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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