Another DAY

Last night we went to Amaranta´s and it was awesome! We ate so much great food I almost burst and I learned how to make tortillas and carne asada (that´s easy!). I have to add two more things to my buying list-a tortilla press and some clay pots for cooking. I love them. Anyway, I´m just posting so that you can see this picture of me and my friends in Taxco. Taxco is a town in the hills where they mine silver so it´s really cheap there. Lot´s of fun buying stuff.

How do I feel?

hmm... I don´t know.

I feel homesick in the mornings and when I talk to Chris but other than that I´m mostly fine.

Yesterday afternoon, Priscilla and I were walking home from school when a car honked (so of course we didn´t look) and then it pulled over by us and so we looked and I was a little concerned. When no one yelled : ¡preciosas!: out of the window of the station wagon I relaxed a little. Then, we saw that it was two friends and their host mother so we hopped in for a ride and ended up going to dinner at a really nice (caro) italian restaurant and I ate spaghetti with calamarie in it. oh yeah. yeah i did.

Anyway, I did fine on that test that I took the day after Mambo Café. I mean, my standards are different, so an 81% floats my boat just fine.

Ha ha also, the sobrino (nephew) of my host mother is so cute! He´s five but he´s decided he wants to marry me. I told him he´s too young but he said in six days he will be bigger and big enough to marry. Then, he asked how many children I wanted and suggested 15. I don´t think México is the place for me. My guts would fall out of me if I did that. Anyway, hope to see some more comments soon!

oh my god it worked. i posted a picture! this is a guy who makes pottery on that little wheel like lla gente antigua.

Two weeks later....

ok, first I´d like to apoligize for taking sooo long to post! Don´t think it means that nothing has been going on. It´s been quite the opposite, in fact. First of all, we went to Oaxaca, the cutest little town ever and we saw some ruins there (very cool) and Friday night I went to the gay bar with Priscilla, Amaranta (oh yeah, she´s my new Mexican friend who is totally sweet and funny), Adam from Ball State U, Cheree, and John. We danced until we could dance no more then we ate tostadas from a street vender even though we´re not supposed to do that and it was super super fun! I have diarheah (sp?) so matter what precautions I take so I have chosen to just live and eat.

Anyway, after Oaxaca the fun didn´t stop. I got sick. REALLY REALLY sick. I had a fever and the chills and of course diahreah and I was so weak I coudn´t do hardly anything. So... I got on the Ruta (the bus) and I dragged my butt to the doctor here and she gave me some antibiotics and told me she though i had salmonilla (sp?) poisioning and that i needed to drag my butt to the lab to get some blood drawn. So I went and I had nothing so I stopped the antibiotics. My friend john ended up having a lot of the same symptoms so I figure we had the same thing. We ate sprouts like idiots when we were in this town called Puebla. We were sitting in a big beautiful mall and it was hard to remember not to eat sprouts when there are no limping dogs at your feet or venders coming to the tables trying to sell stuff. I swear it was like being in Castleton. Oh well, I´ve paid.

Anyway, a few days later we (Amaranta, Priscilla, Jennifer and Amaranta´s friend Roman and another friend Justin) all went to a ¨disco¨called Mambo Café. Oh it was sooo much fun! I am not the best at Salsa but we went and danced to a LIVE salsa band from Colombia until 5:00AM! I have never ever done that before. That night we stayed at Amaranta´s and slept pretty late then I went to my test. HA HA eat that! I stayed out til 5 on test day. I´m crazy. Actually I think I did ok though.

So now, we only have two weeks left and we are hustling with school and trying to fit in everything that we wanted to do. So far this is what I have left:
*buy a cookbook
*buy some pirated music
*figure out a way to get all my pottery home without breaking it
*visit el palacio de Hernan Cortés
*go to Amaranta´s house to cook a big meal (that´s this wednesday)
*buy some more earrings

I think that´s it but among there I guess I should include the fact that I have finals and stuff. Lo que sea. okok, so that´s a pretty good wrap up of what I´ve been up to. POST TO ME. I´m coming home soon. Chris hang in there corazón. Te amo.

I helped with homework! math homework!

You would never believe it, but it´s true. I helped my little sister with studying for her math final and it was algebra and geometry. Now, we know that I didn´t just totally screw her up because she got an A+ on her final exam today. Woo hoo! Lori, you were right, I CAN do math- that third grade teacher really screwed me up eh? Glad I know now...

Anyway, México D.F. and Teotihuacan were super super fun! What history and excitement. We learned so much I don´t have time to write it all out but Iwill continue working on those pictures (don´t kid yourself, it´s not going to happen, but I will continue saying that I will try) .

Anyway, for those of you I have access to, you will get the slide show when I get home and I will also be able to publish the ones I want online when I have some help. Espera, I can do math homework...which means I could probably figure out how to post pictures.

Anyway, right now I have mucha tarea. I have my exams once a week and tomorrow´s the day. I also have a hoework assignment that I forgot to do for today that I must make up and I also have a worksheet. A ver, i better walk home before it get´s dark. Post to me.

Mexico D.F. scary

México city is scary I guess. That´s what everyone says. But anyway, we´re going tomorrow and it´s suppoesd to be a safe district but we can´t get in cabs or the bus or wander too far, or carry money in purses and it´s probably not a good idea to get trashed. I won´t.

