(no subject)
I went to a party thingy with my host mother and everyone there kissed us on the cheek on one side. I knew they did that here and have had a few Mexican people kinda do that to me in America, but I didn’t really know exactly what was going on or what I should do so it didn’t really work very well. But I got lots of practice at the party on Friday. And I just let my host sister into the house and I was already moving away and she came towards me and I was like oh ya, the kissing thing. I think that it’s actually the first time she has done it to me, but I definitely have got it better.
Tonight we had Tamales, one tamale was dulce (sweet) and the other was chile verde. I had tired one other tamale of my roommates at a resturante and it was ok, but it didn’t really have a lot of flavor. The chile verde was a tiny bit spicy but that was good to give it more flavor and the dulce one was pink and sweet. Our host mother also made us chocolate caliente, which I was excited about because I have heard that Mexican hot chocolate is supposed to be much better than American. She said that it wasn’t traditional Mexican hot chocolate, and we would get some next week with some churros. Apparently you dip the churros into the hot chocolate. It sounds really good. The hot chocolate that we had was still better than the US I think.
Today we went to Tepoztlan, which is a place north of Cuernavaca that has another pyramid. The pyramid is all the way on top of a mountain and it was a very long and steep hike up the mountain to get there. I think that the length of the hike might compare to the hike up the misty trail in Yosemite, but I’m not sure. I don’t think this hike was quite as steep most places, and it definitely wasn’t as scary, because there were not as steep drop offs as there were on the misty trail. I also had a hard time going up the mountain. I got dizzy pretty easily and I was going up with one guy who had already bought a huge beer and smoked at least 5 cigarettes. Somehow he climbed much faster than me. That was not cool, but I made it to the top eventually and we had really cool views of the city and there was one pyramid, that I wasn’t really that impressed with after seeing the pyramids yesterday. The climb was really pretty though, this area was green and the rocks that made up all of the mountains surrounding the one we climbed and the city below were very beautiful. There were a reddish brown, and the trees on the sides of the mountains had very dark bark and so were really pretty. We walked around the marketplace at the bottom of the mountain and marketplaces are really cool. They were selling food. I guess I’ve never really walked through many market places in the US except for Pikes Place market, so this market place reminded me a lot of the ones in Thailand. But I think that is mainly because I’ve never really been to many marketplaces. Also I’ve noticed that touristy places mostly sell the same things, no matter whether it is in the US or Thailand or Mexico.
(this is the next day because my computer died last night) My roommate couldn’t make the climb up the mountain so she had wandered around and took me to a store where they gave out free samples of flavored tequila stuff. It was actually pretty good. My roommate bought tequila con pinon. We don’t really know what that is but it’s pink and only has 5% alcohol. I also tried some jams that they had and they were pretty good too. My favorite was mandarin jam thingy, but I didn’t buy it. What do you guys want from Mexico??? You know that I am not very good at spending money, and I don’t like to necessarily buy touristy stuff that much. Food is cheaper here than the US, but many other products are only a couple dollars cheaper, so I doesn’t really seem like that much cheaper. Our host home is not within walking distance from the school or the centro so if we don’t come home right after school with our host mother we have to pay for a taxi which is around 3 dollars, or we can try to take a bus, which we’ve done only once from the school to downtown and it was 45 cents. So getting around the town can get kind of expensive.
Once other people got down from the mountain, they (or at least this is what they told the professor) were bored so they kept buying beers and so by the time we all left on the bus, more than half of the people were drunk. It was amusing I guess, but I think they’ve been doing this every night and I wonder how they will be this morning. I got a little bit more sunburned yesterday on my shoulders, but only a little.
Tonight we had Tamales, one tamale was dulce (sweet) and the other was chile verde. I had tired one other tamale of my roommates at a resturante and it was ok, but it didn’t really have a lot of flavor. The chile verde was a tiny bit spicy but that was good to give it more flavor and the dulce one was pink and sweet. Our host mother also made us chocolate caliente, which I was excited about because I have heard that Mexican hot chocolate is supposed to be much better than American. She said that it wasn’t traditional Mexican hot chocolate, and we would get some next week with some churros. Apparently you dip the churros into the hot chocolate. It sounds really good. The hot chocolate that we had was still better than the US I think.
Today we went to Tepoztlan, which is a place north of Cuernavaca that has another pyramid. The pyramid is all the way on top of a mountain and it was a very long and steep hike up the mountain to get there. I think that the length of the hike might compare to the hike up the misty trail in Yosemite, but I’m not sure. I don’t think this hike was quite as steep most places, and it definitely wasn’t as scary, because there were not as steep drop offs as there were on the misty trail. I also had a hard time going up the mountain. I got dizzy pretty easily and I was going up with one guy who had already bought a huge beer and smoked at least 5 cigarettes. Somehow he climbed much faster than me. That was not cool, but I made it to the top eventually and we had really cool views of the city and there was one pyramid, that I wasn’t really that impressed with after seeing the pyramids yesterday. The climb was really pretty though, this area was green and the rocks that made up all of the mountains surrounding the one we climbed and the city below were very beautiful. There were a reddish brown, and the trees on the sides of the mountains had very dark bark and so were really pretty. We walked around the marketplace at the bottom of the mountain and marketplaces are really cool. They were selling food. I guess I’ve never really walked through many market places in the US except for Pikes Place market, so this market place reminded me a lot of the ones in Thailand. But I think that is mainly because I’ve never really been to many marketplaces. Also I’ve noticed that touristy places mostly sell the same things, no matter whether it is in the US or Thailand or Mexico.
(this is the next day because my computer died last night) My roommate couldn’t make the climb up the mountain so she had wandered around and took me to a store where they gave out free samples of flavored tequila stuff. It was actually pretty good. My roommate bought tequila con pinon. We don’t really know what that is but it’s pink and only has 5% alcohol. I also tried some jams that they had and they were pretty good too. My favorite was mandarin jam thingy, but I didn’t buy it. What do you guys want from Mexico??? You know that I am not very good at spending money, and I don’t like to necessarily buy touristy stuff that much. Food is cheaper here than the US, but many other products are only a couple dollars cheaper, so I doesn’t really seem like that much cheaper. Our host home is not within walking distance from the school or the centro so if we don’t come home right after school with our host mother we have to pay for a taxi which is around 3 dollars, or we can try to take a bus, which we’ve done only once from the school to downtown and it was 45 cents. So getting around the town can get kind of expensive.
Once other people got down from the mountain, they (or at least this is what they told the professor) were bored so they kept buying beers and so by the time we all left on the bus, more than half of the people were drunk. It was amusing I guess, but I think they’ve been doing this every night and I wonder how they will be this morning. I got a little bit more sunburned yesterday on my shoulders, but only a little.