A glimpse at my inability to cook......

Today, we went to the neighborhood called Pueblito with our friend and colleague, Marthe. Marthe lives in a neighborhood here in Queretaro that is home to a giant Toltec pyramid that was only just uncovered in 1998:

The 'pueblito' as it is called is small in comparison to its Teotihuacan counterparts closer to Mexico City. Perhaps that explains the "ito" on the end. However, for my gringo eyes, the pyramid was huge. We walked around and took a tour and saw sacrificial altars and dancing platforms. After the trek, we decided to go for gorditas at a nearby roadside restaurant.

While waiting, it was quite obvious that all but one of us were foreigners. The cook said something to Marthe in Spanish that was more than my 3 week crash course brain could handle. I was delightfully surprised when I realized that we had an invitation to come back and attempt to make tortillas. Here is some photographic evidence of my major FAIL at creating a tortilla:

First, we take some dough that has been premixed and roll it into a ball. That, I can handle. Next.........

We place the dough into a press and smash it flat between two sheets of wax like paper.

Finally, we carefully pry the tortilla away from the wax paper and let it gracefully drop onto our hands. Note the word graceful. Probably where my tortilla went awry.

As you can see, mine is the broken one. I think it was politely cast aside when I was not looking. The rest of them made it into the basket for future gorditas. However poor my tortilla making skills may be, it was still a great way to spend my final day here in Queretaro.

No napping here....

So in the midst of another extremely hot Queretero afternoon, I somehow fell asleep. This has proven to be a difficult task this week as my hotel, cute as it may be, tends to be a bit hot with the absence of an A.C. Around noon, I came home from working at Caminando Juntos and took a brief snack and headed to supervision for the afternoon. By the time 3:30 rolled around, I was more than ready to retire to my room for some movie watching, internetting and phone calling. Reflecting back, I cant even remember what movie was on. Oh. Anger Management. On the Universal network. Seeing how the film was so captivating, I dozed off. It must have been for about an hour, because I woke up to the credits. And some loud ruckus. A ruckus in the fashion of a 4 man marching band. Yes. A marching band. Down the tiny neighborhood street of 16 de Septiembre. After a minute of trying to fall back into sleep, I realized that this was just not going to happen. I walk through the heat wave to my widely opened window to see 4 men: one trumpeting to opened windows along the path, one dancing while playing the oboe and two drummers; one with an over the shoulder bass drum and the other with a snare. All playing what would have been a pretty amazing little ditty had it not been the reason for my waking up. After talking to some other girls in the program, whom may I add were also wakened up by the band, I learned that they were playing in the hopes of people dropping money down to them. To sum up the general feeling, my friend Shyanne was talking about giving them money.....to request that they stop playing during siesta.

Here are some photos from the week. My hotel, the market, an amazing smoothie place, tigers in trucks and more.

A Couple Pictures of Atotonilco

Lions, machetes and bears.....

Oh my.
Not in that particular order, but yes, the three of those things were all seen here in San Miguel the other day. Well, more specifically, the animals were seen in route to Atotonilco. The institute where we are studying Spanish had arranged for us to take a mini-trip to Atotonilco to visit a beautiful church. They were even getting a big passenger van. I was thrilled to get a chance to head out. So, promptly despues Spanish, the 12 of us hopped in the van and drove the bumpy route out of San Miguel. In the midst of zoning out due to a serious lack of sleep, I saw a little truck with some chicken wire cooping type cover on the back. Expecting to see a horse or a donkey, I didnt pay much attention until the donkey looked much more furry and bear-like than a little burro should. I took a closer look and realized that my suspected donkey was indeed a bear. In a confused moment, I turned my head to glance at Mr. Oso driving away in the opposite direction only to see that there was also a lion in this truck with a chicken wire pen. I learned that the circus was in town. On the subsequent days that followed, I have many times seen these odd animal trucks driving around the city center with a megaphone on top announcing to the world in Spanish about the circus. One of the trucks today was driving around with a pair of llamas. Llamas. In the bed of the truck. But now onto machetes......

So backpaddling to the trip to Atotonilco, we are at the point where we are exiting the beautiful church. Our tour guide informs us of another church that is in town in more of a rural area. Of course, our group was delighted to go. Unfortunately, upon arrival, the church is closed. We all stand around and try to stick our cameras between the iron rod fence and now most likely, all have the same exact photograph. We headed over to a river and take a breather. I look over to a house and see a group of men with machetes walking towards us. Perhaps it was my American ignorance, but I slowly began walking further from our group and towards the van. The group of 5 men, each with a machete came closer and closer and I scooted farther and farther away. When they were within talking distance of the main group, the looked at us and said, "How do you like our country." There is really only one acceptable answer to that question when the person asking is also carrying a massive knife. "Bueno! I love it!" After the response, the guys continue walking away and I begin to come closer and closer to the group....in specifically, the tour guide. I asked him why they had machetes. Apparently, they cut firewood with them. Or something! All in all it was an odd day that was followed up by watching Clueless, with Spanish subtitles. How appropriate.

