanzo beans to make hummus. we´re going to start cooking more, it seems.
i love the market. seeing all those people, buying fresh produce, fresh meat (ew), fresh veggies, and flowers to fill their vases just makes me very happy about life. everyone is doing their own thing, the same way they´ve done it every week for years, and i wish i had routines like that. i can´t wait to come back to the states and shop at farmer´s markets, where i won´t have to soak the produce in water and a cleaning solution for 10 minutes before i can eat it! i wish i could describe the market better, but i can´t. just picture stand after stand after stand piled high with colorful fruit, or vegetables, or baskets full of chili peppers and spices, or dead de-feathered chickens piled high on countertops (not my favorite part at all). my favorite section is the flower stands, where you can buy so many different kinds of colorful flowers! tomorrow i´m going to pick up some daisies on my way back from the orphanage. i´ll go back to the market with my camera some day and try to capture it in pictures.
last night, krista, sam, dan, and i sat outside until 2 am on the terrace outside the centro social, watching indiana jones on sam´s laptop. it was cold, but very very fun.
homework abounds this week, but i´m slowly working my way through it. we were off monday for benito juarez´s birthday (look him up, he´s a pretty cool guy) and on friday morning at 6am, we leave for veracruz, so this is only a 3 day week for me.
veracruz is on the gulf coast (body of water #1 i´ve never seen, except from above). it´s filled with freshwater and saltwater seafood and is the first place hernán cortes (the conquistador) stepped foot on mexican soil. i am super-emocionada about going there!
next friday begins spring break, a week of sun and fun in puerto escondido (on the pacific coast - body of water #2 i´ve not yet seen). i can´t wait for a week of 100% relaxation! on the ¨best of puerto escondido¨ website, it says there are amazing restaurants with curries and cajun chicken! excited!!
yesterday evening, i got to talk to my sister on the phone for a half hour. this was basically the highlight of my life, since we hadn´t talked since i´ve been here. i missed you, elizabugs!
aaaand i´ve run out of news to report. however, i really want graeters. please go eat some for me. that´s all.
the family-ness started on friday night when we went out for pizza on the zócalo with dan´s family, who was visiting from minnesota. let me just tell you that he has the cutest family ever. if you put his mom in a line of my mom´s cousins mary, pinky, and chris, and you wouldn´t even be able to tell that she wasn´t one of their sisters. she´s adorable. she used to teach in puebla, so she´s semi-familiar with the area and speaks impeccable spanish, definitely putting me to shame. his stepdad gave mallory tons of advice for going into peace work in the future, which was really interesting to hear about. and he has 3 younger brothers, all of whom are hilarious. i taught them all about how to put spicy sauce on their pizza and they made me miss pete a ton. it was a good time!
saturday was st. patrick´s day... another reason to miss my family! this place is seriously lacking in all things irish. krista and i woke up and danced around the room to the boondock saints music for awhile (and we tried to watch the movie, but it was from the fayuca and didn´t work out so well), then went to breakfast, where we wanted potatoes, but ended up with quesadillas and chilaquiles instead. flavorful, spicy food on ireland-day? oh no no no. they didn´t even have irish cream for my coffee! we were pretty depressed.
then we went into mexico city to stay with our suitemate andrea´s family. (on the busride there, we watched ¨walk the line¨ dubbed in spanish. it was a little bit awkward - lacking southern accents! - but still good as ever. love johnny cash!) we had chinese food for dinner (the lights went out so we ate it partly by candlelight) and listened to bagpipe music in the car on the way there. we were pretty amazed at the globalization: irish music, chinese food, & gringas in mexico city...
then andrea took us to an irish pub to celebrate st. patty´s day!!! it was basically the best ever. krista and i split 2 pints of guiness (beer? yes, sometimes that happens on special occasions.) and some bailey´s and we watched live music. the waiters were all wearing green hats with shamrocks and i talked one of them into letting me wear his for awhile. then i got one to take home at the end of the night. it was a good, good time.
i should mention that now that i´ve seen mexico city from the perspective of someone who lives there, instead of only speeding through tourist sites, i don´t dislike the city as much.
