Boys: The good and the bad

Thursday was the scheduled day of the tennis tournement that I'd been entered into. Tuesday evening at practice coach had talked with two guys asking if either one of them could pick me up as I had no other way of getting to the tournement. One responded saying he didn't know if he'd be going to the tournement or not as he wasn't sure if he'd get out of classes. Thinking plans had been arranged I waited around the dorms for one of the guys to come and pick me. 11 o'clock rolls around and no one's come, this was the time the tournement was to start. I was ditched apparently. Angered I returned to my room to take a nap quickly getting over it knowing I'd see them both Tuesday and would be able to reem them out for forgetting me.

That same evening myself as well as one of my friends Anna, my neighbor Erica, and a girl from down the hall Regina went out to some clubs near by in Cholula. Friday I spent my day running some errands. Spent a good 20 minutes at the post office arguing with the employees over a importation tax that they had placed on an important package I'd had sent in order to begin my studies for Japanese. Afterwards I left frustated and jipped out of $86 (USD). The rest of my day I spent chatting with the boy from Toluca, Erick, and getting a head start on my Japanese.

Saturday I awoke somewhat early and made a last minute decision after talking more with Erick to go visit him once more. So I traversed once more to Toluca and spent my weekend with Erick and some of his other friends. Saturday he had a small house party for the soccer game that was taking place that day Mexico versus Costa Rica. Mexico won 2-0. We then went out to a bar to meet up with some other friends including Alex whom I'd met in Acapolco as well. Sunday we made breakfast together and afterwards we spent the day in a town outside of Toluca with his dad and his brother. We hiked up a large mountain like hill where there was a gigantic statue of Jesus on top and a beautiful view of the town below. Afterwards we spent the afternoon relaxing by a lake watching the various couples and families all while listening to a mariachi sort of band at the restaurant nearby. After that it was off to Erick's brother-in-laws family's place for an amazing fish dinner and tequila where we spent the evening in good company and conversation. It was after several hours spent here that I had to take the return trip to Puebla saying goodbye to amazing people with whom I hope to visit once more as they warmly welcomed me into their home and hearts and I as well...

March 21- A USAC Trip

This past Saturday the USAC program had organized a group trip, much like the one's I'd taken in Spain, to a part of town in Mexico City called Coyoacon in order to visit some museums. First we stopped off for a shortwhile at the Frieda Kahlo museum which was once her house. Frieda Kahlo is a very famous artist who was crippled by an accident and later died because of complications from this accident. After exploring her house for some time we were then dropped off in the Zocalo like area of Coyoacon where there was a large market with vendors selling anything and everything. Here we explored for a few hours, grabbing some ice cream from what was said to be one of the best places around to get ice cream but after being spoiled by the Gilato of Europe I've found it's hard to compare. It was in the market that I bought a few little neat souveniers for myself and a few others. After we were done exploring Ignacio the director took us for lunch at what had to have been one of the most americanized restaurants in all of Mexico. The music as we entered should've been the tip as it was American but it was baaad music none the less. We were served a delicious minastrone soup, some pasta with practically nothing on it to which we all added a spicey salsa and lime noticing how mexican we all started to become by adding salsa to pasta. Although it tasted rather good with the salsa and lime in my opinion. For the main course we were given a choice between three dishes to which I chose Chicken Cubano, which was supposed to be chicken served with an almond sauce and freid bananas all caramalized and sweet sauce. The sauce tasted like nothing, but the bananas were good. The other options were beef with mole (to which I'm wishing I would've eaten now, and Mexican Chicken to which few people liked as they said it wasn't very tastey). After lunch it was time to go to the Diego Rivera Museum, another famous artist once the husband of Frieda Kahlo. While there we were forced to take a tour and "stay with the group." I'm not a fan of tours and don't like being told to stay with a group if I don't want to. Needless to say I became the rule breaker and lingered until the group finally left me, paid little attention to the tour guide (which was easy to do as she spoke in Spanish I could easily block her out pretending to not understand.) and after a while the others followed suit becoming bored with the tour guide. After some time we began to then play the self timer game where everyone who had a camera set the camera to self timer giving us each ten second to run to a spot within view of the camera and then make funny poses and faces giving each camera a different picture. It was after we had our fun with the self timer game that we got back on the bus and headed back to Puebla ending the first of two USAC trips... and beginning another week in Puebla!!

