Pyramids and Puebla

I have been up to a lot lately, and have been too busy to write. Eek! It is time to catch up a little bit.



It is too dangerous to go come late at night so if I would like to do something in the evening, I have been sleeping in a friend's apartment who lived in the school (now she is traveling around the country and I miss her already!). So this week in the evening I went to a salsa club, a regular dance club and watched a movie one night. Feels better to be doing normal young people stuff and not just watching TV or reading at home all the time.

Monday I went with six people from school to the Pyramids north of the city. It took about an hour by bus to get there and it literally was a welcome breath of fresh air from the craziness of the city. We met two guys traveling from Isreal and decided to do a tour. Our guide was fantastic and told us lots of stories and information about the people who used to live there, how they had hot showers, studied astronomy and geology. I think we got much more out of the tour than if we had just gone on our own. I climbed both of the big pyramids (the sun pyramid has 244 huge, steep stairs) and was sore for the next two days. I think that the priests of those days must have been in excellent shape. At the top of the sun pyramid there were a group of people in white clothes and singing, and really, it was beautiful enough to make one want to burst into song (¨the hills are alive...with the sound of music!¨). There was also a guy who was spinning one copper plate on top of another and had crystals and such. I asked him what he was doing and he said something about ¨turning on this big machine of energy¨and that there was a reincarnation of jesus, as a woman, nearby and how lucky I was to be there. Yup. Lady Jesus. I am lucky.

The salsa club was fun, but I really need to learn the local salsa because it is really different from salsa in the US. I guess I went to the club feeling like I was going to be decent because I have danced so much in the US but felt terrible that night. Yikes! When our group got there, there were two circles of people doing this kind of salsa-square dance thing that is really fast and involves a lot of changing of partners. Very neat to watch and would be really cool to learn. Who knows?

This weekend I went with two friends to Puebla, one of the largest cities in the Country. Peubla is famous for its architecture and spanish feel. We took a two hour bus to get there and immediatly searched for a hostel. We found one mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide (seriously the bible of travels) and got three bunk beds in a co-ed dorm for 13 bucks, with breakfast included. Sweet! We went to a history museum of the mexican revolution and were given a tour by the guard. It was really cool because I don't know much of anything about history but he was able to make it very interesting and the pride in his face as he is showing us different things was really amazing. We also went to the main cathedral of puebla and were stunned by the beautiful building. As we were leaving, a wedding was getting started and the bride was hanging out, alone, in a blue 1950´s car. As the crowd gathers to see the bride's entrance, move guests are entering the cathedral. Finally, the car moves forward and backwards, parallel parking style, and gets 5 or 6 feet closer to the curb (necessary?). The bride exits the car and looks super. Fun to watch!

We got dinner at a place called Super Soya. I couldn't believe that there was a health food place like that in Mexico. There was a restaurant counter where we got burgers (one of the girls was also vegetarian and the other went along with it) as well as foods and supplements for sale. Yum! We also went to an internet cafe for a while where I set up a skype account (excellent decision) and was able to talk to my mama. The first 4 times I tried to call home I could hear my mom but she couldn't hear me. She was so sweet because she said ¨I know one of you kids is trying to call but I can't heeeearrrr you!¨. Eventually we got connected and were able to have a long chat for 2 cents per minute. I guess I should clarify that my sister is currently in ireland, my brother is in germany and my other brother lives in DC.

Being cool young people, we wanted to check out the night scene and got ready in the hostal. We were told that we should go to the city center and look from there. So we walked, on empty streets, towards the city center. Are we forgetting that it is saturday night? Once we got to the city center, we saw a bunch of familys and children. Where are the clubs? Along the way, we were invited to a 15th birthday party (a very big celebration in Mexico) but decided to pass. We did eventually find a few clubs and were immediatly surrounded by three club representitives of the clubs offereing us drinks if we would please just come to their clubs. I guess that is what celebrities feel like. We walked through a bunch of guys looking us up and down as though we were steaks and sat down for a few drinks and a bit of dancing.