sunday was the puma´s (soccer) game. we bought shirts and learned lots of the cheers and i finally saw someone get red carded! very exciting. the game ended in a tie, but it was really exciting toward the end, because the pumas had been losing 3-1 at the half and came back to tie it in the last 10 or so minutes. after the game, we stood around in a mob of screaming, cheering, singing fans for about a half hour and i learned more of the songs / cheers. it was a glorious time. i miss having a team i care about within an hour of me.
immediately after the game, we (sweat and beer stained clothes and all) went to andrea´s grandparents´ house for sunday lunch / dinner with the family. basically, her family is a smaller (with 5 less uncles and 16 less cousins) version of the metzes who speak spanish. they were so amusing! everyone was talking a mile a minute and we were attempting to stutter out answers to all of their questions (and not really succeeding) and i´m pretty sure they were all making fun of our horrible spanish the entire time. for lunch they served carnitas (pork) and barbacoa (lamb). i swallowed my pride and tried the lamb (blech?), but mainly stuck to bean quesadillas and guacamole in fresh tortillas. dessert consisted of strawberries with vanilla ice cream (!!!!!!!!), some tequila, and a huge mug of coffee. i love the way mexicans eat.
sunday night, the clásico (yes, another soccer game) was in mexico city, so we watched that on tv. it was between the chivas (a chiva is a goat, btw. talk about a good mascot!) and club america, two huge teams here. CA´s goalie was beyond phenomenal, so it was a really fun game to watch. chiva´s lost by 1.
i forgot to mention that for breakfast on sunday, andrea´s mom took us to a huge market in the middle of the city and we ate at a ¨quesadilla bar,¨where you pick your fillings and they whip you up a quesadilla (make with fresh tortillas!) really fast. mine were filled with cheese and potatoes. heaven!
wednesday is market day in cholula, so krista and i got up early this morning to go buy food. we had quesadillas again (this time only with cheese) and bought beans, rice, lentils, and garbanzo beans to make hummus. we´re going to start cooking more, it seems.
i love the market. seeing all those people, buying fresh produce, fresh meat (ew), fresh veggies, and flowers to fill their vases just makes me very happy about life. everyone is doing their own thing, the same way they´ve done it every week for years, and i wish i had routines like that. i can´t wait to come back to the states and shop at farmer´s markets, where i won´t have to soak the produce in water and a cleaning solution for 10 minutes before i can eat it! i wish i could describe the market better, but i can´t. just picture stand after stand after stand piled high with colorful fruit, or vegetables, or baskets full of chili peppers and spices, or dead de-feathered chickens piled high on countertops (not my favorite part at all). my favorite section is the flower stands, where you can buy so many different kinds of colorful flowers! tomorrow i´m going to pick up some daisies on my way back from the orphanage. i´ll go back to the market with my camera some day and try to capture it in pictures.
last night, krista, sam, dan, and i sat outside until 2 am on the terrace outside the centro social, watching indiana jones on sam´s laptop. it was cold, but very very fun.
homework abounds this week, but i´m slowly working my way through it. we were off monday for benito juarez´s birthday (look him up, he´s a pretty cool guy) and on friday morning at 6am, we leave for veracruz, so this is only a 3 day week for me.
veracruz is on the gulf coast (body of water #1 i´ve never seen, except from above). it´s filled with freshwater and saltwater seafood and is the first place hernán cortes (the conquistador) stepped foot on mexican soil. i am super-emocionada about going there!
next friday begins spring break, a week of sun and fun in puerto escondido (on the pacific coast - body of water #2 i´ve not yet seen). i can´t wait for a week of 100% relaxation! on the ¨best of puerto escondido¨ website, it says there are amazing restaurants with curries and cajun chicken! excited!!
yesterday evening, i got to talk to my sister on the phone for a half hour. this was basically the highlight of my life, since we hadn´t talked since i´ve been here. i missed you, elizabugs!
aaaand i´ve run out of news to report. however, i really want graeters. please go eat some for me. that´s all.