Anyway, I got a 92% on my test. I love this school. Everything is taught like liquid-not in the states where it´s more like rocks. I am thriving but i think some of the kids in my class are having a harder time adjusting to the differences. We´re all getting good grades, it´s just that some people get frustrated that our professor changes our plans a lot. I love it. I need constant change in the classroom or else I get bored, and in the heat here it´s easy to fall asleep. It´s so hot. oh gosh. it´s hot.

Today I went to the Jardines Bordas downtown- for you indy people it´s like the concept of the lily grounds by the art museum. It´s a nice little spot to rest from the noise of the city. Fun way to spend the morning. I wasn´t doing homework but I was learning! One girl in my class already finished the 30 page we have until two weeks to finish oh but not me- i was downtown at 10:00 and before that I was watching my ¨sister¨do her presentation on Princess Diana. Cute! okok I have a meeting with the ingenero for café ahora and so that should be fun.

hasta luego. Leave me a post-it can be about anything-post about YOUR life please!

love amy

Si se puede

The title says it all, right? I´m having a great time here but there are a few barbs under my skin right now that i need to shake off. Like...last night when my two page essay (in spanish) was finished, the computer decided to lose it for me and I sat with the computer guy speaking in spanish for quite awhile until I was the last person in the lab. Hijole..

Anyway, I´m just going to type it again-it´s ok because they are always better the second time around right? Right.

I made a new friend! He´s a professor of engenering here and he likes to practice his english and I my spanish! He´s a really interesting person and we´re gonna go to coffee tomorrow at a place down the street from my house if his meeting is cancled (which is a somewhat regular occurance here). Tonight I am going to th cine (movies) with my new friend John- different friend. He´s the greatest and for anyone who´s concerned about my loyalties to my boo, John likes boys. Yeah! I can be ¨safe¨walking around with him and he doesn´t think I owe him anything. Nice.

Right now I must be off to a photo op with my group. Ha ha y después, tarea. mucha tarea. okok bye!

Acapulco

Ok, I´ve been trying to figure out how to post pictures to this blog for about half an hour and i´m getting sad at my stupidity. Anyway, TINA, help me please. I have downloaded Hello and it says it will automatically be on my friends list. ummm.. what do they mean by that?I guess that´s what happens when I have you do everything for me- I have no idea what´s going on.

Anyway, Acapulco was fun and hot but nice and wendy so i didnt notice that i was getting burned on the beach. oh well. i went parasailing (i have a picture for when i figure it out) and it was magical! it was so beautiful i couldn´t believe it.

We tried to go to an ¨exclusive¨ club but we stood there for like twenty minutes and they wouldn´t let us in and we started to notice that the sea of people waiting to get in was getting more and more concentrated with darker skinned Mexicans. Then we thought about the fact that Priscilla is Mexican and after a day at the beach a little darker than normal too. We stood in the front of the crowd right next to the rope for 20 minutes and when a group of 7 gorgeous white guys were let in 2 seconds after they arrived we decided that was our cue to leave. Our new Mexican friends Eric and Tonyo told us it was racist but we didn´t really think we´d have a problem until we got there. It was crazy. So... we went to a local club that Mexicans go to and some nice ladies taught me some dance moves. It was great! Anyway, I must be off!

Neighbors and Grumbles

Yesterday was our first day of school and how fun! I have three classes, one from 11am-12pm and one from 3-7 which has a ten minute break in between to switch up the teachers. All my teachers are great and for the long class there are only 5 students! I think I´m going to learn a lot.

So... the day went fine but I started to get e little restless and feel a little groady (gross) during my long class and attributed it to the hard chairs and relentless heat of the afternoon.

Ok, so on the way home from school my roomate and I passed by a neighbors house (in the ¨gated¨community that we live in) and they were having a party. They waved to us so we (mostly I) waved back and kept walking. Normal, right? Then, two guys came out of the yard and asked us to come in and talk for awhile. Not normal for u.s. girls. We decided it couldn´t be that bad, so we went in. It felt like everyone was staring at us! All the guys wanted to talk to us even though we were so nervous we could barely speak spanish. The funny thing is, Priscilla is Mexican so everyone thinks I´m just her little white friend- but we´re both just dumb. Anyway, Priscilla does know more about the culture than me-the music, food and stuff so I feel a little better in her company. Anyway, after they started joking about throwing us in the pool and the guy who was talking to me said he sold car radios, cd players,t.v.s and other easily transportable things we decided it was time to leave.

Anyway, it was fine but we´ve decided to steer clear of #13 from now on.


Also, when we got home our dad asked us if we wanted to watch the training video for his new whitening machine (he´s a dentist). The funny thing was, the whole family watched it and the girls didn´t even complain. I think it´s normal to do everything as a family- even watch videos about work!

Ok though, after the video and tortilla soup for dinner I really started to feel worse than before. I went to bed with a relentless grumble in my tummy and I didn´t sleep very well at all- though I didn´t get up and walk around for fear of the ghost. In the morning after breakfast it hit me full blast. I had the ¨craps¨. I spent the morning in the bathroom and made my roomate go ask for more toilet paper. It was terrible. mom, I know you said to just let the bug pass but I just had to take some medicine after like four hours of that. I feel a little better now and I´m hoping the cramps aren´t too bad during my 4 hour class. speaking of.. I better go to class now. Bye!