D.F., Puebla, and Family stuff

Hola Guapas and Guapos,

I am in Mexico and all my fears about lack of internet have basically been confirmed. Both of our hotels claimed wireless, but in the first it didn’t work at all forcing us to fight over a single chord and in the second the thick colonial walls caused it to cut out every little bit (aka whenever you tried to send an email.)

The first three days of our trip were more than amazing! Mexico city for 5 then Puebla for 3.

My favorite bits from our D.F. experience were:

-TEOTIHUACAN!!! Oh my goodness! I have been thinking about it a lot, as well as studying pre-Columbian cultures for class, and I still cannot wrap my mind around how old those pyramids are. We climbed the pyramid of the sun first, and I was sure I was going to die as I climbed the first set of stairs. But it was miraculously pretty easy. And the view… Going down was the scary part, with the uneven steps and only a railing half the time. We tried to perfect the sideways walk that the tour guides use. On top of the temple of the moon we made friends with a girl from the Czech Republic and it was really nice for once to be tourists (a rare feeling, for sure) because we were all strangers standing on top of the unbelievable monument and sort of feeling the same thing.

-MUSEO NACIONAL DE ANTHROPOLOGIA! Dude, I love museums. And this one has some pretty awesome things in it. All sorts of artifacts—Olmec and pre-Classic, Teotihuacan era, Mayan, Toltec, Aztec… and it had my favorite thing ever—MEGAFAUNA. Like seriously ginormous mammoth skull and a super sweet mural.

-FRIDA KAHLO’S HOUSE!!! Oh my god! I’m not usually the type to hyperventilate over the place where someone famous lived, but when that person is Frida Kahlo… (and also Diego Rivera, dur). I have totally loved Frida since I was young, and it’s all the fault of these Mexico-obsessed family friends we used to be really close with. There was always Mexican-inspired art around the house and then one day mom let her daughter (my then bff) and I watch the movie when it came out and showed us all her Frida art books and such, and as a barely-teenager I was sooo impressed.

Things we saw at the house/museum: a display of the paintings, letters they wrote each other, some of the cast/corsets Frida decorated (she had an itty bitty rib cage!), this amazing photo sequence of Diego making faces (he looked like so much fun to hang out with), Frida’s bed with the mirror above it so she could paint, the urn with her ashes… I was doing a little hyperventilate-y dance the whole time, because I just couldn’t believe I was looking at the real thing.

-Going out. I was a little nervous about going out at night in the D.F., especially since several of the girls just wanted to sleep all the time. But I am so glad we did. We made friends with waiters, men tried to teach us how to dance salsa, an older woman who came up to my shoulder tried to play matchmaker. Even though we were in the huge city, it really was a window of opportunity to do things at night safely because a) everything was like 2 blocks from the hotel and b) the boys not only went out with us, they lived right down the hall when it came time to walk home. And watching Marina force the man who was trying to twirl her spin in a circle himself was priceless.

Puebla wasn’t really my favorite, but it was cool times in terms of visiting churches and a talevara factory. We stayed in this crazy hotel where our room had not only the balcony outside the window, but a full on balcony loft thing inside with the third bed. It was like sleeping on the set of Romeo and Juliet. Only with beds. And running water.

Things have been a bit rough since I got to Oaxaca. My first family was nice, but kind of distant and there was a problem with insects as well as two other exchange students. The two girls were nice, especially Yvonne from Switzerland, but the conditions just weren’t good with the mosquitos and god knows what else, the lack of real contact, the fact that it was in a different (slightly sketchier) part of town than everyone else. It was really hard to try to be friendly to them when I was basically living in an apartment above their house, and only went into their house when they called for meals. Like seriously after school I would stand in the doorway and exchange how-are-yous with the mother, and then she would say “well I’ll call you when lunch is ready.” The only time we really had a good time together was after I agreed to go to their Jehovah’s Witness meeting and on the way home we went to a market place and to visit a 2 century old tree. And of course I had lots of fun bonding time whenever they sprayed my room with god knows what pesticide.

Thursday morning I actually went to the doctor because I was starting to worry that my mosquito bites were some sort of allergic reaction—the family had been spraying things but we kept getting bit. I had a total characteristic melt-down at the instituto later because I couldn’t tell if I was being an unreasonable American or not and because of the language barrier, and just the situation being a difficult one. And as awkward and embarrassing as it was, it was actually a good thing because some director person rushed over and was all “oh no, please tell me what I can do to help you” (the correct answer, if I hadn’t been so upset, would have been ‘please teach me the magic of your New Zealand accent’). So I got to have a chat with Professor Ramsay about things and though she’s not always the most empathetic person, she was really, really chill today and shares my fear of pesticides. Instant reaction. She had me go to my second class (I’d skipped hers for the dr. apt.) and by the time it was over she and the institute had found me a new place to live.

Now I am living in a super nice house, with a huge bedroom and a balcony over the backyard. There is a girl from Chicago living here, but she’s only here until March 15^th and Ramsay and the instituto people know this time round that there are multiple students in the same house. She’s super friendly, and the family also has an older son living at home who was really outgoing and trying to help me with Spanish conversation. The older family was something I dreaded before I got here, but I think it will be nice. I am prepared to not be as engaged with the family as I like; it is just a relief that the instituto acted so quickly and took what was going on seriously. Now all I need is for my arms to stop looking so creepy.