¿quién sabe?

It was somewhat cold and rainy again last week. Everyone here tells me that this is not normal for this time of year. One day this week I woke up and it was hailing! A little later as I was walking to the bus stop, it was raining while the sun was shining. It’s starting to warm up though, hopefully it will stay this way.
After the rain:

Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and I went to church with mi madre. I was expecting the traditional hour mass, but instead we were there for about 10 minutes as the priest talked about the different parts of lent and such. Then we went up to the front and he put ashes on our head (not in the sign of the cross on our foreheads, but he pinched up some ashes and put them in our hair). It was strange.
Thursday I went to another salsa class. This time we danced in partners. For the first time ever in my life, there were more guys than girls. Who would have thought that would have happened in a dance class, of all places?
Saturday we returned to Bernal. This was my third time going there, so mis padres asked if I have a secret love there. This time we went with a group of students from our class, which was a lot of fun.
Our group:

One of them told us that part of the movie “Close Encounters of a Third Kind” was filmed there. We took the bus to Bernal, which alone was an entertaining story, as three of the people from our group made it to the bus just as it was pulling away. We arrived, ate some food, and climbed la peña.
The facts:

I’d be all for climbing it every weekend if it wasn’t so far away, and there weren’t a million other things I’d like to see.

Pride Rock:


We ate some more, and then our group left to catch the last bus. Laurel (another girl from Michigan) and I stayed for the night, as we heard it was lovely at night, and seeing as how it was my third time, we thought we should do something different. At night, they have lights shining on la peña and a show with a fountain and lights choreographed to music. We watched the show twice, and it was definitely worth staying the night.

Here's a video of one of the songs, even though it can't compare to real life: Bernal Fountain
The next day we got some breakfast and walked around the little shops.

New food: Arroz con leche (rice with milk). Basically it’s just rice with milk and cinnamon, but it’s delicious.
Updated facebook album: Bernal
Another video of the fountain for those who love water and lights and music as much as I do: Bernal Fountain 2

en la cima del mundo

It was another short week in terms of classes. There was some sort of conference going on this week, so my only class that meets Tuesday/Thursday was cancelled, as well as one of my Wednesday classes. This means that I only had to go to three classes this week. I spent the rest of the week running around getting the pieces together to obtain a visa. Once I had inconvenienced mis padres as well as a few other people, the lady at la UAQ decided that it would be ok if I didn’t get one. This was nice because it saved me money, but I felt bad because I had inconvenienced people for no reason.
Monday - We had to write a short essay for European lit, and when we brought them to class, my professor decided that he was going to randomly choose some to read aloud. This definitely caught me off guard because we never do that in the US. Luckily mine was not chosen.
Tuesday - I had told mis padres one of my first days here that I don’t like hamburgers. They were ok with that. This week both of the guys that rent rooms here found out, and they were shocked. My host brother asked, “not even hamburgers from McDonalds?” I said, “Especially not hamburgers from McDonalds.” We also had a discussion about language, and how I need to stop thinking in English, and the 23 year old who rents a room was pretty startled. “You think in English?!?”
One of my random visits to El centro this week:

Wednesday I went to the public library here with two other students from Michigan to take salsa lessons. It was a lot of fun and only 10 pesos (77 cents) for an hour lesson. The library is really huge and gorgeous, and the middle part is all open.

Saturday I went to a little town just southwest of Querétaro, called El Pueblito. There, there’s an archeological zone called El Cerrito (which means little hill), which has a pyramid. It was really pretty, but unfortunately we couldn’t climb it, as it was being restored.


the view from the base of the pyramid:

We walked into the town where there was a festival of sorts going on. A whole lot of people were gathered around watching a play depicting a battle between los morros and los cristianos. I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I didn’t feel too bad about it because some of the locals didn’t know either. After the play, there was free food for everyone. It was pretty warm out and I received a lovely sunburn.
Later that night I went to Italian Coffee Company with mis padres and my grandma, as mi padre’s daughter owns it and it’s closing this week for renovations. So, I met my “sister,” her husband, and their two kids. The kids were busy playing though, and they barely stopped to see their grandpa or great-grandma, let alone to meet me.
Even later that night, I went to a new bar/club in town. It was pretty amazing, as they had fountains that lit up and glass over parts of the floor with lights and mirrors underneath. After getting back home around 3:30ish, not going to sleep until after 4:30, and waking up at 9, I went to Bernal on Sunday. We took a bus to get there for only 28 pesos ($2.16). It was about an hour bus ride. We climbed the Peña. I talked a little about it in one of my previous blogs. You can’t climb the whole thing, once it gets to a certain point, you need special equipment. This is a little sad, as there’s a chapel on top, and I’m sure it would be amazing to go all the way up there. We climbed for at least an hour and 15 minutes. At that point, there wasn’t much to hold on to anymore, and the people who were coming down from a little bit higher were having a lot of trouble coming down, so we decided to stop. I think it was the coolest thing I’ve ever done though. When we were about half way up, there was a huge rain cloud and we felt a few drops. Luckily that was it; it would have been one big, dangerous mud slide back down.
Climbing up...