12 March 2007
a weekend in oaxaca & más
what to say about this weekend?
oaxaca is the state directly to our south, but the roadtrip took us more than 4 hours through winding mountain roads. at times we were winding through mountains covered in stick straight green cactuses (toothpick-like). at other times, i felt like i was in utah because of the beautiful rock formations (i believe i saw some hoodoos!) and the red dirt. these were some of the most bizarre mountains i have ever seen, with rocky cliffs climbing out of their peaks. it was pretty much the most beautiful drive ever.
we stayed in oaxaca city, the state´s capital, where there were widespread strikes (beginning with the teachers, then i think they spread) and rioting earlier this year. the city thrives on tourism, so their local economy plummeted over the past few months because they lost so much revenue. i´m happy to report, however, that it seems as if the city has rebounded greatly and is crawling with tourists again. on saturday night, the zócalo was swarming with people, tourists mixed in with the locals, listening to live music in the central gazebo, watching a performance of local dances, and there were tons of children running around playing with balloons. sidenote: i am completely weirded out by hearing english spoken in the streets and this makes me rather worried for the reverse culture shock i´m going to experience when i fly back to chicago in may...
we visited FOUR archeological sites this weekend, the largest and most well-known being monte alban and mitla. monte alban is HUGE and reminds me somewhat of teotihuacan, just because of how extensive the site is. every time you climb up and over or around another pyramid, there´s an entire new part of the site to discovere! and at dainzú, a smaller site we went to see, there were no guards and no fences and ¨no toque¨ signs, which means we could climb all over it and discover tunnels and have the time of our lives! i wore a skirt on sunday, which apparently makes me want to climb things even more. i think i did the most exploring i´ve done yet. it was grand. i might want to do that forever.
oaxaca has a largely indigenous population, which means it is famous for its arts and crafts! one of the most unique crafts is its so-called black pottery, which is ... obviously ... black in color. it´s created without a pottery wheel (the mexica and zapotec indians living in the area didn´t use the wheel), but instead two plates are placed on top of each other (back to back) and spun around. we saw a demonstration, and the potter created a pitcher in under 20 minutes. it was pretty impressive. (i took a video for you to see, leah reynolds!) once it´s baked in the oven, they allow it to set for about 3 days, then rub a quartz stone over it and this somehow produces the black hue. it´s pretty intense. there´s a huge market at this site, so we all went shopping.
speaking of shopping, kelly and i discovered an english language bookstore that took credit cards and let´s just say i managed to spend $40 on books. there are worse things, right? while we were in there, a huge parade of dancers and large (10 feet tall) body puppets passed, so we followed that for awhile. i love the spontenaity! and for dinner, some people ate chapulines (toasted / spiced crickets), but i didn´t partake in the fun. later, alan (mel´s boyfriend visiting from valpo) watched me put together my taco (chicken, cheese, onion, peppers, guacamole, 2 types of green salsa, cilantro ... in that order!) and mentioned that it´s like watching an artist at work. hmmm, i suppose you could look at it that way.
while we were in a museum, we suddenly heard a ruckus (if you will) outside near the church, so we rushed to the patio to see what the fuss was about: it was the procession at the end of a wedding. there were dancers and musicians and those huge puppets again, and the bride and the groom were standing at the exit of the church greeting people. it looked like so much fun! again, with the loveliness of all the random music and dancing here...
there´s still quite a bit of graffiti on the buildings further away from the centro from the strikes and riots. downtown, they´ve mainly covered it all with more paint, so it´s not unlikely to see 5 buildings in a row with the first level covered in random patches of white or red paint. it´s a really posh city though! so posh, in fact, that they have a gelato shop on the zócalo. i ate el sabor de guayaba (guava flavor), which flashed me back to brazil. marvelous.
pat bought a bottle of mezcal, oaxaca´s famous liquor, on saturday. it comes from the agave cactus and is similar to tequila, with a stronger flavor and a higher alcohol content. i tried some and it definitely tastes like what you´d think the inside of a cactus would taste like if you let it ferment. very ... interesting. something you should try if you´re in oaxaca, but otherwise, i wouldn´t make it a priority. (unless you feel like tequila lacks flavor?)
