Revenge

My cold from Mexico has come back with a vengeance. Either this is the SAME cold, or Maddie gave me hers. Either way, I am sick, and unhappy. :-(

And on top of that, our hot water heater is busted or SOMETHING, so no hot showers for me.

Whine, whine, complain.

Here I sit, surrounded by dirty dishes and homework that I haven't done, spending all my energy trying desperately to breathe through my nose. This is a sad state of affairs.

It's the second week of classes, and I'm already missing things. This cold, combined with my new-found senioritis, is becoming a problem.

And I've had so many interesting revelations and cosmic thoughts latley that I was planning on blogging about, but they've been pushed rudely out of my head to make way for snot and a headache.

I hope I get over this soon. Sorry for all the moping. :-S

An End And A Beginning

Alright everyone, I'm falling seriously behind. I could theoretically try to backlog and write more about Mexico, but I think I'll just do a quick overview and then give you a look into Spring semester!

So, Mexico was friggin' awesome. After we came back from Acapulco, where we went dancing, swimming in the ocean at 2:30 in the morning and spent hours on the beach, we had one week left. The last week in Cuernavaca was a great mix of intense studying and partying with friends. Finally, it was Friday and we woke up and took our big exam. I felt alright about it, but I won't know how I did for several weeks! I'm betting I got a B in the class, which is pretty darn good for a three week class that covered 12 weeks of information, but we'll just have to wait and see.

The last night was wild. We got out of class at 2, went back to the house to pack and get organized, had our last dinner with our wonderful host family, and then went over to the Frat House (our nickname for the house of the family who was hosting 8 guys, one of them being Kyle). We stayed there for a while, letting everyone gather and get ready to go, and then headed out to Juarez, the dance club in the Zocalo. Many hours later we emerged, starving, and about half of us made our way to a late night pizza place for a little midnight snack. By this time, though, it was 2:30am, and my bus for the Mexico City airport was scheduled to leave at 4:45. After pizza Greta, Jackie, Jannessa and I went back to the house and I sat up for half an hour until my taxi left. Then, to the bus station, then to the airport, then to Dallas, a five hour layover, then to Minneapolis, and then home!

I can't say I miss having to be paranoid about water and food, or the lack of toilet paper in public bathrooms, but I do miss my cute host-mom and her delicious cooking, and the fun of living with Greta and Jackie, and the really nice Mexican people I've met. But now I'm back home, and that feels pretty darn good too.

So here's the down-low on this semester. I'm only taking four classes, and I only have to go to three of them 'cause the fourth is my senior paper! What a relaxing time. And this means I have time to work out every day, and maybe time to get a job. So here's my schedule:
-Religion and Culture - MWF 3:35-4:25
-Philosophic Anthropology - MWF 11:15-12:05
-Sex, Evolution and Behavior - TTh 2:30-3:45
-Lab - T 10:10-11:00
And I'm working out between 4 and 6 every day. Yay, getting in shape!

AND I have a interview on Monday for a server's assistant job! We'll see if I get it!

Mexico: Parte Tres

Well, there's no way I'm going to be able to update day by day, or even week by week, so here's an update of life organized by topic. :-)

Health:
I'm sick. Have been since New Year's. I woke up New Year's morning with a terrible stomach ache that's come and gone for the past two weeks. At first I thought it was because I'd had too much to drink New Year's Eve. Then I thought it was because I'd accidentally drank some unpurified water. Then I thought it was because I'd eaten something weird. Long story short, last weekend was the final straw and I went to see the school doctor yesterday and asked for some long overdue help. He prescribed antibiotics and pain meds for my tummy, and now I'm feeling a lot better as long as I remember to pop my pills on time. Those of you who know how I hate taking medicine will understand the severity of this two week long stomach pain that caused me to go get help. Yuck.
So now my stomach is much better, but because of this ten-year-record-breaking cold snap that appears to be worldwide (or at least in the Western Hemisphere), I now have a cold. Greta got it first, then Kyle, then Jackie, and now Jackie is getting over it and I've got it. Blech. It all comes of having classes outdoors in 45 degree weather. Comparatively, I've got it better than those back home in Minnesota, but they've got heat! There's no heating in Mexico! We shiver our way through classes for hours starting at 8:30! It's rather miserable. This morning I wore five layers and every long sleeve thing I brought with me.
Anyway, enough complaining! I'm in Mexico and it's cool!