The view from our highest point of the climb:


the pink spot is where we were:

There are a few figures on la Peña, the most obvious one is the side view of an elephant’s head at the top left.
After we went back down to the town, we bought some ice cream and walked around.
In Bernal:

We then headed back up to the bus stop. It was time for the last bus of the day, and there was quite a crowd waiting to get on the bus. All of the seats on the bus were already taken, so everyone waiting had to stand in the aisle. I’ve been on busses almost that full on my way to school, but never on a bus for an hour long ride after climbing so much. My feet hurt a lot, and I had my knees pretty much locked the whole time for balance, so they hurt once we arrived back in Querétaro. However, it could have been worse. One guy had to hold a baby and stand the whole time.
Food: I had my first Mexican burrito this week. I also had a paleta, which is like a popsicle, except it had chunks of fruit in it (guava…I love guava). I also had a type of dessert called a guava roll, which is essentially the fruit mixed with sugar and in roll form. Mis padres put cheese on it, and it was delicious. We also had a “salad” this week. We took a lettuce leaf and then put chunks of tomatoes, garlic, herbs, and some sort of dressing or something inside. Interesting but good. My favorite new food of the week was some ‘traditional’ ice cream. I got a medium which meant three scoops (the scoops are small by American standards) and you’re expected to get three different flavors. I couldn’t decide, so I just got the first three on the list. Flavor one: “lullaby of the moon” with mango, peach, strawberries, and some type of nut. This was my favorite. Flavor two: “angel kiss” with strawberries, mamey (which is a tropical fruit), and pine nuts. Flavor three: “cinderella kiss,” with strawberry jam, cream, and cheese.
Photo Album from this weekend: El Pueblito and Bernal

Lluvia, lluvia, lluvia, sol

I came back from my trip this weekend to the nueva casa.

We haven’t quite settled in and things are still everywhere. I’m now sharing a bathroom with two guys, which is something new for me. Last week when we came to the house, mis padres told me that I was going to pick my room first (after they had picked their room). I told them I didn’t want to choose first (because the other two people that live with us have lived there longer, they’re more permanent than I am, and they pay to live there). They told me that I’m the girl, and as their daughter, I get to pick first. I thought to myself, “geez, this must be what it feels like to be the favorite…” ;-) Anyway, I chose the room with the long vertical window facing the street. When I arrived back from my trip, they told me that I was going to be in a different room. The next day Ricardo told me that the two twin beds in my room wouldn’t fit in the room that I wanted, and that mi padre said that because I’m the daughter I should get the biggest room anyway, so that’s where I ended up. It still smelled like new paint the first few days, but other than that, I was surprised by the fact that the house was all ready. Well, almost. The TV wasn’t installed yet, which was certainly a change for mis padres. We didn’t have internet right away, so I became a frequent customer at the Starbucks down the street because of their wireless. Also, the (hot) water heaters weren’t installed yet, so we were supposed to walk back to the old house to shower. By the time I had gotten home from Veracruz, the water heater for mis padres' shower had been set up. It was cute, I got back one night around 10 at night, and I asked it I could have keys for the old house to shower, and mi padre said “go tell your mom you’re going to shower in our bathroom.”
It was a nice week, as I didn’t have class Monday because of the commemoration of the constitution, I only have one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Wednesday I went to Mexico City with one of my classes.
Wednesday, mi padre offered to drive me to la UAQ, which was lovely of him because I had to be there at 6:30 in the morning, which would have meant a lot of time out in the dark. Plus, it turned out to be extra lovely because it was raining like crazy! We went to el museo nacional de antropología. It’s a huge museum, and mis padres say it would take a few días to see everything. We only saw one exhibit, about the Romans because I was there with my European literature class.
National Anthropology Museum:


After the museum, we drove to el centro of la Ciudad de México. We passed a lot of pretty fountains. The city is muy grande.
Government building:

It was a lot dirtier than Querétaro, which is probably largely due to the fact that there are a lot more people. However, I also noticed that there's a lack of trashcans, so I don’t know where they expect the people to put their garbage. It was already 9:30 by the time we returned to la UAQ, so I decided to take a taxi home. The taxi driver started talking to me, and he would speak in English and I would speak in Spanish, so that was kind of cool. Then we got a little lost, as he came into my neighborhood from a different direction, and since I had never been to that part, I didn’t know where we were. No worries, we figured it out.
Thursday, the sixth day in a row of rain, was really cold. I took the bus to school, and some of the roads were like lakes. No joke, the water comes up a third of the height of the tires! I feel like that’s newsworthy in the US.
Here, the sun had already been out for a full day, so it wasn’t as bad:

