Teotihuacan, Tepotzlan and Much More

Once again, time has slipped away from me and I´ve done too much to fit into one small blog post. But here´s my best at giving you the highlights. We visited Teotihuacan last weekend which was incredible. Teotihuacan is prehispanic city whose history spanned from several hundred years B.C. to about the 7th or 8th century and in its time, is believed to have been the largest city in the world. It´s very well preserved and the scale and construction of the buildings is amazing. There are two main pyramids, the biggest of which is quite a hike to the top. A few of us also went off the beaten path with our director which isn´t allowed, but we kind of slipped away without anyone seeing. Since our director has a doctorate in Anthropology with a speciality in Mexican archaeology, I think he feels right at home in the ruins and doesnt care too much about the rules. Anyhow, we were able to find some pieces of painted ceramics and obsidian blades. The other highlight of the last few days was yesterday when we went to Tepotzlan, which was an Aztec city and is currently a town surrounded by jagged mountains. The 1st attraction in Tepotzlan is a pyramid that the Aztecs build atop one of the mountains which requires a pretty rigorous hike to get to. The second attraction are the chapulines, or Nahuatl word for grasshoppers, which you see on the plates of food more than hopping around on the ground. So being our only time in Tepotzlan we made the most of it and experienced both attractions. The hike was really amazing, super steep with makeshift rock stairs the whole way up. From the top, you can see the entire city and surrounding mountains, its a pretty incredible view. The hike down is especially fun, another student and I practically ran down the mountain on the rocks and our legs were shaking pretty bad by the time we got down. After the hike, we were all a bit hungry so went to get some quesadillas with cheese and chapulines. I ended up eating quite a few chapulines, as they pile them in the quesadillas... and the two people sitting next to me only took a bite of their quesadillas and I didnt want the rest to go to waste.

I realize I have been talking mostly about our field trips and things on these blog posts, so I´ll quickly update you on everyday life as well. I´ve continued to play soccer with the neighborhood kids here which is really fun and a good way to get to know them. I also have made friends with a street vendor here who has a fruit stand near my house. I chat with him on my way home from school and he invited me out to a restaurant the other day which was fun as well. I enjoy making informal friendships with people I see everyday along my walking route to school. It´s hard to believe that in 2 days I´ll be leaving Cuernavaca for Xalapa. Saturday morning we will be traveling to Puebla, where we will be for a few days, and then we will arrive in Xalapa on tuesday. So I´m sure there will lots to say again for the next blog post. Well, once again hope things are great with everyone at home, until next time!
PS: the photos. 1st photo= eating the chapulines 2nd photo= the chapulines 3rd= the view from on top of the pyramid on the mountain in Tepotzlan 4th= me standing in front of the pyramid in Teotihuacan

Mexico City Etc...

Hello again!

The days since I wrote last have been very full of lots of activities and traveling, its difficult to remember everything. Times seems to be flying by already. Probably the highlights of the last few days have been our two field trips this last weekend. On saturday, we went to Las Estacas, which was basically an incredible natural waterpark. There were several cliffs which you could jump off of into pools of deep, clear water and a flowing river throughout the park. Several paths that curved through vegitation connected the different cliff platforms. We spent the afternoon there relaxing and swimming. On sunday, we headed to Mexico City for the day. We used public transportation to arrive there and used the metro system to get around once we were in the city. Their metro system is incredible, very efficient, clean and cheap. To ride the metro costs 2 pesos or around 15 cents. The Mexican government has made an effort to make the metro available to the majority of the population (I think they subsidize it). Anyhow, during our day in the city, we went to the Frida Kahlo house, the zocalo (or city center), and a bullfight! The bullfight was incredible, a type of sporting event that I had never experienced. It´s a pretty graphic experience as they kill 6 bulls during the duration of the bull fight. 2 of the matadors were knocked off their feet by the bulls and one of them was injured seriously enough that he had to be carried out of the ring. Meanwhile, the crowd is incredibly involved in the whole experience, they let the matador know when he is doing a good job by yelling ¨Ole!¨ and when he is not doing well, the stadium fills with loud whistles and lots of obsene comments. I tried to attach a video of part of the bullfight, but I´m not sure if it will work or not. Mexican life continues giving me various new surprises each day, for example yesterday on my way to school I was greeted by 4 horses casually grazing the streets of my neighborhood unattended, something you probably wouldnt see in the states in a city of over a million. Well, I better leave it at that for now, hope that gives everyone a very small glimpse into some of things I´ve done the past few days. Until next time!

First Host Families

Hello again to all,
I didn´t anticipate writing again so soon, but I have a bit of time now as several members of my family are out and about. I just arrived today at the house of my host family here in Cuernavaca! I will be living with this family for about the next month. They are very nice people and I think I´ll have a great stay here. I have a brother who is 14 and two sisters who are 19 and 22. The father runs a funeral business selling coffins (dont worry he seems like a great guy) and I believe my mother stays around the house. They have an amazing view from the roof of their house so I attached two photos so people could see. One thing I loved about the DR, and now Mexico is that on many house you are able to go relax on the roof and this house is a great place to do that! The other picture I attached is of a pretty typical street scene in Cuernavaca. My host family is fairly well off, I have my own room and the house is pretty nice. From what they tell us, our host families in Xalapa usually have less money than the ones in Cuernavaca. Today, we also had a chance to go to the huge open air market here in Cuernavaca, another thing I really enjoy about many latin american countries. The environment is very exciting as you will find anything from shoes, to all sorts of vegetables, school supplies, and of course things like pigs heads and intestines. I guess thats what keeps it exciting. It´s a lot of fun to strike up conversations with many of the vendors, they are very friendly and love to show you their products. A few even yelled Viva Obama as our group passed. As Rob tells us many Mexicans are very excited about Obama being elected in spite of the fact that Mexico struggles with lots of issues of racism, among other social issues. All in all, I´m very happy to be here, I´m loving speaking lots of spanish and feeling myself soaking up as many new vocab words, phrases and grammar as possible. There are quite a few differents in mexican spanish as compared to other countries, mostly in the vocabulary used, as they draw a lot of influence from Nahuatl and various other indigenous languages. The food is also wonderful. Although I´ve only been here a few days, I´m starting to become very accostumed to spice in the food and really enjoying that (mom and dad, you might want to have that bottle of texas pete on hand when i get back). Anyhow too many things to say...I should probably leave it there for now. Hope everyone is doing very well back home! Thanks for reading, hasta la proxima!

La Llegada!

Buenas Tardes a todos,
I have to make this very short, but I made it to Mexico with no problems and I am having a great time thus far. The flight in was incredible with spectacular views of the gigantic and sprawling Mexico City, by the far the biggest city I´ve seen from the air (I think it has between 20-25 million people! almost one fourth of the entire mexican population). I am at our language school getting an orientation before we start classes on Monday. As of now, we are spending time getting to know Cuernavaca, a very nice city of about 1 million people. Anyhow, I have people waiting on me, so I´ll have to cut it off there. Much more to come later!
Dave