My second week in Mexico has gone well. I am getting more and more settled in; I definitely feel a lot more used to living here. I am staying on top of my schoolwork, but it is sometimes hard to force myself to be responsible. It´s weird to be in Mexico and have homework to do; It´s like I´m on vacation, but I still have schoolwork to do. The workload is not bad at all for taking 12 credits in 6 weeks, but it´s still a little weird to be in Mexico with work to do.

Last weekend we took a trip to Guanajato, which was really cool. The town is very unique. The town was a mining town set up during colonial times for it´s gold. The entire town feels like it was chiseled out of the mountain that surrounds it. There are a bunch of streets that are underground, and there are even 4 way intersections in tunnels. I guess it was easier to go under the mountain than over it. The streets above ground were all quite disorganized, skinny and slanted every which way. There was obviously little city planning when it was first settled. The town was so unique and I have never seen a town quite like it.

I didn´t get any good pictures of the city streets, but here is a picture looking down on the city.

Here is another picture of Guanajuato. I believe this awesome-looking building is their university.

Also I mentioned it was a mining town. Here is a picture of the descent into a mine.

On Friday most of the group went to Habitat, a cool nature themed anthro near los arcos (the arches/aqueduct). It was nice, but not really as fun as the others we had been to before. The building itself was awesome though, with live plants everywhere and the ceiling slid on tracks to open to the sky.

On Saturday we took a day trip to San Miguel de Allende. The town was larger than I had expected, and an interesting mix of modern and traditional. There were some very beautiful buildings, interesting markets, and a lot of shopping, but there was also a more pronounced western influence. A lot of people spoke English, prices were higher, and some places even accepted dollars. It is also the only place in Mexico that we found bagels. One other more western thing that I noticed was that many items in the market had a price sticker on them. In a normal Mexican market you always have to ask, and then bargain for the price, it’s never already labeled.

We didn’t really go out much the last week, because we had a lot of work and studying to do for our finals. In my lengua en contexto clase, we had to write a two page (single spaced!) paper, and then give a ten minute presentation on a topic related to our class. I ended up giving mine on the differences and similarities between the challenges faced by the native peoples of Mexico and Alaska. It was a very interesting topic to explore, but difficult to articulate well in my limited Spanish. The above picture was taken of dancers near the plaza on the way home after the presentation.

This bakery was one of my favorites, and a good example of a Mexican bakery. There were three different types that I remember, panaderías, pastelerías, and taquerías. This shop was a pandería- bread and bread-based sweets like donuts and sweetbreads, though they also sold cakes and drinks.

Oreo lattes- oreos were quite popular here.

Last day of class!

This was the majority of the group that we spent every Thursday with in Querétaro. It was really neat to get to discuss culture and traditions with them, I definitely learned a lot.

Normally I end my posts on Thursday but I’m adding in the last Friday to this post.

My host mom and her rose.

She made me a very pretty bracelet, and she has the matching one. A lovely reminder of a lovely time.

Our directora Laurie. It would not have been the same trip without her and her kindness. She did an excellent job.

A picture from my last night in the plazas. Ayat and I bought some delicious fresh bread and cheese, and then went and ate it in the plaza de independencia (I think) and listened to a book critique. It was interesting, but the speaker was a bit dry and the people watching was more intriguing, hehe.

One other thing about my last week, well, last two weeks really. So, two Thursdays before we left I met a guy from Mexico who was very nice. He was the roommate of a guy my friend was “talking” to, and he ended up giving us rides, first to karaoke with the group, and then to the party on Saturday. He seemed interested in at least being friends, so we hung out some, and eventually started going on dates. He was very sweet and attentive, and not the crazy player type at all. What I didn’t realize is that he already had a girlfriend, and had for more than two years. When I found out, I confronted him, and discovered the one cultural difference that I can’t quite stomach. They see nothing wrong with cheating. Seriously. He couldn’t see what my issue was, as long as he was treating me well. Um, excuse me? I wasn’t concerned with myself. Honestly, I wasn’t involved enough to be personally hurt by it at all, but I was horrified at the thought of being the “other woman” and getting involved with someone who was already taken. In the US, that sort of thing is completely unacceptable, and you just kind of expect that if a guy is making moves, he’s single. Well, as I and a few other girls from the program learned, in Mexico it’s a whole nother story. Guys will try and date you, even if they already have a girlfriend, and they don’t even see it as wrong, which in a way is nice because they’ll be honest if you ask. So a warning to girls headed to Mexico- if someone s interested in you, make sure they aren’t already taken.