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When I woke up this morning the first thing I noticed as I was getting out of bed was that the floor was surprisingly wet! The more I explored out room, the more wet I found out things were! There was a pretty big storm last night and since the water had no where else to go it came into our room. My backpack was on the floor so my dictionary and verb books are pretty wet! Also, the picture I bought of Don Quixote got a little damp. Our host mom worked very hard to help the situation and brought up plenty of towels to absorb the water.
Since tomorrow will be our last day of school, most of us went to another school sponsored party this afternoon. This one was much like the one during our first week. Great food, free refills on your drinks, dancing and mariachi music. This one, however, was cut a little short do to rain! We all had to run for cover when it started but I was impressed to see that the mariachi band kept on playing despite the downpour!
We left class a little early today to go to a natural spring water park called Las Estacas. The park is actually where some of the old Tarzan movies were filmed and is a ton of fun! We could swing off of vines and jump off platforms into freezing cold water! It was great. We also rented masks and could see all sorts of cool fish.
I can't believe how fast time is going!! We only have a few days left here. The stress of being immersed in Spanish all day was getting to a friend today so we decided to go out for a fun evening. We went back to the restaurant that offers dos por uno but this time decided to partake in some of the salsa dancing. I don't think my salsa classes have helped my dancing ability too much but it still makes for a fun evening!
We went back to Mexico City today. When we got there we went to a fun open market and walked around for a while. After that we went to a muesuem with a lot of work by Diego Rivera. It was a beautiful muesuen with lots of fun art. In the afternoon we went on a boat ride down a canal. It was somewhat crowded on the canal but also fun!
I cant beleive we are already done with our second week of class!! Time has gone so fast!! After class today we walked back down to El Centro for some shopping and hanging out. We have found a resturant that offers dos por uno (two for one) and also has live salsa music and dancing. It is a pretty fun place! The only draw back is children selling various trinkets actually come INTO the resturant while you are eating!! But overall it makes for a fun evening.
Tonights new adventure was going to see a Mexican wrestling match. We stuffed five people in a cab and headed to the fights! It was pretty cool I have to say!! There was alot of coregraphed pushing, pulling hitting and more!! I am not sure I would go again but it was somehting I am glad to have experienced at least once in life!
I went with a group of people from school to tour Xochicalco this afternoon. This is a fascinating sight of Mayan ruins. I was so impressed with the technology, and intelligence that went into this ancient civilization. There were cool etchings in the side of temples that depicted the history of the culture. We also got to visit an ancient observatory where the sun coming in looked like moving water. It was all pretty interesting.
Today was our last day meeting with the teachers from Mexico. We again had fun talking and then a large group of us went out for dinner. Dinner was wonderful but near the end of the meal a HUGE rain storm started. All the lights in the restaurant went out for a bit. Then we had to catch a cab in the rain. We were soaking wet so were happy to pay 40 pesos for the cab ride - even if it was a little expensive.The down part of my day however was discovering that my computer is not working. Right now I am able to use friends computers at school and several people have ideas about what might work to fix it. All I get is a blank white screen when I turn it on. If any Mac users out there have any ideas let me know!!
Today was the end of our first school week. I feel that I have learned a lot and have had a great time. To celebrate the end of our first week my grammar class went to el centro for ice cream. I am happy to report that tequila con limon is an excellent flavor!!
After school I took a salsa dancing class. While it was very entertaining, I am not sure I am coordinated enough to ever be too successful at it! After class, several other friends and I went out for dinner, and then met up with some other friends.
We have had a 3rd roommate staying with us all week but today was Becca's last day in Cuernavaca. Nicole and I will miss the assistance she could offer with her Spanish abilities!
Another fun day! The weather has been rainy here since we arrived. From what I hear, this is very unusual. We were supposed to go on an excursion today to a park of natural springs (Las Estecas) but opted not to go because it was too rainy. Hopefully the school will offer the trip again while we are here and we can go on a sunny day. Since we didn't do that we had comidia at home with our family which was of course delicious.
After lunch, Nicole and Becca (another student from New York who is also staying with our host family) and I walked to a local store. We stacked up on snacks to take with us to school as well as yogurt. The yogurt is supposed to help ward off the e-coli in the water - we don't drink the tap water but I figured a few extra precautions couldn't hurt. After we got back, we talked with Lara and her husband for a while and played with Carlito. Then we headed up to our room to work on homework.
Class went well again today. I added a picture of some of the people in my morning class. In conversation class we talked for a while about the school system in Mexico which I found very interesting. In Grammar class, we played a lot of Bingo so we could learn new verbs.
After school today Nicole and I braved the taxi system again to find the Central Offices for the Cuernavaca schools. We met all the other OPS teachers there, along with about 10 teachers from Mexico. It was fun to talk in depth with a local teacher about the school system here.
We started class today. Things went pretty well. There are 5 other people in my class. Nicole, and Katie (who are also teachers in OPS), Jorge and Diana (a married couple from Texas), and Rhonda (from Canada). It is a fun bunch of people!! We have grammar class for 3 hours in the morning, then conversation class in the afternoon for 3 more hours.
Comidia (the main meal of the day served around 3:00) today was a bit of a learning experience for me. We sat down to a lovely meal of rice with vegetables, a hard boiled egg and fresh tortillas. I ate to my hearts content and found I was pleasantly full. Then... out came the second course! I tried to stuff a giant piece of chicken and a good helping of zucchini into my already full belly! I was not entirely successful. Tomorrow I will be expecting a second course and thus will pace myself better!!
This evening we went for a walking tour around el centro de Cuernavaca. It was fun but all in Spanish so I had some trouble understanding. It was neat to see some of the sights in the city though. We hung around an open air market for a while, then joined some other OPS teachers for snacks at a restaurant.
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