Short one

This is the first week of my new classes, two of which are 400 level and the third is a difficult 300 level. This is the Thursday of the week and I already have a three page essay due on Tuesday, an eight minute presentation tomorrow (Friday), and an hour group presentation the following Thursday (!!).

Basically this has been the majority of my time since I last posted. I go to school, come home and finish my homework as quickly/well as I can, and then read Harry Potter y La Camara Secreta, play Diablo 2, or chat with people online. That will probably continue until I get more well established with this new group, which is likely to be happening very soon.

Speaking of exactly that, there is a new group here for the second six week session. This is cool, because although a few of the people in the last group were rad, most of them really just got on my nerves. This group doesn't appear to be a whole lot better, but at least there are some new people who want to speak Spanish and if I'm lucky my assumptions about them will be wrong. After the first session of school and a group comida (lunch essentially) Scott had the idea to go to the movies, I had the idea to invite a few people and the idea spread like an idea that spread really quickly... (Sorry but I've had to deal with way too many similes and metaphors in my literature class, you get no flair).

Essentially 18 of us ended up going to the movie theatre (in a comically small bus) and watched El Origen, which is Inception to you folk. The movie was absolutely phenomenal, it is definitely one of my new favorites and I highly recommend that you go see you if you haven't already. After that I just sorta taxied/walked home and did as much of my homework as I could before going to sleep. It was a grand night out and I wouldn't mind repeats in the future.

One last thing before I quite typing to go work on my substantial mountain of homework (it's not a weak or flimsy mountain, it's substantial(?)). Today, very near my school, was a crime scene that seemed to be left over from a serious deed. At first when I walked to school there were two officers watching the area and a police car with the lights on. There were also a bunch of beer bottles in the alley (both were I walk through to get to school and where the crime scene was), many of which were half or so full (optimistic crime scene). This seemed weird, but I figured that maybe there was a disturbance of a fight or something and the cops were just kinda holding down the fort. Of course they had automatic weapons over their shoulders, but that's incredibly commonplace here. The strange part was when I was walking from school the same corner for my bus home. The crime scene was now defined by 'precaucion' tape, not just an area the cops were looking at with a seriously-don't-walk-right-there expression, and there were people wearing semi-formal clothing walking around in the crime scene taking pictures and samples of the stuff on the ground as well as swabbing things with what appeared to be large Q-tips (which I believe are officially called swabs, but swabbing with swabs just seems a little too obvious). I then turned the corner, about two feet from the edge of the crime scene and 8 feet from my bus stop, and nearly ran into the same officer I saw this morning, but now with a much larger gun. I'm really not sure why that's necessary (bullets from pistols will likely kill you, an automatic weapon is probably gonna kill you, and a slightly larger automatic weapon will do the same just with a bigger mess). In nearly running into the large man with the big gun I kinda stepped back suddenly with 'what-the-hell-is-going-on' ('que-esta-pasando') written clearly in my eyes and across my forehead now filled with eyebrow. The police officer either mistook this as guilt or was just F-ing with me because for the rest of the time I was at the bus stop he would keep glancing over suspiciously as I looked at the crime scene.

That's all I've got, the most interesting stuff going on is pretty much not. I'm homesick and miss all of my friends and of course my family. I'm ready to come home and relax for a while, but Mexico has other plans with five more weeks of ridiculously difficult classes.

Love you all, please comment I need the attention,

-Connor

Dead Week; Updates and Hate Crimes

Dead Week.

(22-07-10)

This week was the last of the term, and today specifically was the last day for any actual work. That in combination with horrible internet and a relapse of rather debilitating stomach sickness has kept me from posting in awhile. Apologies to all.

Updates on me. I'm sick, but I just recently went to the doctor who thinks that because of the short time between basically identical symptoms that I might have a more serious infection that just kinda laid low after the first beat-down provided by the antibiotics. I have complaining to do that will go into more detail about all this sickness business later. As for my foot I believe that it is much better. The pain with walking has stopped, the cut is (finally) starting to close, and I believe that the infection has gone away as well. In hindsight I should have gone to the doctor when I first cut it open, I can only assume I would have needed stitches or some butterfly alternative. Other than those two things my health has been relatively stable (in a state of moderately good, but not actually good) for about a week now. The stomach issues only got serious two days ago.

