Tunnels and Mimes and Shakespeare, Oh My!

Last weekend we went to the city of Guanajuato, a city in the state of Guanajuato to the west of Queretaro.  After a bus ride of less than 3 hours, we arrived at the bus station.  Our first impression was not anything special.  We hopped on the city bus to take us into the actual city, and that’s when the magic began.  Driving like (almost) all bus drivers in Mexico, we went tearing past the countryside, dipping suddenly into long tunnels that cut through the hills.  In the tunnels, I felt a little like Harry Potter on the Knight Bus.  The tunnels were just big enough for the bus we were on (and the bus itself was jam packed) and the walls of the tunnel were pure rock.  The bus driver would punch the gas in the tunnels, making us fly through.  It actually gave me the sensation that I was on an exciting ride at a theme park, with butterflies in my stomach.  Haha.

Guanajuato is a mining city located in the rocky hills.  Because of this unique terrain, the city has all kinds of interesting angles and small little alleyways going here and there.  In the city, there are only two main streets that form a circle around the center of town, and the rest of the streets are tunnels underground.  The buildings, situated on all levels amongst the hills are all vivid colors of blue, green, yellow, and red, giving the city a magical feeling.  When we arrived at Casa Bertha, the place where we stayed, we climbed up to the top floor, where there was a terrace, and the sight nearly took my breath away.  There is no doubt that Guanajuato is a beautiful, picturesque city, and is definitely very romantic.

As we emerged from the tunnels into the street that encircles the city, I pulled out my camera to start snapping some photos… and found out that the lens on my camera didn’t want to open.  (I swear, Mom, I didn’t drop it or anything this time.)  I am moderately devastated!  There are so many things I want to take pictures of while I’m here in Mexico!  Fortunately, I have my iPhone with me, which will have to become my makeshift camera for the rest of my time here.

Another amazing thing about Guanajuato is its culture.  Guanajuato is a sister city to Ashland, Oregon, which is well known for its Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  Every year, Guanajuato hosts the Festival Cervantines, which is known as the most important festival of the fine arts in Latin America, which was started by students from the University of Guanajuato.  Throughout the heart of the city, you can see the influence of the University.  It’s easy to find bands playing music at restaurants and little shows being held on the sidewalk with the audience sitting on the stairs of some building.  In fact, I was pulled into a mime act on Friday night! http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150264958429576&comments  On Saturday night, Megan and Sheila and I attended an Estudiantina, where we walked with a group of university students in a sort of parade around town.  They sang and played music and stopped every now and then for little skits.  At the end, we watched a small production about the legend of the Callejon del Beso (Alleyway of the Kiss), where two young lovers would meet until the dad found out and killed his own daughter (yikes!) and then we visited the alleyway itself.

On Saturday morning, the whole group of students went to visit a mine.  We put on our hard hats and headed down on a guided tour to the bottom of the mine, which was probably down the equivalent of about five flights of stairs.  At the very bottom of the mine is was dark, cold, and kinda creepy.  The tour guide was explaining to us how they would use small children to climb through small spaces, and the work was so terrible that parents would intentionally disable their children so that they wouldn’t be able to work in the mines.  While he was talking, I squeezed the back of Zoran’s neck, our coordinator’s younger son, to tease him and in reaction he scrunched up his shoulders.  The action sent his hard hat flying… right into the only tiny hole at the bottom of the mine!  I could hardly keep it together, I was laughing so hard, and Zoran’s dad, Samuel, had to climb down the hole to retrieve the hat.  How embarrassing!

It was a lovely weekend, but when we got back, I realized that Week 4 was looking us straight in the eye.  My companions doing the entire 12-week program say that in a 6-week term, it only gets worse after “midterms.”  So if week 2 had a midterm, week three is going to have a whole book to read and a presentation.  For example, I’m pretty sure I have about 75 pages to read today.  (Did I mention they’re all in Spanish?)

Yesterday was my host-nephew Matteo’s birthday – he’s now one year old!  The “big” birthday party is going to be this Saturday, but last night we had a “small” party.  When I asked the family who was coming over, they told me it was going to be just the padrinos (godparents), so I expected two extra people.  Turns out that “just the padrinos” means the godparents and their son, and Delfina’s other two nephews and their families.  There were eight extra people in addition to me, Delfina, Cornelio, Beto, Katia and baby Mateo.  Everyone was very animated the whole meal, talking and telling stories and teasing each other.  I understood enough of the conversation to enjoy myself, and even got to join in when Delfina asked me to show them my impression of the tour guide we had at the Mummy Museum in Guanajuato, “Y siguennnnnnnnte tenemos la mommmmmmmmmmia más importannnnnnnnte de esssssssssssste museeeeeeeo.”  They all laughed and cheered and went on to ask me about how I liked the museum and the city of Guanajuato.  I really enjoy time spent with the family.  After tacos, they brought out the birthday cake and lit the candle.  First we sang Happy Birthday in English, with me leading the way, then we sang “Las Mañanitas,” the traditional Mexican song.  The cake was possibly one of the best cakes I’d ever had.  The bottom layer was a delicious cheesecake, and the top layer was a light cake known as tres leches, which is very typical in Mexico.  It was a delightful combination.  After (two pieces of) cake, the ice cream was brought out.  I knew that Delfina and Cornelio had bought the ice cream earlier that day, and we each got a little cupful of it.  It was delicious!  It reminded me of homemade ice cream, and we had two separate flavors of strawberries and cream.  Yum, yum, yum.

Picture time!