looking ahead, it seems as if i have quite a bit of homework this week. there´s a business test on thursday, a paper due for my VU class on thursday about cultural homonyms, a paper about animal rights activists and the zoo due for my comm class sometime, and a research proposal for my final community service paper due ... today? i´m doing the service but not taking it as a class for credit, yet somehow i still have to write all the papers for the class. basically there´s no motivation because a grade doesn´t matter in a not-for-credit class. either way, the research on education in orphanages should be fun, i just have no incentive to turn anything in on time. i wouldn´t complain about that measly amount of homework, but valpo´s on spring break so i feel like i have a right, eh?
tomorrow´s back to the orphanage for some soccer + mathematics fun (the chiquitos are still hep-ish, pienso). this weekend is 3 days long and i´m headed into mex city for a pumas game (i´m in hooligan training this week to prepare for this life-changing event), and then the weekend after that, we´re going to veracruz for 3 days as well. the next weekend begins spring break in puerto excondido! after that, i only have a month left here. ooooh, how the time flies.
and i believe that´s all. miss stenzel is ill, so i´m going to fix her a peanut butter & nutella tortilla. oh, and if you ever get a chance, you should buy a bottle of salsa valentina (or just some hot sauce from taco bell if you feel like being a poser) and put it on cheese pizza. i´m telling you, everything is better when it´s spiced!
oaxaca is the state directly to our south, but the roadtrip took us more than 4 hours through winding mountain roads. at times we were winding through mountains covered in stick straight green cactuses (toothpick-like). at other times, i felt like i was in utah because of the beautiful rock formations (i believe i saw some hoodoos!) and the red dirt. these were some of the most bizarre mountains i have ever seen, with rocky cliffs climbing out of their peaks. it was pretty much the most beautiful drive ever.
we stayed in oaxaca city, the state´s capital, where there were widespread strikes (beginning with the teachers, then i think they spread) and rioting earlier this year. the city thrives on tourism, so their local economy plummeted over the past few months because they lost so much revenue. i´m happy to report, however, that it seems as if the city has rebounded greatly and is crawling with tourists again. on saturday night, the zócalo was swarming with people, tourists mixed in with the locals, listening to live music in the central gazebo, watching a performance of local dances, and there were tons of children running around playing with balloons. sidenote: i am completely weirded out by hearing english spoken in the streets and this makes me rather worried for the reverse culture shock i´m going to experience when i fly back to chicago in may...
we visited FOUR archeological sites this weekend, the largest and most well-known being monte alban and mitla. monte alban is HUGE and reminds me somewhat of teotihuacan, just because of how extensive the site is. every time you climb up and over or around another pyramid, there´s an entire new part of the site to discovere! and at dainzú, a smaller site we went to see, there were no guards and no fences and ¨no toque¨ signs, which means we could climb all over it and discover tunnels and have the time of our lives! i wore a skirt on sunday, which apparently makes me want to climb things even more. i think i did the most exploring i´ve done yet. it was grand. i might want to do that forever.
oaxaca has a largely indigenous population, which means it is famous for its arts and crafts! one of the most unique crafts is its so-called black pottery, which is ... obviously ... black in color. it´s created without a pottery wheel (the mexica and zapotec indians living in the area didn´t use the wheel), but instead two plates are placed on top of each other (back to back) and spun around. we saw a demonstration, and the potter created a pitcher in under 20 minutes. it was pretty impressive. (i took a video for you to see, leah reynolds!) once it´s baked in the oven, they allow it to set for about 3 days, then rub a quartz stone over it and this somehow produces the black hue. it´s pretty intense. there´s a huge market at this site, so we all went shopping.