Speaking of two days ago (man that was a solid segue, go me) I went to a Lucha Libre show/fight/dance and actually enjoyed myself immensely. Lucha Libre is a lot like WWE only with masks and a lot more impressive feats of acrobatics and much less talking and macho challenging (instead of talking they just slap each other's chests...).

I started off the evening with a bad decision, which later turned into a pleasant evening with a show, than morphed into a horrible night of frantically running through the streets. My initial bad decision was to believe the map and think “oh, the arena is not that far” and end up walking for well over an hour (an hour to get to the area and another half asking directions from people who I kinda doubt actually live here due to their lack of knowledge of the whereabouts of such a “well known” building in Queretaro). An additional mistake to thinking the map was going to tell me an accurate distance was thinking that the map might, perhaps maybe, use the correct name of the street... I was tired, hot, hungry, and a little irritated at the amount of time I'd spent lost so close to my destination, but I had made it and that was good enough. I entered, found my seat and waited for the match to begin.

At first when I went I didn't know what to expect, but I thought there actually might be real wrestling. I was WAY wrong, but the show turned out to be very good regardless. Many of the moves are based, extremely loosely, on actual techniques seen in jujitsu or wrestling, only with all the aspects that might make it hurt somebody taken out. There were a lot of cool flips and jumps off the ropes (they use a boxing ring) and some comedy mixed in. It was completely worth the $12, but I honestly think that I'm set for life. If I never return to a Lucha Libre match, not a tear will be shed.

Immediately after the lucha, I realized that my stomach had indeed taken a turn for the worse, and I needed to get home immediately. The unfortunate thing about that was the sheer number of people and the small exit (in retrospect that was probably a serious fire hazard...). We took a long time getting out of the building, and once out had to wade through crowds of people to get to the street, to walk to the bigger street to try and catch a cab. We finally managed to flag down a cab and the four of us piled in. It was myself, another guy and two ladies. Of course we went to the furthest lady's house first, to make sure she got home safe, then we headed to the second lady's home from where I proceeded to run home. Now when I say run, I don't mean walked in a manner that was speedy, I mean I literally ran at my 1500 pace all the way to my home (because of the lay out of streets it probably would have taken longer to have the cab take me). When I arrived I entered with half quiet caution (it was mid-night at this point) and half with desperation. This experience, I'm happy to say, ended without a mess. However it was entirely too close to disaster.

Like I've said earlier, however, the sickness thing is being taken care of. The other good news is that I have officially finished classes for the first term. The process of finishing the term was rather hellish though... (see: title)

So, this week the professors really piled on the work. Assignments, studying, reading, preparing for presentations, and just a lot of general learning things. This is pretty normal for the college student life, which I am currently leading, however this week was particularly rough, and last night especially. On Tuesday night I finished my essay that was due today, and yesterday I asked for help from my Papa here to edit it. We sat down and went over the three and a half pages I had completed. We talked about every little grammatical issue, word choice, sentence structure, and a lot of the ideas and content of the paper. The whole process took probably two hours, and that was just for editing, not to mention the actual rewriting. This was pretty late in the evening already because my studying had been interrupted by sickness, a short siesta (necessary due to the extreme discomfort I was dealing with from the sickness (it's kinda like the flu in that your whole body hurts and moving or sitting up for more than 20 seconds is painful)), and a trip to the doctors office. So we spent two hours editing my paper, then I still had to prepare for two tests, a presentation, and also have an interview to include with my essay. Having only accomplished the essay thoroughly (all other tasks haphazardly) I finally got to bed a little before 2:00 in the morning. This is pretty bad when I normally have to get up at 6:30, however this morning I needed to go to a laboratory to have blood drawn and tested to see if I actually have Salmonella. Crawling out of bed at 5:40 this morning wasn't actually too difficult, but staying awake during class and trying to think during my presentation (which was BAD) was very hard. As for the blood test, I find out at 5:00 today, so that'll be kinda cool. I've never had salmonella before, and if they know what it is it's more likely they can fix it more completely than last time. Also, since I'm typing this on a word document because we don't have internet right now, I might post the results in this very blog! Also that reminds me of another aspect that made last night extremely difficult for studying and such. The internet here is basically down. It's kinda like an infant, occasionally you can get it to do what you want it to, but a lot of the time it just sorta acts up or does it's own thing completely, and the majority of the time its not functioning at all (I equate this to sleeping).

