Random updates.

Updating again!! The world must really be coming to an end, thanks to tropical storm Ida.

I figured I would fill y’all in on a few antedotes that everyone has missed.

With the most recent, tropical storm Ida is dwelling over the Carribean, the rain in Merida the past few days has been torrential. All in all, the sidewalks are slippery, the roads are mini rivers (creeks perhaps?), I need to buy an umbrella, and flip flops and sneakers are equally bad for the rain. I can’t leave my house without being soaking wet. Sometimes it lets up, it just hasn’t happened to coincide with the end times of classes. My aunt and her friend are arriving Tuesday (yay! super excited!), however I am a bit disappointed that I think the majority of their trip will be rainy and miserable. Pray for good weather! On the plus side, it is considerably cooler.

With my traveling, the high altitude of San Cristobal, the temperature changes, and the unbearable humidity I am sick!! Cough, fever, achey, the works. The pharmacies here give out really good drugs.

Test today, presentation tomorrow, two essays for next week, and a presentation next week. Hopefully I can get it all done this weekend.

Día de los Muertos was a really cool to witness. In Oaxaca, every night people were dressed up, many of the women as Catrina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Calavera_Catrina), people with masks would dance, bands played, alters were all over the place. We went to a suburb to go to a cemetery at night. The streets were crowded, there was a play about death and Día de los Muertos (it was creepy) in the plaza, ofrendas in the church, and a ton of street vendors and street food out and about. The cemetery itself was a bit awkward because people were trying to celebrate a solemn, religious holiday (solemn at least in the cemetery) and prepare the graves and there were a lot of tourists walking around, it felt like we were intruding and we decided not to go back to the cemetery the next day but to participate in other events. The cemetery was beautiful however, flowers, offerings, and standard “holy water in the Coca-Cola bottle”.

In terms of other news:

-A pigeon flew into my head and got stuck in my hair while walking through the main plaza one day. There were many old men and school aged children wandering around as I screamed, flapping my arms, trying to get it out. It eventually did, and I resumed walking while everyone else laughed at me.

-My host mom broke her arm, slipping in the bank. She has a women come help her get things done around the house, and still doesn’t let me do anything. She doesn’t like the women because she is very absent minded (yet she seems to like me??).

-I’ve been camping out in a café called “El Hoyo” every other night. Gives me a change of scenery.

-My Spanish is better, and I’ve started hanging out with other exchange students more, so that is a bit more Spanish interaction. It is getting better, just not as much as I would have wished, however, I am confident that after next semester, it’ll be pretty good. Still have a long ways to go.

-Bit homesick, being sick, the weather, pile of schoolwork, and fact that I have 99% of my Christmas shopping makes me want to be home for break!!

-I finally got to watch the world series, but only caught the bottom of the 8th inning, the last game. Not nearly as much fun that way.

Finally

Ok, so I´m sick in a hostal in Oaxaca and have finally decided to update my blog.

Life in Merida is fairly routine. Still upset with the lack of Spanish spoken, and still in love with my host mom. School is not all that challenging, students tend to present and the teachers don´t really teach that much. The educational system is definitely very different, and nothing runs on a schedule. For example, I was supposed to present for my Mesoamerican history class about 3 weeks ago, and have yet to do so. I tend to show up to class every day and find out I´m not presenting.

I love living in el centro, I can go out and find something to do whenever I want to- and tend to frequent a cafe, ´el hoyo´ a bit too much. The heat is no better, still soars up above 100 every day. The men are still annoying as possible.

This week we had a week off for ¨La Semana de Antropología¨ and traveling with two girls, Kristin and Shoshi.

We left late Saturday night, and arrived in Palenque at around 5AM on Sunday. We ended up booking a tour package in Palenque that took us to the ruins....quite extensive....different in style than the Yucatan, a beautiful waterfall, and then a series of waterfalls where I swim, because I wore my suit...but the water was freezing. Ate lunch there, ended up taking a bus to San Cristobal de las Casas. That bus ride, was one of the single most terrifying experiences I think I´ve ever had- luckily, I was too tired to care. You could look out the windshield, and only see grass, you looked to the left, and only saw a giant cliff, and looked to the right, and saw nothing. I´m going to guess we were only on the right side of the road about 50% of the time and everytime we had to pass anything, I was positive there was going to be a headon collision.

Arrived in San Cristobal, checked into the hostal, wandered around a bit.

The first day we were actually there, there were protests going on. Something about 4 men who killed women and children in a pueblito and them being freed from jail. Both sides of the argument were protesting, with people camped out infront of one of the cathedrals. Fun stuff. San Cristobal is known for it´s Zapatista leanings. Essentially, an armed revolutionarly group that has declared war on Mexico, supporting indigenous rights. San Cristobal was beautiful, colorful houses all sitting on hills, there are no hills in the Yucatan. The temperature is considerably cooler-- in was cold! In the 60´s!! I wore long sleeves, jackets, and scarves. When we were there, we did a lot of wandering around, and went to about 50 different churches. We did a fair amount of shopping, found two markets, and a dulceria market. Amazing. Cheap sweets will be the death of me. Started my Christmas shopping in the markets there. San Cristobal was pretty, but in reality, a bit toursity. Not many Americans, but a bit of a European- flower-child Disney Land. Did have some absolutely wonderful crema de calebacita soup while there, it was fabulous.

Left San Cristobal Wednesday night for Oaxaca. Arrived in Oaxaca at 11 am ish the next day, checked into the hostal and took a nap. Later Wednesday, wandered around Oaxaca, the zoocalo, listened to street musicians, found the market, and ate there. Some fried cheese concotion that had a whole jalapeno pepper in it, without knowing, i bit into it. Was left unable to talk or breathe for about 2 minutes, and then finally able to gasp for air, I said something to the affect of ¨pica!!¨ and proceeded to drink all of my soda and eat whatever remaining mole was left.

Oaxaca is famous for mole, chocolate, and cheese- what a terrific combintation!!

Thursday we did some more wandering around getting to know the town. Stopped in the museum in the former Palacio de Gobierno and killed some time there looking at altars, learning the history of the area, and then enjoying the fun interactive anthro museum--terrific!

We´ve been eating at least one meal a day at the market, no menus, tends to be about 30 pesos a meal.

Friday, we went to Tule, to see a very, very large tree. It was interesting, wrote postcards there for awhile, ate ate their market, for 12 pesos. Fabulous.

Saturday, we went to the Zapotec archaeological site of Monte Alban, nestled in the moutains about the city of Oaxaca. Beautiful view, the ruins, green grass in the foreground, beautiful blue mountains and fluffy white clouds in the background, with a view of the whole of Oaxaca. Interestingly enough, the poorer people tend to live higher up, and the city is located in a valley.

Beginning to feel sick, fun little cough thing going on, returtning to Merida tomorrow night via plane (the plane takes 3 hours, the bus about 22).

Hope you enjoy the long awaited blog update....