Sunday we went to the Africam Safari. I think it is the largest zoological park in the Americas and it was really cool. Our guide suggested going early, when the animals are most active and so we set the ole alarm for 9am, had our free breakfast (cereal, toast, juice and coffee) and walked back to the square where we looked for our safari bus. It took about 10 false starts and a lot of waiting in the rain, but eventually we were on our way. Even though it was raining, the animals were out and about in the park and very close to the bus. I was very close to lions, tigers and bears (oh my!) as well as elephants, birds, lots of deer like animals that I didn´t recognize and many more. Very cool tour.

Top 8: Things being carried

1. A live duck wrapped in a blue blanket being carried across the huge city square
2. a plastic quart bag of juice (an accident waiting to happen)
3. a light bulb that was 10 feet long
4. a huge stack of 20 chairs with white slip covers
5. three chubby men...by one teeny vespa
6. a louiz vuitton purse...used to hold change by the guy selling water in the street
7. a package of diapers strapped to a bicycle with a belt by a young guy...new father?
8. Clear plastic garbage bag of fried pig skin squares on the subway...do you know where your pig skin has been??

Mexico city: the new Paris

Mexico city, or the D.F. as it is known to the locals for the Federal District in spanish, may be the new Paris.

How can this be, you may ask? The city is not leading the world of fashion, there aren´t billions of tourists and the tallest tower doesn´t put on a light show. What does this city have to make is similar to Paris? Couples making out everywhere. Everywhere.

What is the cause of this phenomenon? People tend to live with their parents until they're married. And because people ¨don't have sex until they're married¨, they're not allowed to bring boyfriends home or date a lot. Although, with the number of pregnant teenagers I've seen, it isn't a perfect system.

So, what is a young, or not so young couple to do? Find the nearest park bench, corner of the metro, side of a building, taxi or whatever and pretend no one is watching. As I´m sipping coffee, the couple across the tiny cafe is feeling each other up. As I´m riding the crowded metro, couples are sitting in each others laps and making smacking noises in my ear (it is 9 am!). As I walk down the street, I pass several coupled parked against buildings and on benches.

It must be tough to be an angel at home and a girlfriend or boyfriend in the street. Whew!

My new boyfriend

On saturday, I was walking through the big park, Chapultapec, on my way to find some lunch. I had just visited the castle and it was a beautiful. As I'm walking towards the park entrance, I am walking by a crowd of people surrounding two clowns passing out balloons and playing music. The crowd is laughing at what they're saying, but I'm not really paying attention. As I get closer, my ears start to burn and I realize that one of the clowns is talking to me. I try to ignore him and walk a little faster but then he keeps talking and I turn around to see the entire crowd looking at me. Dear lord. The clown asks if I speak spanish, and I lie and say no. He says he can be my teacher, and not wanting to be a chicken, let him take my hand and lead me into the circle.

So, an entire crowd of people is surrounding me, smiling at the gringa, and taking my picture. I am glad that this memory is going to complete people's family albums and websites. Yikes. So the clown asks me to repeat some things, and I repeat a few that I know are safe, but once I suspect he is asking me to say dirty things, I refuse. He asks me how old I am, and if I'm single, to which I reply yes and the crowd cheers. The clown asks if anyone is interested in me and this high school aged guy immediately pops up, with a rose, wanting to tell me how much he is into me. How a teenager just happens to have a red rose? I don't know. His friends are hooting at him and egging him on. I'm caught between laughing and wanting to cry.

The clown asks the boy how old he is and he replies "16". The clown turns to me and asks if I'm interested in him and I motion with my hands that he is too little. The guy, immediately understanding what I meant, jumps up to demonstrate just how tall and mature he is.

The clown then gathers some more people in the circle; five guys and five girls. There is one lady older than me from Miami Florida who is supposed to be translating for me, but she isn't really focused on that job. It turns out that the clown is arranging a dance competition between the boys and the girls. Team Guys goes first, and to "rock your body" by the backstreet boys, the first guy, the guy with a crush on me, proceeds to bust an erotic move to a cheering crowd. It doesn't matter that those moves are appropriate only in a club at midnight and it is 2 in the afternoon and there are lots of kids. Next goes the girl from Miami and she does some salsa steps. One more guy goes from the guys side and then it is my turn.