Friday I spent running errands and trying to figure out stuff for my visa. It’s still freezing inside the house, but the sun was finally out, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and it was warmer outside! Also we finally got the internet figured out, so I was pretty excited about that. I watched a really important bull fight that night with mis padres and my aunt and uncle, but I really just don’t enjoy that kind of thing. It makes me sad to watch them. Later that night Ricardo and I stayed up talking in the kitchen for a while. We talked about me learning Spanish, and how I can’t be afraid to ask when I don’t understand things. He said that mis padres are very patient, and that I can trust that when I ask him or mis padres something, they wont get frustrated with me, and that they want to help me. We talked about having a positive attitude, both in life and in business (he is a manager of a business here in Querétaro). Also, I was happy to hear that he won’t be moving, at least for now, as he is having trouble finding a different place to live that is closer to his work.
Saturday night I went out with Ali, the guy who took me to Tequisquiapan/Bernal last Friday, and his friends, and I brought mi amiga Laurel. They were all really really friendly. They all speak English pretty well, but we spoke in Spanish. We went for food and then we went to Barra Habana, but a different one than I went to on Thursday. This one had a bigger dance floor and a bigger band. The band was great and it was a lot of fun, as Ali tried to teach us to salsa.
I got made fun of a lot here this week, but all in good fun, of course. Mi padre says “ommmm” like he’s meditating every time that I say um, which is a lot. Also on Saturday mis padres made fun of me for not eating enough, even though I feel like I eat SO MUCH here. They relentlessly picked on me for at least 15 minutes about how I’m going to be too skinny and my dad is going to be mad.
Mis padres talked to me again about boys this week, and the difference between how boys think and how girls think, as well as the difference between going out with someone and having relations with someone. It’s kinda endearing, cause mi padre was being all fatherly. He also told me that the boys in the US must be blind if I don’t have a boyfriend. This is when I told him that my dad always asks me if I fell out of the ugly tree. Try explaining that in Spanish…
Speaking of boys, though, a lot of people warned me before I came here to be careful with the boys here, they’re going to be obnoxious, and all of that, but I really haven’t had a problem so far. I think a lot of that has to do with the kind of city that Querétaro is. Well, this week was certainly different. My taxi driver started asking me if my boyfriend was in the US, how old I was, and if my sister was as pretty as I am. That wasn’t too bad.
The next day, however, as I was waiting for the bus, this guy came up and started talking to me, and was very persistent, asking if my boyfriend was in the US (I find it weird to have the question phrased like that, instead of just asking if I have a boyfriend. Either way, I think from now on I’m just going to tell them that yes, my boyfriend is in the US, he’s a black belt in karate, and we’re getting married this summer). Anyway, he wanted to accompany me to wherever I was going and wanted to know if I wanted to see him sometime. Not knowing Spanish sometimes comes in handy in these situations though, cause when he would hit on me, I would just say “what? I don’t understand.” I ended up taking a taxi home because my bus wasn’t coming and this guy was still talking to me. Later that night we went to a salsa bar, and at the end the waiter told me “me encanta tu nombre como me encanata a ti,” translated like “I love your name like I love you.” Then he started asking for my number and if I would come back and everything. Apparently I’m going to have to learn how to deal with these situations.
New foods: Taquitos arabes. The outside is grape leaves and I don’t really know what’s inside, but I didn’t care for them. I also had a tamale verde, which I thought was kind of spicy, even though mis padres told me it wasn’t spicy at all. Mis padres make atole, which is a hot chocolate drink but a lot thicker than what we have in the US, it has some sort of flour in it, I believe. It’s delicious though, especially on the cold days we’ve been having here. Saturday night I had a pastor sandwich, which I’m going to say was the best sandwich I have ever eaten. Pastor is a form of pork that has been marinated in sauce. The sandwich had cheese, beans, and avocado (they put avocado on a lot of things here, I like it. It’s also common to have beans on their sandwiches). Then, on the table, there were limes and pineapple to put on the sandwich. So good!
Sunday I watched the superbowl with two of the other students from Michigan.
I updated two of my albums, so check them out if you’d like to see more pics.
Queretaro
Mexico City