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Updates and Hate Crimes

This morning I found out two important things regarding my health for the rest of my stay. The first is that I will have to take antibiotics twice a day and carefully monitor my diet for the next two weeks because of the infections (Yeah, that's an intentional -s plural marker), and that bus drivers can get really angry when you try to use your legitimate discount...

The two infections I have are the two different kinds of Salmonella (according to my Papa here who I'm pretty sure knows everything...) One is Typhoid (tifoidea en espanol) and the other one I only know in spanish: Proteus. Needless to say I'm rather ill right now, but it doesn't stop me from functioning relatively normally, which is lucky. Sometime my stomach hurts a lot, and I'm still having bathroom related issues, but for the most part I think it's just gonna get better from here.

As for the hate crime, I got on the bus this morning and gave the bus driver the correct change and showed him my student ID. He went on to say that because it is vacation (for the locals, yes) that my card doesn't work. Not only is that not true for students during vacation, but I also don't have vacation because I have classes now. He didn't except this answer, gave me my money and asked me to get off. I said of course but that I needed his name (so that I could call his supervisor later) he gave me his name (after some coercing) and then asked me to get off the bus again. I should him the paper I was using to write down the name and asked if it was correct, he then shoved me toward the stairs. I, with my limited Spanish and generally pacifistic ways, pointed at him ferociously and said in my most bad-dog voice: “No!” Then asked him again to confirm his name. He did and I thanked him, stepped off the bus, and flipped him off. As the bus drove off I turned my head to watch it go, and in the corner of my eye noticed that everyone at the bus stop was looking at me half nervous half curious. I threw out my disarming smile and wished them all a good morning. On my way home I had another incident of the same variety but of a different degree completely (which is fortunate, getting pushed twice in one day I might have punched him). As I got on the bus to come home, I gave the guy 5 pesos for a 3.50 student fare (the norm is 6:50), and showed him my credentials. He took my five with an obviously bitter look on his face and slammed the 1:50 into my hand, and did exactly the same thing to the another student in my group immediately behind me. I really don't get why this is such a big deal to these bus-drivers. It's not like our fare pays their salary and by being a student I'm actively taking the food from the mouths of his children! I suppose that this begs the question, why is the fare not fair?

That's the gist of what's been going on with me and I'll do my best to update you again soon.

Much love,

-Connor

Anoche: El Partido. Esta Manana: Bano De Muerte

Last night I found out that there was a futbol (this means soccer) game in Queretaro. It was between the Queretaro Gallos Blancos vs. Argentina (or Venezuela?) Colon. I talked to my senor about how to get there, then headed out and waited for the bus, there was a decent amount of time waiting for the bus because of all the traffic. However, when the bus finally came around the corner that it was packed and had people hanging out the windows with flags the colors of the Gallos Blancos. The bus stopped for me, I squeezed in and payed my fair. I turned around (kind felt like the moving part in a washing machine filled with far too many clothes), just in time to see everyone in the bus start singing in unison as drums started playing. I was completely shocked at the amount of noise and animation in this forest of black and blue (the colors of the team). I thought, "this is crazy! There's a bass drum on this bus?" Of course that was ridiculous... there were actually two bass drums, a snare, and people playing little cymbals as well. The bus ride to the Stadium was one of the cooler experiences of my life, I just wish that I knew what they were singing so I could join in. You know how hard it can be to make out the words of a crowd of people singing in unison(ish), now imagine that in a second language. Good luck.

The ride finished after the much music, singing, yelling out the windows and passing around about three or four cigarettes to what must have been every single person on the bus minus myself, the bus driver, and the guy whose job it was to stand in the door and make sure everyone who wanted on was on before the bus driver took off, and also to make sure people didn't fall out. We half shuffled half fell out of the bus and rushed to the stadium. I then bought both a ticket for the game (while doing my best to not be ripped off my the people standing around the lines (it was ridiculous, the people would stick out there hand and say: "five pesos for buying your ticket" A transaction which they had absolutely nothing to do with except for watching you uncomfortably intensely while you purchased it from the legit box office)) and a jersey for the team (which I've wanted since I moved here).