In my mind this can go one of two ways....I can run away and hope that they don't catch me and never live down the shame, or, I can jump in with two feet and dance my heart out in front of a bunch of strangers. I chose to dance! I shook my hips for all they're worth and just lived in the moment. How often does one have the chance to show Mexico that Americans can dance too? The crowd cheered and I saw way too many camera flashes. I'm telling myself that they were all deleted.

The dance competition continued with a young boy, probably 6 or 7 years old, beginning to do a strip tease to the same backstreet boys song. He got his jacket off and then his t-shirt (does he practice this in front of his mirror?) and was going to take off his undershirt until his mother shot him down. What a party pooper.

The final round of the dancing was pairs. The miami girl and the tallest guy danced and then it was my turn to dance with my boyfriend. He looked like he could barely contain himself while I was trying not to laugh. The clown told the guy to dip me, so with me screaming, he did. He said something I didn't understand and then dipped my again. Apparently not what he wanted because he was motioning for me to kick up my leg. This time I did and again the crown cheered. Third time's the charm.

The spectacle ended with the teenager pronouncing his undying love to me, something about the sun and the moon, who knows. And he gave me the red rose. The crowd began to shout "beso! beso!" for "kiss! kiss!" and to stop him from kissing me on the mouth, I gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

When it was all over, I asked to take a picture with him and he snuck in one more kiss for good measure. What an afternoon. Very funny.

Top 8: Things being sold on the street

1. Ladies underwear, including thongs (so much for victoria´s secret!)
2. Any type of food you can imagine: fruit smoothies, sweet breads, tacos, fried stuff I can´t identify, something on a leaf, etc
3. baby car seats (safety first)
4. A leg massage...some guy was getting his hairy legs massaged at a bus stop.
5. 3 foot tall disney princesses, super heros, barney and other characters
6. Viagra
7. kitchen scissors
8. cameras and accessories (what is the return policy?)

Settling In

I have finished my first week of school and am settling into a nice routine that includes waking up at eight, chatting with Silvia (and beginning to actually understand a lot of what she says), riding the buses to school, sardine style, and having four hours of Spanish. Next week my class of seven is reduced to three. I think each week will be different as people come and go.

After school, I have some site to visit, an adventure to do or I just wander around until I find something interesting. Here is what I have been up to the past few days:

I stumbled across part of a huge peace march. Millions of Mexicans joined together for a march across the city, meeting in one of several famous sites in the city. Everyone was dressed in white and was carrying white balloons and flowers, candles, peace flags and Mexican flags. They are objecting to all of the violence that is happening in the city. I was in a cab earlier in the day and the driver pointed out a few of the walkers getting assembled. He said they are marching for peace, and I asked "world peace?", and he said no, that they needed to start with peace in the city. I found part of the march back at the Zocolo, the part of the city where I saw the flag being lowered because I wanted to return to the book store. The square was already crowded, but people were pouring in from all around to join in. There was energetic chanting, balloons and bubbles in the air, TV cameras and helicopters and lots of cameras recording the whole event. The energy was great; buzzing and hopeful.

Saturday I hopped on the Touribus, Mexico's version of the red double-decker tour buses in London. I was trying to find information about where to find the ticket on the company website, but it was all in Spanish. My (old) tour book promised a information station near my school, so I went there in search of info. Turns out that the tourist spot is now a police something, and some men, possibly criminals, told me to go next door. Next door was a lawyer, also not a tourist site, but he was able to direct me correctly to a tourist kiosk. I got my info, and found a spot where I can hop on the bus. There are two routes; you buy a ticket on the actual bus and you get a wrist band so you can hop on and off as you see fit about the city. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I was loving seeing the city from so high up. I was educated about the history of many of the cites and listened to the Mexican elevator music in between. Other than some sun burnt shoulders, it was a very lovely day.

