Mexico Summed Up

So I think I pretty much lied to you all when I said that I'd write about the trip to Mexico City...and then I failed some more and didn't write about any of the rest of my study abroad trip to Mexico. All I can say is...sorry. Time flew by and whenever I did have computer time I just wanted to sit and chat with Nathan, not compose a full-blown post.

So I've been back in the States for about 2 and a half weeks now and I'm loving being home. All in all my experiences in Mexico were good. However, they weren't great or perfect. It was a struggle. I'm not going to waste time writing a full blown explanation of everything that happened in the last 4 weeks in Mexico, but I will leave you with some pictures and captions.

Me in front of the "Palacio de bellas artes" in Mexico City

Me in front of one of Diego Rivera's murals in the National Palace in Mexico City

The famous Sun Stone in National Anthropological Museum in Mexico City

Chac Mool in the National Anthropological Museum in Mexico City

Me in front of the small pyramid of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan

My friend Sarah and I in front of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan

Me in front of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan

The Front of the Pyramid of the Sun

Nathan came to visit me for the weekend of my birthday. Here we are up at the Pipila.

Nathan and I outside of our hotel room in Guanajuato. Awesome Hotel called "El meson de los poetas"

Playing with my host siblings sliding down the stairs on a couch cushion.

Our history class took a trip to many cities in the state of Guanajuato, here is us eating ice cream in Dolores Hidalgo.

Me in front of a statue of Benito Juarez in Queretero.

Goofing around with an art exhibit in San Luis Potosi.

Awesome restaurant where we ate lunch in San Luis Potosi called El Mexico de Frida.

My history class.

My politics class.

The girls and my host mom at our goodbye party.

Family trip to the house of legends.

Final night with my host family.

Riding home from the airport with Nathan.

So, that about sums up my trip. As you can see, I went lots of places and saw lots of things. It was a very culturally rich experience. I went to a lot of museums, saw ancient ruins, and lived with a wonderful Mexican family...but nothing compares to home.

In theory the rest of my posts will focus mostly on my wedding planning and the adventures associated with it.

Catching Up

I know that I've been really terrible about keeping this up-to-date...it's just that things have been so crazy and weird here. I've been having a lot of problems with my roommate and things came to a head yesterday and today it's been decided by the directors that we will no longer be roommates after this weekend. I just hope that I'll get to stay with the family that I'm living with. Either way, it's the best decision for both of us since we are unhappy with each other. I've been so unhappy about the situation that I've been thinking about going home and leaving Mexico. It's honestly been terrible and I hope that this solves a lot of the problem. I don't want to go into details publicly on my blog here...we'll just leave it as neither of us are happy being each other's roommate and neither of us have fond feelings for each other. It's for the best that we move on and can hopefully enjoy new roommates. I am so tired of crying over the situation...this is supposed to be a good experience and I hope that it  can be from now on.

I suppose that's enough of the sad/bad stuff for one post. It really hasn't all been terrible...just parts. So now I'm going to share some of the highlights that I haven't gotten around to talking about. I believe that I left off with the Estudiantina. The very next day we went to visit the city of San Miguel de Allende. San Miguel is about an hour and a half away from the city of Guanajuato in the state of Guanajuato. According to Wikipedia San Miguel has a population of around 80,000 in the city limits. The city is known for it's colonial architecture and the large number of Americans living there. Anywhere from 10-20% of the population are foreigners from the United States (as well as many from Canada). The majority of these "North Americans" are retirees enjoying the lovely climate and atmosphere. As a side note, my host mother's architecture company is based in San Miguel de Allende and the family used to live there (the majority of the extended family still does). So here are some of the pictures from San Miguel:

The kitchen at the house where we stayed.

My host mom designed the house for her brother. He will use it as a rental.

Just as colorful as Guanajuato!

Overlook of the City.

Host Brother and a cool arch

Las Bellas Artes (an art school where one of the grandfathers teaches)

Las Bellas Artes again

Me in front of a statue in San Miguel

Beautiful buildings everywhere

Main Cathedral in San Miguel

Another View of the Cathedral...absolutely amazing!

Night View of the Cathedral

Overall, I had a great time visiting San Miguel. We celebrated my host mom's birthday by going out to dinner at a nice little Italian place (which is also my real mom's birthday...crazy!). We also went to a balneario which was a really cool place with pools fed from natural hot springs (I linked to their website which is in Spanish...but pictures might give you an idea). Then we went to the artisan market where I may or may not have gone a little shopping crazy. Then we went to an aunt's house to watch Mexico lose a World Cup game. 

The next week (week 3) was relatively dull in comparison to week 2, but there were a few notable events. I went to see a ballet infantil (a children's ballet performance) that combined classical ballet with Mexican traditional dances. It varied from adorable to beautiful depending on the age group dancing. 

Ready to watch the show

Little Girls Dancing

Cute

The oldest girls dancing, very impressive

And now...onto the next event. A group of students went to a museum that is the house where Diego Rivera was born. We couldn't take pictures of the artwork on the 2nd and 3rd floors...but we could take pictures of the furniture that is from the appropriate era.

The entrance to the museum and some of the members of the group

Fountain in the House

Period Furniturene 

Self-Portrait just to say that I was there!

Whew...almost done. Just one more thing left! I went with my host mother, brother, and sister to see the Pipila (once again I've linked you to wikipedia which has a short but informative little article on the history). For those of you not interested in clicking on links, the Pipila in Guanajuato is a giant statue of a local hero from the days of the Independence movement in Mexico. It has an absolutely beautiful view of the city.

We rode up in a funicular

The statue of the Pipila

Me!

Absolutely beautiful view of the city

Me and my family (I hope that they stay my Mexican family and I don't have to switch)

Us in front of the statue

So there you have it! I'm pretty sure that's everything that I wanted to talk about. This weekend we are going to Mexico City. I promise you guys lots and lots of pictures and at least one post dedicated entirely to my visit there. 

La Estudiantina

Friday night most of our group got to enjoy the entertainment of one of the “Estudiantinas” of Guanajuato. To start with, I guess I short explain what an estudiantina is. One guide site describes the estudiantinas like this:

Guanajuato's evening "estudiantinas" - also known as "callejoneadas - comprise what is undeniably one of the city's most enjoyable traditions. On weekend evenings around 8:00pm, head down to the Church of San Diego, right off the central Jardín de la Unión, where the estudiantinas get things started. During festivals, you can expect the music and merriment each day.

The tradition, said to have originated in Spain, features a group of light-hearted professional musicians and singers dressed to the nines in traditional garb. Once a good-sized crowd has gathered, the whole mob - led by the musicians - snakes through the winding alleyways of the city to the sounds of singing and playing. Between songs, they tell stories and jokes to entertain the crowd and keep them entertained.

I would say that this is a pretty accurate description of my experience with the estudiantina. Sometimes they include wine and other alcohol, but since we were going as an official group with the director there was, of course, no alcohol.

The group met up at the stairs in front of the Teatro Juarez where we waited for the event to start. The director of our program hired this particular estudiantina just for our group. Which may or may not have been a good thing. It was nice that we could see without any problem but, on the other hand, we didn’t know any of the songs so we didn’t participate very much with the singing or anything.

A bunch of students waiting

Me waiting for the festivities to start

Once we were all there and ready, the estudiantina began. They started by singing to us there in front of Teatro Juarez.

Then we were off and walking. Through the callejones of the city.

As you can see, we covered a decent distance in our travels through the little alleys (callejones). The whole time they were singing and telling jokes. Even did a little bit of dancing too. It was a rather amusing experience all around. I even got a couple of pictures with the members of the estudiantina afterwards!