The game itself was pretty awesome. The home team lost, which was unfortunate, but a lot of the people we were sitting with seemed much more interested in gossiping, smoking profusely, drinking underage (which is impressive since legal age here is 18), and just generally showing an uncomfortable amount of machismo (guys here are very controlling of their girlfriends. It's cultural (and the women don't seem to mind) so I just kinda have to bite my tongue/pocket my fist).

After the game I walked home without incident, talked to Alexis for a few minutes over skype (which rocked) and headed to bed exhausted.

Today was just school as usual. Nothing particularly exciting came about except for a bit of an epiphany (yeah, again) when I realized that it's not just that the group here speaks almost exclusively English that bothers me, it's that I don't like most of them as people. It think it explains a lot of my random annoyance/anger issues here. I'm not just frustrated by my inability to communicate most of the time, but also by the fact that this is kinda like Vernonia High School all over again. There are an extremely limited number of people, about 90% of which I dislike, and I'm forced to be in the same places as them much of the time. I'm being pushed back into my little recluse bubble that I've been fighting to break out of for years. I'm generally able to find time to break out when I chat with locals in the streets or my family here.

After my epiphany (and class) I figured it would be a good idea to use the bathroom before I left so that I would have a more comfortable bus ride/walk (takes about a half an hour to get home). I walked past the janitor, who looked at me with the same kind of interest as you would at anyone walking past you, and into the bathroom. I went to the urinal area, and felt a sharp chemical sting when breathing in. I thought, at first, that it was just a bit of bleach or something, so I didn't really thing much of it. Then on my second breath I realized that it was absolutely more than a little bleach, and definitely more than the extremely vascular tissue that is my lungs was capable of handling. At this point I started coughing and gasping bits of air as full breaths were refused by my diaphragm. I just barely zipped up before stumbling out of the bathroom coughing, were the janitor looked up at me from his casual work, then went right back to it, again as if nothing had happened. I figured it would be best just to hold it until I got home rather than risk dying face down on the floor of what was in the process of becoming a very clean bathroom. It took a few minutes of walking and quite a bit of water to get my throat back into a happy condition, and I'm completely fine now, but that experience really makes me feel for Mr. Hoerauf who went through the gas-chamber in marine boot camp.

Harsh chemicals and lungs are horrible together and should be kept apart whenever possible. That's my piece of worldly knowledge from Mexico for today.

Love you all, keep on rockin' in the free world.

-Connor

Nothing exciting, just a general update; Differences Part 6

The first thing that comes to mind for this update is that my foot has gotten only worse, until today. So yesterday I looked more closely at the damage to my foot, which for it's location requires some yoga, and realized not only is the cut far deeper than I had initially thought, but that a lot of the skin around it had turned a jaundice-yellow (that should be a crayon) and in the depth of the cut had some fun different shades of various colors that skin should not be. On top of that the pain, when compared to the previous few days, was getting worse rather than better (although I should mention that it was still better than the first week when I was limping). So yesterday afternoon my senora put a heap of antibiotic cream on/in the cut, put iodine soaked cotton over that (between my toes where the cut is) and tape to hold everything together. This morning my foot still hurt a lot to walk on, but this afternoon it was a little better and just now when I arrived home from school and took off the wrap to check on it, everything seems better. Cleaner at least. If this progress continues I shan't pursue professional attention, however if it doesn't I certainly will.

As for everything else I seem to have really found a niche here. Everything has calmed down and except for continuously pissing off my feminist friend and now avoiding English as much as I can (blog, facebook, and people here who cannot speak Spanish being the exceptions) nothing really particularly aggravating has occurred (I really don't like having to wade through the English whenever the group of exchange students is about). I have a regular workout schedule that I'm keeping up and really like. It's funny how much like therapy lifting is for me. When I have a crappy day or am in a bad mood for whatever reason all I wanna do it head to the gym. Unfortunately this has been happening more and more recently. I'm not exactly sure what's got me so wound up, but I keep being set off my little things (often things I don't notice, I'll just find that I'm sad or angry). Part of my problem I've realized is pride and I'm working on that one constantly since my epiphany yesterday. In the United States I'm generally an intelligent person, but here that just doesn't count for anything. I need to get used to knowing virtually nothing here. The other day my teacher said something to the class which I didn't understand and I stated what I thought she said for clarification, needless to say I was wrong. But she, and the class (which is only 5 other people) looked at me like I had just asked why, since heat rises, isn't it hotter in the United States. Fortunately this was at the end of class. I got the correct information from the professor, packed up my bag, was the first one out of the room and practically sprinted to the gym. Since then I've been trying to dial back my pride and just roll with the blows and laugh with what would have previously been at my expense. Don't get me wrong, I can take a joke, but when it is someone legitimately thinking that I'm stupid... That genuinely bothers me. I suppose this is part of the personal growth that everyone keeps telling me I'm going to experience from this whole trip.