Travel:
The two major excursions we've made in the last two weeks are to Teotihuacan and to Acapulco. Teotihuacan was amazing, and if you want to know more about the history you'll have to ask me when I get home. We took a sweet tour of the place (it's the oldest city in the New World, built before the Mayans by a people simply called the Teotihuacans who we don't know much about), and then climbed part way up the Pyramid of the Moon, and then all the way up the Pyramid of the Sun. Here are a few pictures!



That was the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd. Last weekend, the 9th and 10th, pretty much everyone in the Minnesota group went to Acapulco. We bought bus tickets and headed out Friday right after classes, reaching Acapulco around 8pm in the middle of a record-breaking rainstorm which flooded all the streets. Jackie, Greta, Kyle and I had decided to wing it and not make any hotel reservations because we weren't sure where we wanted to stay, but when we saw the way it was coming down we decided to follow part of the Minnesota group who was going to a hotel called the Calinda Beach. We took a cab through the streets, floating more than driving, and arrived at the hotel soaking wet. At first the guy at the desk attempted to swindle us out of a bit more money than we were prepared to pay, but after walking away to talk about it in private three times they brought the price down and we ended up getting better rate than the people that had pre-booked! We payed 24 American dollars per person for two nights! A heck of a deal. Here's the view from our deck.


But now I've gotta run! Greta and I are off to do some studying, but I'll be posting more about Acapulco soon!

Mexico: Parte Dos

Hola, amigos y familia!

I thought about writing this whole post in Spanish, but as that would be lame for most of you, I won't. I'm sorry I haven't been posting more often, but life is just so busy and interesting here I don't get on my computer much. However, I will now try to update you on life for the last two weeks!

Mainly, I've been in school or doing schoolwork or out partying (nothing too crazy, don't worry) with my Mexican amigos, but we've had some pretty cool cultural experiences in the last two weeks, so I'm just going to give you the highlights.

But first, I better give you the cast of characters. Primero, there's Greta (who we all call "Greta Dawwwn" with a southern accent, as her middle name is Dawn, and it sounds like she should be a country singer), who's a pretty awesome, chill, hippy chick with a lot of cool out-door knowledge and experience. This is Greta on top of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan (pronounced "Tay-o-tee-wa-con")!








Next there's Kyle, who's a fun dude who has a critical mind and likes good books along the lines of Hunter S. Thompson. Generally, he's an English major all around, and we all love him, but Greta most of all (I've had SUCH a hard time not teasing her about him!). Here's Kyle and Greta chilling at the beach in Acapulco, were we went just this last weekend.








And then there's Jackie, who is the life of the party pretty much all the time; who's done and seen so many more things than me that I'm occasionally blown away by my general lack of knowledge about some things in life. She's part Palestinian, and she has a lot of opinions about social change that I've never heard before. This is her sitting with Joe, another dude from the trip, when we went out in the first week.






So the four of us hang out in our little group and study and have a good time, and more often than not we join up with parts of the rest of the group (there are around 30 of us from the U), usually Kyle's roomates (he lives with seven other guys. I do not envy their host-mom's kitchen and cleaning jobs). Here are the four of us together on top of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan!


And now that I've finally got the scene set up, I have to go to bed. I'm mighty tired from our trip to Acapulco, but I'll get online again soon and post more pictures from our adventures.

Later days!*



*This is for Julia, who I didn't get to talk to on her birthday. Happy B-day, pipsqueak! I'll bring you a cool present from Mexico!