multiple taxis

Yesterday was fantastic. A whirlwind trip to Guanajuato was taken by about 8 of us stationed here in San Miguel. We decided to scout out the city as Sarah's niece, who was here in S.M.A., used to live there. Immediately after class, we hopped in a few taxis and headed to the bus station. When we arrived we bought first class tickets on Primara Plus, a highly recommended bus line. When we were about to board, we were all delighted to find that our 90 peso ticket included a bottle of water or soda and some oatmeal cookies. Plus, there was a movie. And reclining seats. The bus ride was about an hour and a half and full of exciting things to see like horse drawn plows and donkeys galore. When we arrived in Guanajuato, another taxi ride was taken into the center and the exploration began. All in all, we spent just shy of three hours in this amazing city. On Saturday, we are going to go back to see the attractions like the Don Quixote Museum, Diego Rivera's house and the Mummy Museum. So when we were on our way out, we had to hitch yet another cab. We flagged one down in the city and hopped in. Despite there being cabs everywhere, our cabbie was adamant that we use his friends cab that was supposedly right behind us. Our first group hopped into the first cab. The driver got out, told us to wait inside and was ushering the rest of our group to his friends cab. During this ushering time, the cab driver I guess left his car in neutral because all of a sudden, without warning, our vehicle starts to roll backwards down the hill into oncoming traffic. He chases the car, dives in, starts it up and reverses the car in the nick of time to avoid hitting the car behind us.

images thus far

Bar Beyond Belief

The price of beer is funny. Depending on where you go or who serves it to you, the prices can fluctuate greatly. Having lived in a city in which one can buy a beer for around 4 bucks or less, you can imagine my surprise when an Amstel Light ran me 6 bucks plus tip at a bar along Hollywood Blvd. Yesterday afternoon, a few of us decided to do some exploring around San Miguel. We trekked up past our usual stopping point and came across an interesting looking establishment. Some saloon style doors were covering he entry way to a bar which had no visible signage. We popped our head in and the bartender gave us a loud and friendly "buenas tardes!" After a collective nod of approval, the four of us stepped into the most amazing foreign bar I have ever been too. We were initially given some odd looks by the locals, but they quickly turned to smiles as we tried our best to field the questions asked by the bartender in Spanish.
Somehow, we got across that we wanted a cerveza of the Pacifico variety. The tab came and the beers were 15 pesos each. 15. That equates to about $1.50. Great service, great beer and an amazing kitschy vibe? It was truly a bar beyond belief.

Thus the journey begins......

Last night I was on the red eye from LAX to Leon, Mexico. Being the weenie that I am when it comes to flying, I took some sedatives and tuned out to a slew of new songs that had recently been added. However, due to my nervous I-hate-flying energy, any sort of substantial sleep was not experienced. I would slip in and out and snippets of Zac Effron in "17 Again" would be gleaming from the overhead screen above. A soundtrack consisting of Wilco, Radiohead and Cat Power would accompany. Somehow during this hazy time, I managed to fill out all my necessary customs forms in full. I was ready to land.

When we touched ground, I was overjoyed to be sitting in seat 6F. Seat 6F was going to guarantee me a speedy exit off of the aircraft and into the international terminal where I could use a much needed trip to the toilet. The initial de-boarding was prompt. Customs forms in hand, I grab my backpack and make my way towards the tunnel. Once inside the airport, I follow a confusing set of pictorial signs to end up in this ginat crowd of people. It was a mass exodus of passengers from all international flights that had just landed. There was one man ensuring that each person had the needed items filled out prior to getting into customs. It was a free for all. No line. No system. Just people with overstuffed bags pushing and shoving to move one inch forward a minute. Think of a herd a cattle and you may begin to envision what this was like. And there was no bathroom to be seen. After what felt like 10 years, I made my way to customs, got lucky in the lottery of bag inspections, and made my way through...and immediately went to the bathroom.

Like clockwork, the shuttle man was holding a folded sheet of paper with the name of one of my classmates. Exiting the airport was a stark difference from LAX. Gone were the 6 lanes of chaos. Instead were people walking to the airport from nearby homes. A stray dog in the passenger pick up area. Loitering. Very relaxing feel. We boarded the shuttle and made the 2 hour trip to San Miguel down a hilly, bumpy and very narrow two lane highway. Despite the nature of the road, the experienced driver took each turn like a pro. We arrived to the hotel around 8, slept by the pool on lawn chairs and finally, got out rooms around 12:15 this afternoon.

Joshua Tree on Film