Never have I been so thankful for Soldier Boy...

So here's the thing, my life is awesome...but I feel like it's only awesome to me.

Let's see...I went to Acapulco with some girlfriends...Ok, that was BOMB!!! But the thing I loved most about that trip wasn't the four days spent on the beach in the sun (which was amazing, be jealous) but the people that we met...both the creepers and the good guys.
After falling asleep at like 9pm on Friday night (picture it...four girls, dresses, hair, makeup, talkinging, laughing, ready...and then sleeping), we finally made it out on Saturday night and spent the majority of the night running away from creepers who wanted to "compartir mi cama" with my friend Liz...pobre Liz!! At one point, as we were going upstairs to use the bathroom and the forty year old creepers, one of whom had a daugher but not a wife, started to follow us, I turned around and was like, "nonononono, no necesitamos su ayuda!" Hey, it worked. Unfortunately, there was an equal number of creepers on the second floor...one of whom was a short round man with a fanny pack...A FANNY PACK?!?!!?!..so weird.

Somewhere among the creepers, my other friend managed to meet this really chill guy who was in Acapulco for the weekend with his friends. Don't worry: they weren't creepers, they weren't forty, they didn't have daughters,they were super nice and we were safe. The next few days were spent just chilling with them on the beach. That was my favorite part....just chilling, in Spanish! My Spanish is so far from perfect, but I love that I can hold my own and am forming friendships with people in another language. I still haven't gotten over that and I probably won't.

As for life back in Puebla...The other night I went the birthday part with a friend...I was soooo nervous. The last time I hung out with a group of Mexicans I spoke a total of maybe 15 words in the entire 4 hour span and two of those words were "Estoy nerviosa," how lame. I was really excited to go - to have the new experience, meet new people and to challange and practice my Spanish -but I didn't want my friends to feel like they had to babysit me all night...and they didn't. Despite an awkward start (everyone around me, including the people that I knew, left at the same time so that I was sitting alone on a really big couch), I somehow ended up in a conversation with a girl whose name I can't remember now. It doesn't matter, because the point is that we had a conversation and, even better, it was interesting!! Although, she did think that I was from Venezuela...I really need to stop saying that I'm from Minnesota because people often confuse the two...

A little later I was talking with some other people and the conversation had just left the niceties "where are you from?" phase and was starting to drift into the awkward silence "what do i say next?!?" phase when Soldier Boy came on. Oh Soldier Boy....such a bad song, but so fun to dance to! Anyway, the point is that it turns out "Do you know what super man that ho means?" is great for conversation! The guy thought it was so funny, and his girlfriend was horrified...but I think it was a bonding experience. Considering my grandma is going to read this, I'm not going to tell you what super manning a ho is, but if you really want you can look it up on urbandictionary.com...please don't.

mmmm....comida

I've been to the market a few times too, it's insane - pigs heads, avocados and chiles everywhere, and fish water...all of the fresh fruits and vegetables, some of which I couldn't even recognize, smelled so good, but for some reason the only smell that stuck to my clothes was the fish smell...gross. When I went to the one in Cholula with my host mom, there were fruits that she didn't even recognize and whole stands dedicated to medicinal fruits. Also, there was a really really little old lady sitting under a really really big truck. That is probably going to be my lasting impression of a Mexican market. Also, the fact that you can buy anything from underware to pets to rip off Beatles in additon to food all within a four block radius.

Its´s basically like the ball pool at McDonalds...

Zocolo, the town center in Puebla

Resident mohawked duck on campus...

View from my street...

So, churros in Mexico are way better than churros in the high school cafeteria. My friends and I have found the best place in Puebla to get churros, the first time we went there, we got a basket of fresh ones for free! The next time, because of course I've been there more times in the last weekend than I can count, we got ones that had literally just come out of the yummy grease. We freaked out when the dude tried to give us olds ones..."no, no, no, esos esos esos!" Also, we found a bomb bakery, like every sort of bread and pastry you can imagine. I had a pastry with a huge chunk of pineapple in the middle and my friend bought a croisant the size of her face. But I swear they don't have pan dulce here, at least not the kind they had in Guate, and that is going to be an issue...

Puebla is probably the best place in Mexico to be if your standard is food. There are these sandwiches called Cemitas, with cemita bread, avacado, queso, and pretty much anything you want...yum.

Also, apparently I'm still not accustomed to things here...yesterday at breakfast, my host mom gave me two fried eggs with salsa on top of tortillas...be jealous, it was delish, but then she let me struggle for a good minute before she told me to use my fork because it wasn't a taco!

¡¡Tengo un amigo mexicano!!

Yeah, I found the only Mexican in Mexico who can't dance, go figure! The the other weekend, I went to the antro (club) with my friends and we were all just doing our own American thing and this guy comes up and asks me to dance. My response: No, seriously, you don't want to dance with me. But, he said he didn't care so I said fine, thinking that he would last like five minutes max dancing with me. Wrong!! We danced the entire night, and it was so much fun, it was so nerdy and the entire time I'm thinking this guy is just making fun of me, but it was funny so I just laughed it off.

A few days later we got together for coffee and we were talking (turns out, I can speak Spanish for three hours straight, which was surprise to me) and he asked if the other night I was laughing at him because he couldn't dance. I asked if he was serious, and he said that he was and I was like, yeah I was laughing at you...but I can't either so it's OK! Also, when we ran out of things to talk about, I started translating all of my bad jokes into Spanish.

It was a lot of fun, we met in a smaller town by Puebla called Cholula which is famous for having the world's biggest pyramide and so after coffee we walked to the top of that. I had been to Cholula the day before for the market with my host mom - it was so intense there were dead chickens their heads still on, and fish, and live animals for eating and for pets, and a little old lady sitting under a really big truck selling avocados.

And, now I'm going to go to class - nos vemos!

Apparently, I'm not used to eating Mexican food

So, the other night I was sitting down for dinner, and it's already super awkward because all of my host my host mom's family has already eaten and she places soup and tortillas in front of me. So, I wait a while and then just dig in with the tortillas because I'm not sure what else to do and I'm already freaking out since it's the first time I'm meeting all of her family, well there were seven people there and that wasn't even all of them, so I just start eating my soup with tortillas. Then, with the entire family in the kitchen, my host mom looks at me and says "what are you doing!?! You don't eat soup with tortillas!" And then she sticks two huge chicken breasts onto my plate and says, "It's ok, you're not used to eating tortillas, you're new, you will learn." And all this time the man who's the father of all of her children and who hangs out at the house most days but doesn't live with her, is cracking up next to me. I was so embarrased, I couldn't even say anything, but I could feel my eyes buldging out of my face!

Oh my gosh, and today, just as I was about to leave for school with just enough time to walk there, my host mom was like "where are you going?! you need to eat breakfast!" So, she sat me down gave me coffee and toast with delicious beans and cheese. So, it was awesome, but then I only had 10 minutes to make the 30 minute walk to school. Oh yeah, and when I tried to practice my Spanish on her little granddaughter, she started crying. The thing is, I had this banana and she was looking at it, just staring. So, in order to break the awkward silence between me and this 1 and a half year old, I just said, "es mio o tuyo." So, one that wasn{t even correct spanish, and two she burst into tears. Anyway - I'm booking it to the university and I just barely make the bus, like it was already going when I jumped on, and then I couldn't find any change so I had to pay with a big bill, but not before falling onto the stickshift. Oh my gosh, it was so embarassing that I didn't even wait for the bus to stop when it got to the university, I jumped and ran.

And that's Mexico so far - I love it!