The Long Weekend: March 13-16

For the weekend a large group of all the USAC student plus two Mexican boys decided to take a trip to a small town a few hours away from Acapulco called Ixtapa/Zeohuatinejo. It's two connected towns with very lovely beaches and crystal like waters. The first day they had all gone on Thursday night, but because I was supposed to have tennis practice (even though it was canceled due to a thunderstorm that occured in the last minutes before practice) which allowed everyone else in the group to arrive on Friday giving them one more day over the rest of us. Alyssa, Ramon, Kelli and I on the other hand left Friday evening arriving early Saturday morning. We immediately went to the hotel to meet with everyone before getting some breakfast and heading out on a boat over to the island's beaches where we started off by grabbing some tables, chairs to lay out on and some shade. Where Chris ordered some beers and we sipped while cooling off and applying some sun screen. Afterwards we took a dip in the water. After an hour or so of cooling off in the water, Kelly, Haven, her fiance Fernando and I all went and got full body massages for an hour relazing us to the point of inability to walk.

After we came back from out massages a group of us decided to rent some snorkling gear and see what we could see in the reef below. An hour or so of snorkling later it was time to get abck on the boat and head back to the mainland to clean up and get some dinner. That night Ramon and I split a tray filled with the most delicious of sea food. We ate lobster, shrimp, octopus, fish and clams until neither one of us could eat anymore. Afterwards we parted ways and Kelly and I went salsa dancing while Haven and Fernando went to another club. The rest went home early to prepare for the next day as some would be waking up early to go fishing.

Sunday Kelly, Haven, Fernando and I went and had breakfast at a pancake house where I ate delicious waffles with strawberries on top as well as chorizo gravey. Afterwards we explored the downtown market for a little while before heading back to the hotel to get ready to spend another day beach bumming it. Getting on our suits Kelly and I found some shade and hung around for a while till we found Alyssa, Liz, and Erin, and Ramon later joined us as we sat around in the shade enjoying one another's company until it was time for Erin, Kelly and I to part as we all had things to do Monday even though it was a day off from school. Neither Erin nor I wanted to arrive at 7 am Tuesday and have to drag ourselves to classes on Tuesday. So instead we took a rather empty bus back to Puebla arriving early Monday morning in which I spent my day lazing around and doing very little. Ending my long weekend vacation.

The Weekend of The 6th

This proved to be a week of excitement as I found out one evening that I was going to be participating in a tennis tournement the next week. So that Friday I then went shopping for some new tennis necessities including shoes as mine were falling apart and I'd needed new one's ne ways, a new racket (my old one is on the verge of death), and the uniform needed to represent the University. Ana went with me and we decided to do some accessory shopping afterwards and enjoy a juice and that evening she and I went out dancing with the others in Cholula. The next morning we of course had our internship. As well I paid a visit to Erick and his friends whom we'd met in Acapulco because one of his friends Angel had invited me to a big party that weekend. So I went to Toluca for the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday. It was here I discovered how much of a party animal my friend Angel really was.

The next morning we all ate chilequiles and Erick took us around the city of Toluca where we went to an indoor garden that was once a farmers market. And Erick talked about the history as well as the story told by the beautiful mosaic windows that encircled the entire building. Windows that had been pieced together on tiny little glass shard at a time by one man. We also paid a visit to a small art museum as well as got ice cream and watched the hustle and bustle of the Sunday city life go by. Later we went back and watched the movie "The Boy In The Striped Pajamas." And after dinner it was time to say goodbye and return to life in Puebla with classes to complete and all.