Wednesday I was feeling pretty homesick, sick to my stomach, had a headache and was generally overwhelmed. I missed home, had no emails other than spam in my email and was overall feeling pitiful. I wasn't at my best with communicating with Silvia and I was getting frustrated because I didn't feel well. I think that the most overwhelming thing so far is the noise. Everything is soooooo loud here; the buses, the cars honking, people yelling to sell their wares, the people selling CDs that have boom boxes with them to sample the play list, the dogs barking, the construction next door, yikes! I didn't know how much I valued quiet times in the day until I had none. Having said that, I have since felt much better and have found several parks to sooth myself from the noise of the city. It is to be expected to be overwhelmed when doing something new, and I'm not trying to complain. I just want to record the true experience.

Today I went to Chapultepc, Mexico City's Central park and saw the castle, now home to a History museum. The walk up to the castle is a winding, paved avenue that slowly rises through the trees up to the highest part of the park. The first part of the museum houses many ancient and not-so-ancient artifacts including sculptures, jewelry, clothes, carriages, tools, paintings, etc. Interesting and beautiful, but I can only take in so much, especially when all of the descriptions are in Spanish. The rest of the castle is set up with furniture as the people of the castle would have had. You can't actually go into the rooms, but you get to peep in the doors and check things out. The views from the castle of the city are amazing. The noise is muffled by all of the trees and it is very peaceful.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Revolution street, a famous street in Mexico that has many sculptures along it and statues from every state. The last Sunday of every month the street is blocked for cars and everyone bikes, roller blades, skate boards and runs up this beautiful street. It is really nice to see all the sites at a different pace and to be able to people watch so much. I can’t imagine learning to ride my bike on a street that usually houses eight lanes of honking cars and buses.

Other than that, I have held hands with Antonio Benderas…in the Hollywood style mall that has the handprint and signatures of famous people. Also in the mall there was an opportunity to take pictures with a real lion. Pass! I don’t want to be lunch! One of my first days here, I kept hearing what I thought was music from an ice-cream truck. Finally I heard things just outside the window and went outside to check things out. Turns out it is a traveling band of three guys playing a wooden xylophone that sounds exactly like an American ice-cream truck. They were really happy to see me when I had a few pesos in my hand but not so thrilled to have their picture taken. Tough luck. Lastly, I saw three young boys swimming in one of the fountains in Chapultapec park. It was really cute and I hopped off the Touribus to snap their picture and wander around. There is so much to see here!

Holly Larson-bad ass navigator

I had a sucessful and fun day. For those of you who don´t know, I am possibly the worst navigator on the planet. Whenever I´m at my parents and drive somewhere, a phone call of ¨I´m lost¨ is never far away. Bearing this in mind, it is a huge accomplishment that I had a wonderful day going around the city today....without getting lost!

I have school from 10 until 2 each day. For some reason, I thought school started at 8:00, and was quite wrong. I walked to the first bus stop, about two blocks away, and got on. It was still a bit dark, but the streets were busy with people setting up their various wares to sell; clothes, meat, sweet bread, baby-blankets and clothes, furniture, fruit, whatever. You name it, you can probably find in on the street (except for english books). I switch from the bus to the metrobus, which is a tall, two unit long bus that has its own lane in the sea of traffic. You get on the bus at station in the middle of the street. There are cops there, making sure you don´t cause any trouble, and you wait for the next bus to arrive for a few minutes. These buses are packed as tight as sardine cans; sometimes you can squeeze in, sometimes there is literally not room for another body. I recognized where my school was and got off at the right stop, thank goodness. The school has a guard at the door. I told him, in my super spanish, that I was here for school. He told me that it started at 10, and I insisted that it didn´t. He let me in, and I waited in the empty class room until people started to arrive at 9:30. Super. In my class there are three students from korea, one from japan, two from germany and one from england, and me. The teacher started class 20 minutes late, very mexican, and jumped into grammer without much of an introduction. I am fine being in a beginners class right now because all of the grammer is pretty rusty. I may try to switch to a more advanced class in a week or two, when I feel more warmed up.