Speaking of the trip, I've now officially been here for over a month. I'm a little more than one-third of the way through. I've got some 53 days left, and am both excited to return and realizing that when I do leave, I'm really going to miss this place. I have every intention of returning to Queretaro in the future, as well as using my new found Spanish ability to explore more of Latin America and probably someday visit Spain as well.

Like I've said I don't really have that much exciting news to publish, but I figured I'd just talk for awhile so you all have something to read about (DON'T FORGET ME!).

Much Love, please comment, I love to read them.

-Connor

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Differences part 6

Police:

-Here they drive around with there lights on at all times. And I don't mean their headlights. If they want you to pull over, they'll get on their speaker and tell you to (although that's kinda an issue because of the terrible, terrible quality of their speakers. The native folk here can't even tell what they're saying).

-Generally are more scary looking

-Often have semi-automatic weapons with them, and it's taken rather casually. Today I watched one of the policemen get out of the car (which had four other policemen in it), set his semi-automatic weapon on the seat with a kind of 'hey can you watch this for a sec' look to the others and headed up to the convenience store. I can only hope/assume that the rifle was unloaded.

-Many Smoke while on duty

-Many are women and equally scary

-Wear their bulletproof vests (almost?) all the time.

Dogs:

-Dogs in yards (or on roofs depending on whether or not the house has a yard) bark A LOT of the time. Often at nothing, but typically at me.

-When said dogs are barking, no one seems to care. For example, Andrea, which is the German-Shepard that lives here, barks (so much) at the wind, rain, bugs (I think), people, and goes ballistic when another dog goes by. It drives me crazy. The family here just lets her bark... and it's not my dog so I really can't do anything about it (I imagine disciplining their dog would be a bit taboo). (Maybe it's a German-Shepard thing, right dad?)

-Dogs, owned or feral, aren't spade or neutered (Bob Barker would be so mad.)

-Respond equally well to Spanish or English petting.

Alright, that's all I've got for now.

Adios y se amo todos,

-Connor 'Chaparro' Flynn

Differences part 4

Bus drivers:

-Often will have conversations with people on the bus, and not reserved 'I'm driving' sort of conversations.

-Eat while driving

-Listen to their ipods if not to loud music on the radio

-Smoke, a lot. In fact, just yesterday morning I had a bus driver (who for whatever reason looked incredibly insulted when I showed him that I was a student in order to get the discount that is rightfully mine) who actually stopped the bus, got off, walked into a convenience store, bought a pack of cigarettes (I was watching all of this half in awe half chuckling to myself), and returned to the bus. He then proceeded to pack his cigarettes, open the packet and start smoking all while driving aggressively through traffic.

Gym:

-The idea of not resting on the machine you are using is completely non-existent to most of the people who lift (which is odd considering the signs posted on the walls regarding exactly that).

-When I go to the gym in Eugene (or anywhere else) everyone else is a lot stronger than me, and I'm always in awe of how much they lift, here, I seem to be one of the people who lifts the most. I don't really understand this...

-Most of the weights are in Kilograms which is really inconvenient when I'm trying to remember how much I did in eugene and match it here ("Okay, let's see, I was squating 205 in Eugene, so I need two forty-fives and two thirty-fives. They only have 20 kilo (44lbs) and don't use anything close to 35lbs. So I'll just take the 10 kilos (22lbs) and add a 5 kilo (11lbs) to each side so that's 199lbs total..." This doesn't seem like much of a problem, and it's not, but it's just a little bit funny trying to work everything out to a close equivalent.

People in general:

-Automatically you are very interesting and worth staring at just because you're white. I get so much attention here when I get back to the states I'll probably go through withdrawals like some child-actor.

