Absentee Blogger

Before heading into these last two weeks, I thought I was in for my most relaxing stretch.  I only had to adjust to a new teacher, and wasn't leaving Puebla for the weekends.  As often is the case, I was wrong.  Homework piled up; I gave an hour and a half presentation yesterday. 

Thankfully, all that is over.  With the presentation behind me, these last two weeks of class should be relatively painless.  I was able to travel again (I'm writing this from Oaxaca).  Oaxaca is a city about four hours south of Puebla.  It has a large indigenous population, so the culture feels a little different.  We got in last night, and today we're going to see the pyramids, which are a set of well preserved Mayan ruins.  We also might go see the worlds "widest" tree, which is about 2,500 years old.  That puts life in perspective.

First Trip

Sorry I've been relatively absent, it's been a busy week.  Last Tuesday my class embarked on a field trip to Mexico City, arguably the second largest city in the world depending on how you draw the border.  It has a population of 18,000,000 (million) people.  The trip was mostly to visit a couple museums and experience the city itself.

First we visited Teotihuacan, home to what's traditionally know as the Pyramid of the Sun, seen in the picture below.  It's not mine as I haven't had much time to upload and organize most of them yet, but it was just as impressive as the picture.  The hike up to the top was refreshing.

Next up were the Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky Museums in Mexico City.  Frida was a famous painter while Trotsky was seen as Lenin's heir until Stalin killed everybody but him.  To get to these places we used the Metro, which was an experience in itself (my picture below).  It was everyone for themselves, standing room only.  Once the metro stopped, everyone who needed to disembark pushed their way off no matter who was in their path, including this poor old woman.  It was uncomfortable, to say the least, but I'm glad we got to experience it.

The next day we went to the Museum of anthropology for a quick visit.  After that, Dario, Natalie, Brittany and I headed south to the city of Taxco.  Taxco is a small city of about 50,000 people.  It's well know for its multiple silver mines and beautiful small town feel.  It lived up to the expectations.  I had a wonderful, warm, relaxing weekend.  The views were beautiful along with the city itself.  Not to mention the delicious eight dollar meals.  It had many tiny streets running sharply up and down the side of the valley.  According to Natalie, it almost felt like cities she had visited in Europe.

The only downside to Taxco?  I got bit by a spider on both ankles while exploring Las Grutas (large caverns close to the city).  I suppose it's my own fault for not wearing long pants.