speaking of shopping, kelly and i discovered an english language bookstore that took credit cards and let´s just say i managed to spend $40 on books. there are worse things, right? while we were in there, a huge parade of dancers and large (10 feet tall) body puppets passed, so we followed that for awhile. i love the spontenaity! and for dinner, some people ate chapulines (toasted / spiced crickets), but i didn´t partake in the fun. later, alan (mel´s boyfriend visiting from valpo) watched me put together my taco (chicken, cheese, onion, peppers, guacamole, 2 types of green salsa, cilantro ... in that order!) and mentioned that it´s like watching an artist at work. hmmm, i suppose you could look at it that way.
while we were in a museum, we suddenly heard a ruckus (if you will) outside near the church, so we rushed to the patio to see what the fuss was about: it was the procession at the end of a wedding. there were dancers and musicians and those huge puppets again, and the bride and the groom were standing at the exit of the church greeting people. it looked like so much fun! again, with the loveliness of all the random music and dancing here...
there´s still quite a bit of graffiti on the buildings further away from the centro from the strikes and riots. downtown, they´ve mainly covered it all with more paint, so it´s not unlikely to see 5 buildings in a row with the first level covered in random patches of white or red paint. it´s a really posh city though! so posh, in fact, that they have a gelato shop on the zócalo. i ate el sabor de guayaba (guava flavor), which flashed me back to brazil. marvelous.
pat bought a bottle of mezcal, oaxaca´s famous liquor, on saturday. it comes from the agave cactus and is similar to tequila, with a stronger flavor and a higher alcohol content. i tried some and it definitely tastes like what you´d think the inside of a cactus would taste like if you let it ferment. very ... interesting. something you should try if you´re in oaxaca, but otherwise, i wouldn´t make it a priority. (unless you feel like tequila lacks flavor?)
looking ahead, it seems as if i have quite a bit of homework this week. there´s a business test on thursday, a paper due for my VU class on thursday about cultural homonyms, a paper about animal rights activists and the zoo due for my comm class sometime, and a research proposal for my final community service paper due ... today? i´m doing the service but not taking it as a class for credit, yet somehow i still have to write all the papers for the class. basically there´s no motivation because a grade doesn´t matter in a not-for-credit class. either way, the research on education in orphanages should be fun, i just have no incentive to turn anything in on time. i wouldn´t complain about that measly amount of homework, but valpo´s on spring break so i feel like i have a right, eh?
tomorrow´s back to the orphanage for some soccer + mathematics fun (the chiquitos are still hep-ish, pienso). this weekend is 3 days long and i´m headed into mex city for a pumas game (i´m in hooligan training this week to prepare for this life-changing event), and then the weekend after that, we´re going to veracruz for 3 days as well. the next weekend begins spring break in puerto excondido! after that, i only have a month left here. ooooh, how the time flies.
and i believe that´s all. miss stenzel is ill, so i´m going to fix her a peanut butter & nutella tortilla. oh, and if you ever get a chance, you should buy a bottle of salsa valentina (or just some hot sauce from taco bell if you feel like being a poser) and put it on cheese pizza. i´m telling you, everything is better when it´s spiced!
06 March 2007
otro día en el orfanato...
and what fun it was!
i did things that are completely un-anni-like ... for instance, i taught kids math and played soccer with them for a really long time. you know how they say that studying abroad will take you out of your comfort zone? i´m pretty sure that i reached the height of that today when these 10 year old boys who have played soccer for 9 years longer than me (i kid you not) made me be goalie. very surprisingly, i held my own.
since the chiquitos are still infected with hepatitis, i ended up working with a group of ten to fifteen boys, probably between the ages of 10 and 13. i wasn´t really looking forward to it (because i don´t like kids when they have a mind of their own and don´t like authority figures), but it was actually really fun! i had to stretch my spanish limits to explain multiplication (¨no, you need to carry the one, you can´t just pretend it doesn´t exist!¨) and i even beat 3 boys at a jump roping contest. (yessssssssss!) i´ve been pretty impressed with my comprehension skills of late... case in point being when one boy was drawing a picture of some trucks and drew speed bumps on the road, and i knew exactly what he was talking about when he used that word. later, when miguel didn´t want to play soccer anymore (and i decided that i´d played for long enough), we talked about what happens when the balls go over the walls (¨over that way, it´s where the police are, so they give them back to us. but behind that fence, that´s where the people who smoke, steal, and drink live. they they don´t give back our balls.¨) and about how he wants to go to university to become a police officer. then alejandro bit my shirt when i was leaving. apparently that means he wanted me to stay longer?