-Generally people assume that you don't speak Spanish. At all. People handing out papers on the streets (for shows or stores or cafes or etc..) will be handing them to everyone that walks by, but then they see you and completely just leave your group unpapered. Some people might feel this a boon to being white, I just kinda feel insulted.

-People look at us as a chance to practice their English, which would be fine, except for the fact that we are here, specifically, to practice our Spanish. I have had a surprising number of conversations where I am speaking broken Spanish, which is being matched by their broken English, and neither wants to switch to their respective mother-tongue.

Buildings:

-The buildings here are mostly really old.

-Many of these previously mentioned old buildings are filled with restaurants or cafes or clothing or sun glasses or just about any combination of the two. Oh, or bars. It's really strange to see these old buildings, all ripe with history, turned into these establishments of everyday life.

Alright, that's all for now. Must complete my mountain of homework before I head to Cuento de juego tres (Toy Story 3).

Much love,

-Connor

It's been awhile

The phrase 'it's been awhile' has forever been stolen by Staind. I'm gonna have this song stuck in my head for sometime. Although it's less embarrassing than 'since you've been gone' by Kelly Clarkson.

Now that that's out of the way, it really has been awhile and I apologize (OneRepublic (uh-oh, is this gonna be a theme?*)) for the the crazy delay. I have been absolutely swamped with homework, excursions to new (insane) places, and just occasionally trying to grasp this language people keep using at me. I'll to my best to keep this chronological, but I really am not gonna make any promises about short.

Last weekend at ridiculously-early o' clock myself and the entire group of students met up at the corner of Pasture and Zaragoza for the long bus trip to Teotihuacan followed by a weekend in DF (DF means Mexico City. Just go with it). The bus trip was fairly uneventful, but I'm really grateful that the bus is actually of the distance variety and I don't have to sit in a school-bus style bench for three hours at a time. Despite the fact that the bus trip was untroubled and that the bus itself was quite nice, I still was fairly irked much of the ride. As I have mentioned in my blog before, the people (gringos) hate to speak Spanish. So when we are in a big group, it is nearly impossible to practice the language I came here to learn save for a few (literally three other than myself) people who prefer to speak Spanish when given the option. My being irked, however stopped abruptly when we arrived at Teotihuacan. If you want to see what this city looks like you should buy a ticket and come down, because words and pictures really just don't cut it. However for those of you too busy/stingy/uninterested to actually make the trip, I've got a few pictures on my facebook and I'm sure there are just a metric ton on google. Upon entering the area you are harassed by some truly hard-sell people. They will walk right up to you, push their merchandise in your face and, typically because of the intense glow coming from our group, speak in English. other times they will just try to let the merchandise speak for itself, this is a bad idea in my case. Two of the most popular items for sale were a whistle that 'sounds like an eagle' which is a stretch but I'll let it fly, and the other that 'sounds like a bobcat/cougar'. This is completely laughable. Literally laughable. There were a couple times when I was holding my side in pain because of this awkward choking/coughing sound that was sputtering from these 'instruments' while we were touring an beautiful ancient Aztec city. It was so out of place and inappropriate (both the laughing and the whistle). The main three attractions of the city, for me at least, were the temple of Quetzalcoatl, the pyramide of the sun, and the pyramide of the moon. The temple of Quetzalcoatl was covered in stone carvings (carved exclusively into softer stone using obsidian) of two of the Aztec gods. The amount of time to cover these huge structures in such intricate art is just completely beyond me. The next was the temple of the sun. This is aptly named due to it's location in the east of the city, and for the fact that we climbed it (many 'stairs' that were really more like a ladder) at almost exactly noon (little after). Lot sun on the pyramid of sun (see what I did there?). The view from this gigantic pyramid was just amazing. You could see the stretch of what used to be the city as well as far into the mountains and the surrounding communities. Next was the temple of the moon. The pyramid itself is much shorter, but the view, in my opinion, is more impressive. The pyramid is at the most northern point of what is left of the city and looking south down 'the road of the dead' with the pyramid of the sun on the left, many many ant like people straight ahead, and other smaller step pyramids with unknown names/purposes on the right. That view was by far my favorite part of the city.