Niebla de la Niebla...énfasis en la Niebla

Claire, Marilyn, and I went on a tour this weekend entitled “Ruta de la Niebla” which translates to route of the mist or fog. After the first day, we pretty much decided it should be called Niebla de la Niebla, because there was mucha niebla.
Claire, Marilyn, and I met up with our tour group around 11 pm en el centro on Friday. Luckily we had signed up for the tour rather late, so we were in the back of the bus. This meant that we each got two seats to ourselves. I was exhausted from walking around Tequisquiapan and Bernal all day, plus I hadn’t had a full nights sleep in a few days, so I thought I’d fall asleep no problem. Wrong. I barely slept the entire way there. Even if I had been tired, the bus was freezing and it was impossible to get comfortable. We had about 3 bathroom breaks over the course of the night, and we arrived in Xico, Veracruz around 8 in the morning. There wasn’t much open, so our bus drove us down to the Cascada Texolco. The road down there was surrounded by green and it was beautiful. The waterfall was gorgeous. I guess there was an option to get closer to it, but it was raining pretty hard so no one did.

Then we drove back up to the town and were free to walk around. The tour organizer guy gave us an itinerary that had some of the highlights of each town. We found a bakery and bought some bread for breakfast and walked around the church and stuff. We ended up at the end of a road that lead down to a different little waterfall, so that was neat.

We walked around some little Artesanía shops and wandered back to the bus. We then drove to the next little town, Coatepec. Here we really saw some fog. We wandered around a market and stuff, and eventually found a little restaurant to eat at. We probably stayed there an hour and a half because we were too tired to walk around and it was now raining harder. We stopped at a few shops and eventually got back on the bus. We drove a little bit to a coffee place…it’s the coffee capital of Mexico. We learned some stuff about coffee and had a little sample and got a tour. I then ate some coffee marshmallows, and they were delicious. Then we drove to Xalapa (pronounced ha-lah-puh. It can also be spelled with a J. This is fun, because then the people from Jalapa are called Jalapenos.), which is the capital of Veracruz. Everyone got off the bus and got the key to their hotel room. We were pretty exhausted and it was already around 7, so we just hung out. Around 10 when we decided to go to bed, a band started playing, and it sounded like they were RIGHT outside our window, making it difficult to get to sleep.
Sunday we woke up and got ready and ate in the hotel restaurant. It was 70 pesos for the buffet, which is expensive for food in Mexico, but it was $5.40 in US dollars, and I think I ate enough for 3 people, so I don’t feel too bad about it. We got on the bus and drove a ways to a museum – Ex Hacienda el Lencero. “The house, which takes its name from Juan Lencero, a soldier of Hernán Cortés, was the property of Antonio López de Santa Anna in the 19th century. Today, it is a museum which displays furniture and items dating from this period. It also has a chapel and spacious gardens surrounding the property which include a sculpture by Gabriela Mistral who spent time there while in exile.” It didn’t sound too exciting, but the grounds were GORGEOUS. The furniture and everything in the rooms was also absolutely amazing. It was a huge house.

Then we drove back to the Museum of Anthropologia of Xalapa. It was pretty huge, and it had some cool stuff.

We got back to the hotel around 3, so we walked around the city. It’s supposed to be famous for flowers and stuff, and it also has the most parks of any city in Mexico, but you couldn’t see much because of the fog. We walked all over and eventually found a place to eat, which was difficult because a lot of places were closed. We went to Parque Juarez, this huge park, as well as a few other random places. We started to head back to the hotel when it started to rain again.
A view from Parque Juarez

Monday we woke up and walked around to find some breakfast. Then realized that our hotel was right next to Parque Juarez. We didn’t figure this out the day before because of all of the fog. We walked all over again to find a fruit stand to have some food for the road. We packed up our stuff and checked out of the hotel, and made our way up through the mountains (such incredible views...)to Naolinco. It was a little town, and their claim to fame is leather and leather products, mainly shoes. We saw a sign for a waterfall, so that was the first place we went. We walked down a little trail and could hear the water, but could only see fog. We asked someone and they told us that there was a lookout nearby, and the fog would lift in a few minutes. Sure enough, within the time it took us to ask, we could see part of the waterfall. We went to the lookout, and the view was pretty much the best thing I’ve ever seen. There were actually two waterfalls. The fog moved back in within a few minutes of us seeing it though, so our timing was perfect.
la miradora

ahhh so pretty


We walked back to the “centro” of the town, and there was literally store after store after store after store of leather cowboy boots and other shoes. We stopped in a park and bought some dulces. We walked around for another hour or so and then realized we were supposed to be back on the bus in a half hour and we hadn’t eaten. We inhaled some food quickly and made it back to the bus just as it started to pour. I was planning on accomplishing a lot of reading on the way back, but unfortunately they played three movies in a row. We arrived back in Querétaro around 11:30 and caught a cab home. My family was already at the new house, so that’s where I went. It was a long, rainy, foggy weekend, but I think it was worth it.
Here are the links to my facebook albums:
Ruta de la Niebla
Ruta de la Niebla 2