Random Week of Puebla: I'm losing track of time

It was a few weeks ago that this happened at it was the beginning week for the internship in which I found out was not what I had been expecting nor what I thought had been promised to us. Two other girls, Liz and Ana work alongside myself at a center for cancer in children who can't afford treatment. The place is called "Una Nueva Esperanza" which means A New Hope in English and it's a very noble and worthwhile cause, it's just that the work we do there is more like volunteer work less like that of an internship. But I'll work my best to get the credits to transfer as without the internship I barely meet minimum requirements. The rest of the week was nothing much to talk about minus Sunday.

Sunday Liz, Morgan and I trecked to Cholula. Cholula is normally where the night life is at here, but we took a trip during the day to go visit a monumental piece of history. The pyramids of Cholula started in a narrow tunnel in which anyone much taller then myself would've found trouble venturing through. After emerging from the tunnel we found ourselves just outside the largest pyramids in volume in the world. It took a couple of hours of exploration and lots of stair climbing before we reached the top where there sat a gorgeous catholic church amongst the excavations. And down at the bottom we explored the excavated ruins learning about the history that once lived in said ruins. After some photos we left to grab a bite to eat and then head down to the zocalo of cholula where there was apparently some sort of celebration going on for carnaval in which they were shooting off old rifles and making all sorts of smoke and noise, as well as music, dancing, and a parade. After some ice cream and a little bit of the festivities we left to end a short but fulfilled week.

Carnaval: Veracruz

We decided at the last minute possible that we wanted to go down to Veracruz for the weekend of Carnaval and drove with our friend Ivan thinking it would get us there faster then if we took the busses that were scheduled to leave from Puebla. Turns out we were wrong and it was a relatively bad idea as the boys wouldn't listen to the girls advice and instead decided to keep driving around and continually get lost while we'd looked at the map and knew where it was we were going. But that didn't matter as we got in and found a hotel settling in for the night to prepare for the next day. (As that evening it had rained canceling the many festivities that were to normally take place in the streets of Veracruz.)

The next day we explored the marine life by going to the aquarium in Veracruz where I missed my chance to swim with the sharks by about 40 minutes afterwards we decided to escape the heat by using the swimming pool in the hotel, which is were we spent most of the afternoon. Afterwards we decided it was time to find some food and get ready to go to the parade that was taking place that night in the streets of Veracruz. We stayed for several hours watching the lines of dancers, people in costumes all imitating the traditional Brazilian carnaval. Drums, music, samba dancing, flashy head dresses, floats, and plenty of masks, and alcohol to go around was where we spent our night. Until the next day when we took the long journey back to Puebla to go back to classes leaving the parties behind.

Puebla How Time goes by: Week 5

Classes were of course the usual ordeal get up go and do the homework. Not much out of the ordinary for this weel. There had been a soccer game that was still part of the tournement in which foreign exchange students weren't aloud to participate. The girls lost 14-0 and the next day at practice we were ushered into a room to talk to a psycologists and perhaps reason out why we'd lost so horribly. I was completely at a loss all of it being in Spanish and not having participated in the game even making my first ever shrink a not so interesting experience for myself. That weekend I went out dancing once more and Sunday I procrastinated homework by making it a movie day with friends. We sat around all day in Ramon's room (Alyssa, Liz and I) watching a plethora of movies and then afterwards we decided to get a group together and go to the movie theater and see the newest in the Underworld saga. A simple but well spent weekend.

Cuerna what??

The next weekend we decided to just pick up on a Saturday afternoon and left on very nice bus ride to the city of Cuernavaca where we spent the night in the nicest Holiday Inn I'd ever seen. After checking into the hotel we went to the Zocalo or the town center for some dinner. We ate and sat around chatting for a little while before heading back to the hotel and get some rest so that we could wake up early the next morning.

The next day we woke up ate a nice breakfast and went to the ruins located in the city. We spent most of our day climbing up and down the tiny stairs not meant for the non indigenous person to be climbing on as they were narrow and small as well as taking several photos of our reinactments of the sacrifices held there once long ago. After some food we went back on another luxurious bus ride to Puebla where we ordered pizza and chilled in the safe zone between dorms since the curfew forbid us from hanging out in the boys dorms after 11 and vice-versa. Ending our random up and go trip.