Next we hopped back in the bus and powered out to DF. DF is a huge city that is kinda like a doughnut, only the dough is extreme poverty and the lack of dough in the middle, is the lack of poverty. The barrios populares (slums) surrounding the city were extreme in their lack of basically everything. I felt bad to be powering down the roads in an air conditioned bus allowing the everyday lives of the population to whiz by in a blur of shanty houses with many colors (a testament to the scrounging necessity of the area) and dirty everything. Much less depressing (although in a way more) was when we arrived at the hotel in the middle of the centro. The city center is absolutely gorgeous, but still has that real-Mexico flavor. The first night was spent in a restaurant with a large group of students forced to use more Spanish (I was happy) by the presence of our Spanish speaking guide/professor. The night beyond that was fairly uneventful because we had arrived late and would be getting up early.

The next day we saw the house that Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera shared (at times with many russian/communist leaders), saw most of the America vs. Ghana game**, and then headed to the plaza of fine arts. Inside was a collection of absolutely gorgeous murals by various artists (Diego Rivera, Jorge Gonzalez Camarena, David Alfaro Siqueiros) that were just stunning. I like art, but I'm not typically moved by pieces in the way I was move by these. That Saturday night I spent a few hours up in my hotel room with three amigos smoking Cuban cigars (as I have mentioned, here you can smoke pretty much anywhere), and talking about lots of various things. I actually allowed myself to break into English for the three hours because I really don't wanna try so hard with the Spanish that it becomes a chore. Trying too hard can be detrimental to the acquisition process (more advice from Carrick, dolled up in more linguistic terms).

The next day was the day of the, what turned out to be final, Mexico game in the world cup. In the centro of DF is a plaza that they set aside for the game (a couple huge screen TVs) and something like 90,000 people watching. Seeing as it was likely their last game, we were advised to stay away from the crowds. After the game ended (my friends and I watched from a restaurant) we went back to the centro to meet up with our group and head home. We were, however, diverted by about a hundred DF police officers in full riot gear. We went a slightly roundabout way to our destination, got up high, and watched as the police more or less herded people through a small gap to keep the crowd thinned out. At one point a couple people started getting really riled up and started yelling and waving their shirts and yelling at and about the police. I can only assume they were trying to start a riot to release some of the pent up feelings from the stout loss. The some people in the crowd started to take to the idea of a getting violent, but the police moved in tighter and just their crazy robot like presence made things calm down pretty immediately.

Week of school followed, and zipped right along with the help of a gym membership and tons of homework to prevent me getting a handle on time. This last weekend, however, I had a great time and did almost no homework (although that last part was really by no choice of my own).

This last weekend was an excursion of the pueblo of Xilitla with some stops on the way to swim in the pools created by water falls. It was awesome, save for a small incident with a large stone. At the first swimming hole, I was one of the last ones to arrive (due to a large distance to cover and a lack of the little shuttles (see: pick-up with a cage in the bed that isn't really connected so much as set on). Upon arriving I saw a friend, who had been there for some time, jump off of a large stone into the water, I got ready for the water (kinda) and stepped up on the rock. He told me "jump left, their is a rock to the right" this was clearly true, however there was also a rock to the left, he just hadn't found it. I looked, and I leaped, and I entered what was actually extremely shallow water and landed, with my right foot big toe in the lead, on a rock. I have a tendency to laugh when I'm in pain as a method of coping I can only assume. Man, my friends must have thought something was really hilarious for the fact that I didn't stop laughing for more than a few minutes for the next hour and a half or two. The swimming was painful, but the walking the mile back to the place where the shuttle arrives in flip-flops (which I now affectionately think of as flip-OHDEARGODWHYs) was quite a bit worse. My amigo took some pretty neat pictures of my foot as it bleed profusely into my flip-OHDEARGODWHYs and slowly mixed with the mud that coated the hilly walk. The area was extremely beautiful, but it was a little difficult to enjoy on the trek back. Oh, I think I forgot to mention, but the blunt impact that nearly broke my toes (I say nearly cause I can kinda bend them) also cut me (you might have figured this from the blood soaked flip-OHDEARGODWHYs comment) right between my big toe and the middle toe. So I walk for a bit with the flip-OHDEARGODWHYs on my cut, then later one toe gap over. The worst part was walking down hill, because my feet were wet with mud and blood and on the down hills my shoes would grip and my feet would slide forward holding my in place by only my toe-gaps. On on side it was uncomfortable, on the other it was much, much more uncomfortable (the word is excruciating). But, I honestly was laughing a lot of the way, I think I'm a junkie on adrenaline or possibly one of the other endorphins released by pain.