After class yesterday, I had lunch with some of my new friends at a mexican restaurant a while from the school...we were on the hunt for a specific restaurant but never actually found it. I had black bean soup, which the host insisted had no meat in it, but actually did have pieces of something in it (flavoring? I don´t know). I picked those out and topped the soup with cheese and cream and washed it down with half melon juice, half lemonade, per host recommendation. All for $3.50 plus tip. I went home to finish a John Grisham book and do my homework.

Today, I arrived at the correct time, dispite bailing out on my first bus too early and having to walk for a while to the metro bus and had another grammer filled lesson. I walked towards the Mexico equivalent of central park, and stopped in a restaurant that turned out to be argentinian, aka, lots of meat. I ended up finding a delicious salmon salad and was happy to be eating a few vegetables. I gave up on finding the park because there was thunder and headed back to the school for a clean bathroom and directions.

At the school, I explained that I was looking for a specific bookstore I had found in my guidebook and could she please help me find it? Between her little english, my little spanish and the help of one of her friends more familiar with the area of the bookstore, she found directions. I had to take the metrobus to the metro, change metros and then walk a few blocks. Mission impossible? Maybe! I carefully wrote the directions into my little notebook and went over where I was going, twice, on my poster-sized map (very convenient for use in busy streets), as well as how to get from the bookstore to my house. I took the metrobus, and with the helpful nudge of a nicy lady, found the metro stop and the right metro, in the right direction. I was humming mission impossible theme music to myself to keep up my courage.

When I emerged from the metro station, I realized I was at the Zocalo (duh, zocalo stop). The Zocalo is a HUGE HUGE HUGE city square surrounded with beautiful castle-like buildings and the biggest mexican flag I had ever seen. I wandered across the square, taking a few pictures and then got down to business. ¿Donde esta la calle bolivar? I asked a pair of non-threatening ladies. They motioned, vaguely in the direction I was already headed and I was off (dun dun, dun dun, dun dun; the mission impossible music continues). The streets around the square have the most beautiful architecture I had seen yet and my eyes were taking it all in. There were lots of jewelry stores, as well as food, ice-cream and clothings stores. There were very few street ventors; only those selling newspapers and magazines. I new from my careful directions that the street should be only 3 or 4 blocks from the square, and sure enough, I found it! I made a guess which way to turn and voila! I had found the bookstore! I am a navigating champion! I quickly found the paperbacks and selected running with scissors. The books are about twice as much as in the US, but I didn´t care; that $25 book was my prize!

I walked across the street to a cute little coffee shop and ordered a decaf vanilla latte (I´m trying to get used to not having coffee three times per day...rough business) and settled in for a great three chapters. I didn´t want to devour it too quickly, so I stopped when the coffee was cold and left.

As I was wandering back across the square, I noticed that a crowd had begun to gather. My quide book had discussed an interesting flag lowering ceremony every night at 6 pm, but I had no idea what time it was and saw no harmless ladies to ask. I waited in case this was the real deal and was quickly rewarded. A silent group of about 60 or 70 soldiers is full uniform marched out of one of the castles and split when the got to the square. One by one, they stopped about 15 feet apart , creating a giant square with the flag in the center. Then, other soldiers shooed the rest of the bystanders out of the square (¨we´re trying to lower a giant flag, people, move out!¨). Next came two groups of musicians and three groups of sullen soldiers with guns. They marched around the square and gathered near the flag pole. After more marching and heel tapping, a group of the soldiers began to lower the flag, which is no simple task because it is easily 30 feet tall and 60 feet wide. Huge. There was a line of men waiting to catch the flag- they did a formal heel click something and then made a dash for their section of the flag. They rolled the flag into a giant tube and formally walked off (I was wondering how they were going to fold it). I didn´t stay, but apparently they raise the flag again, sans parade, half an hour later.

Very satisfied with myself, I headed home, and didn´t get lost, again. Wow.

Black bean soup for dinner with cheese and tomatoes. I´m off to do my homework!