oh! and i was wearing my red sox shirt today and i had to explain to them that the red sox are a baseball team in the united states (¡el mejor equipo, por supuesto!) and that nomar garciaparra was their shortstop. so maybe they´ll all grow up now to be sox fans...
i took a different way back today, since it´s kind of a waste to take 3 busses to get to the cholula house instead of just 1 (i had been taking bus #1 to get to my bus station, then taking an udla bus to campus, then taking a local bus to get to the house). i got to walk back the way i came, so i stopped at a restaurant called habibi´s (where i´d been wanting to go since the day i first saw it) and got falafel. then i stopped at a flower booth on the corner and bought myself a big orange and yellow daisy. pretty sure i´m going to make the falafel and flower stops a weekly tradition.
mel´s boyfriend alan came to visit from the states last night and he brought me a package that my parents had sent to him. this marvelous present included the book divine secrets of the yaya sisterhood and my hip hop cd. so now my life is complete! (and i definitely enjoyed the pictures of the metz family mardi gras celebration as well, along with the not-so-subtle hints that i should be a reds fan... thanks joe!)
annnnnd that´s about all for my day. it was grand. :)
i did things that are completely un-anni-like ... for instance, i taught kids math and played soccer with them for a really long time. you know how they say that studying abroad will take you out of your comfort zone? i´m pretty sure that i reached the height of that today when these 10 year old boys who have played soccer for 9 years longer than me (i kid you not) made me be goalie. very surprisingly, i held my own.
since the chiquitos are still infected with hepatitis, i ended up working with a group of ten to fifteen boys, probably between the ages of 10 and 13. i wasn´t really looking forward to it (because i don´t like kids when they have a mind of their own and don´t like authority figures), but it was actually really fun! i had to stretch my spanish limits to explain multiplication (¨no, you need to carry the one, you can´t just pretend it doesn´t exist!¨) and i even beat 3 boys at a jump roping contest. (yessssssssss!) i´ve been pretty impressed with my comprehension skills of late... case in point being when one boy was drawing a picture of some trucks and drew speed bumps on the road, and i knew exactly what he was talking about when he used that word. later, when miguel didn´t want to play soccer anymore (and i decided that i´d played for long enough), we talked about what happens when the balls go over the walls (¨over that way, it´s where the police are, so they give them back to us. but behind that fence, that´s where the people who smoke, steal, and drink live. they they don´t give back our balls.¨) and about how he wants to go to university to become a police officer. then alejandro bit my shirt when i was leaving. apparently that means he wanted me to stay longer?
oh! and i was wearing my red sox shirt today and i had to explain to them that the red sox are a baseball team in the united states (¡el mejor equipo, por supuesto!) and that nomar garciaparra was their shortstop. so maybe they´ll all grow up now to be sox fans...
i took a different way back today, since it´s kind of a waste to take 3 busses to get to the cholula house instead of just 1 (i had been taking bus #1 to get to my bus station, then taking an udla bus to campus, then taking a local bus to get to the house). i got to walk back the way i came, so i stopped at a restaurant called habibi´s (where i´d been wanting to go since the day i first saw it) and got falafel. then i stopped at a flower booth on the corner and bought myself a big orange and yellow daisy. pretty sure i´m going to make the falafel and flower stops a weekly tradition.
mel´s boyfriend alan came to visit from the states last night and he brought me a package that my parents had sent to him. this marvelous present included the book divine secrets of the yaya sisterhood and my hip hop cd. so now my life is complete! (and i definitely enjoyed the pictures of the metz family mardi gras celebration as well, along with the not-so-subtle hints that i should be a reds fan... thanks joe!)
annnnnd that´s about all for my day. it was grand. :)
04 March 2007
¿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!
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!
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