Once we returned to the area for pick up, my night got much better. We stood around and had a great chat, in Spanish, with our guide, rode in the back of a pick up in the rain down a dirt/rocky path through what can only be described as a jungle and back to the bus. It was absolutely phenomenal. That was followed shortly after with dinner and a show. The dinner was delicious and the show was an absolutely insane lightning storm. Some of the strikes were not more than a quarter of a mile away (one one-thousand, two one-thousand, thr- BOOM!). After dinner we hopped in the bus and headed to Xilitla for the night. Our hostel was completely legit. It was a normal looking hostel from the front, but once inside it was a bunch of separate rooms connected by slippery paths and precarious stairs that wove through a garden/yard that was basically taken from a post-card of the amazon. I have pictures to share via facebook soon (it's late here and I've been composing this for over an hour now) of this crazy jungle-hostel. The town of Xilitla was also completely beautiful. It is not a rich town, but it's buildings are all very real-world Mexico, and they happen to be placed in the middle of the jungle with a gorgeous view of much of the surrounding area. The only real problem I had with the place is one that Carrick got to deal with (and probably to a worse extent) in Kenya for six month. The humidity of this place was nuts. If you got wet, you were going to stay wet. And if you were dry, you weren't. I washed my towel by hand in the sink of the hotel, wrung it out, and hung it up to dry over night, in the morning, I wrung it out again.

The first day were spent in Xilitla was passed in a forest influenced heavily by LSD, and I'm actually not really making a joke here. I am, because it's funny, but I'm not because it's also completely true. The is a forest/jungle on the outskirts of town that is infused with buildings and structures and sculptures made out of concrete in a fashion very very Alice in Wonderland. The designer of the park has a book where he talks about all the ideas inspired by Acid. It was one of the coolest places I have ever been in my life. It's wide open and crazy and beautiful. One of the best things about Mexico is the lack of restrictions created for fear of lawsuits. Many of the structures were high, without guardrails, and completely opened to the public. You are welcome to climb the high stairs to no where, but if you fall it is your own damn fault. I love it. Many pictures to come from this experience but as for words it's difficult to put down. I passed my time swimming in more waterfalls, sliding down natural-ish slides (both the one intended as a water slide and the paths that just happened to be slippery as hell), and hiking at a good clip enjoying the old rush of forest exploration and sweat pouring off any exposed skin or into the clothes that we keeping it in-exposed.

The next day we left Xilitla, saw a couple missions (yay colonialism!) and had an extremely long bus ride back to Queretaro, arriving about three hours later than intended (and thus homework was not done).

Today was Monday and the first day back from this aforementioned excursion. Today was unexciting.

As for my everyday life here in Queretaro not much has changed. I now have a schedule I hope to stick to in terms of working out in the gym, and also in terms of actually finishing my homework with enough time to type out a blog or chat with my family. As for everyday life of Queretaro in general, a lot changed last week. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it because all my readers are adults and I think deserve more than to be kept in the dark. Not my place to keep you from worry I suppose is what I'm getting at. Queretaro potentially got quite a bit more dangerous in the last week and a half. To start, Queretaro is one of if not the safest town(s) in Mexico, and part of that is because there are a lot of families of drug cartel people living here, so this city is generally a haven that is kept off limits to the feuds (yeah, it sounds like a movie and maybe be exaggerated but this is what I've been told my many different people). A week and a half ago, however, there was apparently the idea that some of the cartels wanted the right to sell here and began to fight over it, and not particularly diplomatically. Police were also involved and seven or so people wound up shot dead. The rumor that is tagging along with this is that things could potentially get worse because of this bad blood that's gonna be floating around now. It really does sound like something out of the Godfather, but it's what I've heard and when I have more time I might actually tried to read about it for myself. I hope that it's all some built up ghost story and I'll be sure to tell you all more when I know. But, to put this in more perspective, this is a city of a million and a half people, seven people dead (not just random innocent people but criminals/police officers) does not make this a dangerous town. It's tragic, certainly, but it's not like it's time to cut and run.

Love you all very much, please comment, I like the attention.

-Connor

*No

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