La Estudiantina, Guanajuato

La Peña de Bernal, which we climbed two weeks ago

Me at la Peña de Bernal

Dawn, our resident director, her husband Sam, and their boys Zoran (6, left) and Pablo (8, right)

My host nephew Matteo

Gorditas made with blue corn

An indigenous lady, the shop owner, and I standing by her bead shop

She had some really neat works!

Corn fields

The second 6-week group at Teotihuacan

Me at Teotihuacan with the two biggest pyramids in the background

Alejandro, our professor and tour guide of Mexico City

Yummy appetizers!

The Aztec calendar

The Aztec mother of all gods.  If you can see, she is entirely composed of snakes - her head is two snakes facing each other, her shoulders are snake heads and her skirt is made up of snakes as well.

A stone statue very typical of the Olmec civilization, the oldest civilization in Mesoamerica.  They lived in swampy lands.  How they ever got a huge stones for sculptures to their lands nobody knows.

Rebekah and I at El Borrego Viudo.  Delicious tacos!

Two well-known leaders of the Mexican Revolution, Emilio Zapata and Pancho Villa

Lunch.  Yummmmmmm.

Isaac, Rebekah, me, Celine and Sarkis, when we went out in Mexico City

The group after we emerged from the mine

Guanajuato!

 

So far, I’m having an amazing experience, and I’m learning so much about their rich culture.  This weekend is my only weekend left in Queretaro. (Crazy!)  The following weekend we’re going to Sierra Gorda, which sounds like it’s basically a weekend out in a small mountain range where we can hike and swim in (really cold) streams.  The weekend after that I’m homeward bound!  I leave Mexico City on the 4^th, and on the 3^rd of September I’m going to Six Flags with my friend Isaac, and we’re going to ride all the biggest roller coasters. =)

It’s time for me to do some reading!  Take care!

Wait, I´m 42.22% done already?

Today was one of my favorite days yet.  Just a string of small wonderful things made my day extremely pleasant.

First of all, I had a small project due today and had two presentations.  The presentation in Conversation class was extremely entertaining – my classmate David and I had to act out a love poem.  I played the narrator and the queen, and he played the princess and the Count.  We memorized the poem and had fun with it – he made me a crown for when I was being the queen, and he taped on a handlebar mustache when he was being the Count, and wrapped a shawl around his head like the Virgin Mary when he was being the princess.  It was quite comical.

After I got home from class, I had lunch with Cornelio.  During lunch we talked about how our days were going, and then we talked about etymology, which is the study of words.  Cornelio teaches a class at the university about etymology, and today during lunch we talked about how in Spanish, words come from Latin, Greek, Arabic, and French.  He gave me an example of a French-derived word in Spanish – coqueta, which comes from the French coquet.  Cornelio also told me he hoped I was happy with their family, and I told him that I am.  I told him that I feel extremely comfortable in this household, and explained to him that I love the family setting that they have.

After lunch, I got a chance to lie down and let my food digest a little (lunch was a mixture of beef, tomato and chili which I put into tortillas with a little salsa, yummm), and then I ventured out to go run a few errands.  I needed to withdraw some cash and recharge my cell phone.  On my way, I stopped by a paletería and bought a vanilla and strawberry paleta, which is a Popsicle.  The man working there was a happy guy, he welcomed me with a big “Buenas tardes!” and “Bienvenidas!” to his little shop on the side of the street.  He asked me if I was studying in Queretaro, and asked me where I was from.  I told him Oregon and he said (well in Spanish) “Oh, Oregon, how wonderful!  It’s so green and beautiful there, and all the plants!”  He was just tickled that I was from Oregon.  So I asked him, “Have you been to Oregon?” and he replied, “Well, no, but I imagine it’s beautiful.”  His wife, working with him, started laughing.  I just smiled and told him he was right, it’s beautiful and lush and we talked for a little while about plants and nurseries and green roofs, which he said are becoming popular in Mexico.  I walked away with a smile on my face and a scrumptious paleta in my hand.

I wandered into the centro (the historic center of town) and sat by the water fountain for a while, enjoying it.  Then I wandered over to the next plaza where I found music playing and about 10 older couples casually dancing to the music.  Everyone in the plaza was standing around watching, chatting, and enjoying the show.  After taking a few pictures on my cell phone and feeling decidedly touristy, I continued on.

On my way home, I stopped by a few shops to look at what I could possibly get my family/friends back home.  It was fun being on my own and being about to use my Spanish to talk to the store owners.

When I came home, I sat down to have a piece of pan dulce and some milk with Delfina for dinner.  While I was eating and we were chatting, Delfina went over to the cupboard and got out a salt-shaker that they got for Matteo’s baptism and told me “I think I’m going to gift this to you, to give you something to remember Matteo by.”  It honestly almost brought a tear to my eye.  I gave Delfina a hug and told her that I would love to accept the salt-shaker.  It has a cartoon picture of an angel on one side, and on the other, it says “Matteo Nicolas, Mi Bautizo 27/Nov/2010.”  I’m so touched that she would gift me something so meaningful.

When the rest of the family came to eat, I sat with them and participated in the conversations.  Beto joked with me about the bread being too old, and I told them about how nervous I was to call them the week before I arrived in Mexico.  They asked me what I thought of them before I arrived, and they laughed when I told them that I was able to show my mom that Cornelio was a professor to help calm her nerves.

Now, I’m sitting on my bed in my room, listening to the thunder and rain outside.  It only ever rains in the evening, which I appreciate because it’s a bummer walking to class in the rain.

I'm going to post again soon with pictures and stories from la Peña de Bernal and our trip to Mexico City last weekend.  With classes picking up, it´s getting harder to find time to blog.

I´m having a fantastic time, and can´t wait to see you all when I get home. =)  Just another 25 days or so!  

Saludos!