welcome back to cholula, where the weather is actually rather chilly sometimes. (yes, i´m aware that it´s currently snowing in most of the midwest.) compared to the blazing hot sunshine i left in puerto escondido yesterday afternoon, the cholulan weather was rather refreshing - i was glad i decided to wear pants on the bus even though i had been regretting it while still on the coast! (i´m pretty sure the sentence ¨long pants were invented by the devil¨ was used. and frequently.)

however, before i recap my week, first things first: while on break, i had to schedule my classes for the fall, so for anyone who may have classes with me (or for my roommates, who are probably wondering when i´ll be around), here´s the rundown...

econ 326A: international economics (with shankar raman! weee!!)
ieca 493A: ieca senior seminar
socw 330EV: vulnerable populations
fls 220A: hispanic literature (con carlos!)
gs 200EVA: study circle on race relations

this leaves mondays free until 7pm and fridays end at 9:55am, which = weekend trips? yay!


so how was my beach vacation? fabulous, of course! it was hot as blazes most of the time (okay, all the time), which made sunbathing uncomfortable, but sure gave the guys who owned beach umbrellas quite a bit of business! i read two and a half books (¨another roadside attraction¨ by tom robbins, ¨five familes¨ by some anthropologist whose name i forget, and ¨dancing for cuba¨ by alma guillermoprieto).

we spent lots of time at three of the beaches that puerto has to offer: playa carazillo, a small cove about 2 blocks from our house, playa principal (crowded), and playa zicatela, the surfer beach, which was my favorite and not because of the surfers. the water is lovely, the waves are huge (copacabana beach style!), and at the cove by our house the sand is not so fine, so it makes removal rather easy and convenient. there were small restaurants up and down the beaches, which made it easy to order guacamole and piña coladas as often as i liked! at one point, i forgot to take will ferrell´s advice that milk is the bad choice when it´s hot outside, and ordered a milkshake. no, but seriously. BAD choice.

our most frequent restaurant stops were along the short strip right by our house: los vaqueros (that means ¨the cowboys¨ so basically everyone ate hamburgers or chicken nuggets) and los tugas (the portuguese restaurant that served curries and caipirinhas!). also, on the strip by the playa principal, there was an amazing pizza restaurant called mario´s, and we loved it so much that we ordered 3 pizzas to go and took them on the busride home. amazing.

our house was fabulous and the woman who owned it was super helpful and amazingly nice. we had the place to ourselves. she lives upstairs and we had to the two downstairs rooms, an indoor bathroom, and an outdoor bathroom at our disposal. in the morning, she set out good coffee, some fruit, and pan dulce for breakfast, and we ate at the picnic table outside in the front yard. the house isn´t air conditioned, so we basically wore the bare minimum of clothes that is socially acceptable in mixed company so we didn´t die of heat exhaustion. nights weren´t so bad, though, with the fan on and the windows open. we spent alot of our evenings just hanging out around the picnic table, watching movies and drinking boones farm and talking.

one night we decided we couldn´t tolerate the heat anymore, so we went to cinemar, a very very small movie theatre near the playa zicatela, that shows movies for really cheap in air conditioning. there are only 12 seats and we shared the place with some british guys. the movie was ¨the prestige¨ which wasn´t all that good, but the power on the whole block went out right at the climax of the movie so i have no idea how it ends. must go to the fayuca and buy it soon....

another night included partying on the rooftop of a bar. it´s too hot to be inside!

on our last morning (yesterday?), we got up at 6:30 and went on a boatride to go watch seaturtles and dolphins do their thing. it was fabulous! did you know sea turtles mate for up to 10 hours?! and we followed a family of dolphins around for a good half hour, just getting kicks watching them jump out of the water. the turtles were more spaced out and we´d randomly happen upon one or two and our guide would go ¨otra tortuga...¨ and then we´d move on. toward the end of the ride, sam and dan got to catch fish, which were immediately beat over the head with a huge wooden stick, splattering blood everywhere and making me thankful i hadn´t eaten breakfast before i went out. urrrgh.

the pacific coast doesn´t believe in white meat, by the way. i ate TONS of quesadillas and even more guacamole. good food, but it got repetitive.

by the way, did you notice up above where i said we took 3 pizzas on the busride home with us?

the busrides were fair. our bus there left 2 hours late, but we somehow managed to get to puerto around noon on saturday anyway. i basically slept most of the time, but woke up in the morning in time to watch some awful movies: one was about some ridiculously angsty teenagers who like to blow stuff up, do drugs, and have sex when they´re only 13. i slept 15 hours on the way home, thanks to dramamine. i woke up long enough to watch 50 first dates, and literally slept the entire rest of the trip. apparently we almost drove off the sides of mountains a couple times and randomly stopped on the side of the road for an hour around 2 am, so i´m kind of glad i was asleep for that...


today, we celebrated easter cholula-house-style. mel and i cooked for people (7 valpies & 2 MNers), breaded herb chicken and grandpa´s potatoes, with a recipe mel and i kind of threw together from memory. i´m happy to report that everything turned out fabulous & i can now cross ¨learn how to make grandpa´s potatoes¨ off of my life goals list. easter cholula-house-style also involved us running out of gas to light the stove / oven / hot water heater right before the chicken had to go in the oven and in the middle of the potatoes boiling, then running out of water entirely right when we needed to do dishes. go figure. we were troopers, though, and solved the problems. this celebration also included sam & pat praying to ¨8 pound 6 ounce baby jesus...¨ yesssssssss.

my easter present to myself was buying 2 books off amazon so i have something to keep myself occupied this summer. i´m going to have to rediscover the library when i come back, because i can´t keep spending this much money on books!

and tonight, we went to see el tirador (i think it´s called shooter in the states?), the new mark wahlberg movie. it´s really good and i definitely recommend everyone see it - unless you don´t like violent movies. then you should for sure avoid it. it had some really interesting social commentary and, of course, great shots of marky mark´s biceps. and a good car chase. good movie. it was bizarre, however, to walk out of the theatre and see a man holding a huge gun right after watching a movie filled with gunfights. it was just a guard, but still...


and so. now it´s crunch time, as yesterday signified that i only have a month left in mexico. i guess that means i´m down to something like 30 days now? goodness, how time flies!

this brings thoughts about summer (who knows what i´ll be doing or where i´ll be?! the options are seattle - where i´ve been offered a really great internship, toronto - where i´m hoping to be offered an even better internship, or cincinnati - where i´d spend summer #4 in the zooshops) and then senior year and then the rest of my life, which is rather terrifying. i´m weighing my options for what to do after i graduate as well (grad school? peace corps? backpacking through europe?), but i suppose we´ll discuss that later, because it´s definitely time for bed...