Xochicalco y Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos

Jueves – 28 de Junio.

Día 14. “Xochicalco y Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos”

                There aren’t really words to explain how amazing today was. We woke up to thunder this morning and the first thing that came to mine “Oh great, wet tennis shoes are my favorite..” But, it ended up being a beautiful day! In the morning we spent time reviewing for our test tomorrow, and learning about our horoscopes, in Spanish only! We weren’t able to go the El Centro for our afternoon classes because of the rain, but our interviews have been rescheduled for sometime next week. Instead, we stayed at school and played review games, and human web games, which was quite interesting, to say the least.

                We didn’t go home after school today; we immediately hopped on a bus for an hour and headed to Xochicalco (Zo-chi-cal-co), which is an archaeological site that shows the “fusion” between the ancient Aztec, Mayan, Zapotec, Olmec, Mixtec, and Toltec cultures. It was very interesting and the sites and views were beyond beautiful. In one direction we saw the first lake we have seen since we were here and of course all us Minnesotan kids got pretty excited about that one! (: We climbed pyramids and even went underground into an observatory where we were able to witness the extreme intelligence of the ancient astronomers. The views at this site were unexplainable, almost as great as the smiles on the faces of the kids on our next adventure…

                After visiting Xochicalco we headed about 20 minutes to an orphanage housing children and young adults ranging from infants to thirty year old adults. It is called “Nuestro Pequeños Hermanos”, which literally translates to “Our Little Sibilings”. This house, more like community, was donated by the government to give children and young adults a chance to get a good education at “home” in a dafe environment, and to promote success after shool. It was the most rewarding day I

have had since we arrived; it was amazing to see the young ones’ faces as we gave them gifts of school supplies, pillow pets, chalk, coloring books, and
 candy! They were mesmerized by our cameras and just wanted more and more pictures! The hugs were abundant and I can’t wait for tomorrow when we are off to visit another orphanage!  (:

Daily Spanish Lesson #15:

Interviews- Entrevistas

Lake- Lago

Orphanage- Orfanato

Community- Communidad

Madagascar

Miércoles – 27 de Junio.

Día 13. “Madagascar”

                Today wasn’t very eventful, but it was still pretty great. I mean what day in Mexico, with sunny 85 degree weather isn’t great? (: Speaking of weather.. we have finally had 3 beautiful days in a row! Now that the hurricane has passed the weather is back to normal. “Normal” you may ask, all year round 75-90 degrees, with rain in the evenings and nights. It’s beautiful. Cuernavaca is “The City of Eternal Springs” and it is just like spring time (hot spring time!) all year round. Today was the second day we were able to see the famous volcano, Popocatépetl on our drive to school in the morning. It is currently an active volcano and the picture doesn’t do it just. Classes were pretty normal today and the afternoon was spent entirely on speaking and conversations.

                Tonight’s excursion was back to the mall, Gallerías, to go to another movie. This time we saw Madagascar 3. Those dang animated animals talk at a million miles an hour and following their Spanish was nearly impossible, I might have taken a few naps throughout the movie.. Shh :P Tomorrow we are headed to the orphanage with our gifts for the children, and we are all very excited! (:

Daily Spanish Lesson #14:

Volcano- Volcán

Morning- Mañana

Nap- Siesta

Little Child- Niño

Just a little fun from Mexico :)

Voleibol

Lunes – 26 de Junio.

Día 12. “Voleibol!”

                This morning was just like others, 3 hours of grammar and vocabulary class, but we were missing Tommy so our teacher decided we were going to have a bit of fun today. We played Verb Bingo and spent a lot of time writing, which I have found to be really helpful- especially in the evening when I have to write my journals. In the afternoon it was again Piñata time, but this time we got to fill them with candy and break them open! We learned a little song to sing while hitting the piñata and it was quite the competition among the boys to see who could sing the best.

“Dale, Dale, Dale,

No pierdas el tino,

Porque si lo pierdes,

Pierdes el camino.

Dale, Dale, Dale,

Dale no la dio,

Quiténle la venda,

Porque sigo yo.

Ya le diste una

Ya le diste dos

Ya le diste tres

Y tu tiempo se acabó”

Translation for this song is not the best, but in a sense the song is telling you to “Hit it! Hit it! Hit it!” and don’t lose your aim! :)  After the fight for candy we headed home for La Comida and spent some time with our family- and the new addition to our house, Phillipe, our “cousin”.

Tonight we didn’t have an excursion but we headed to the high school, BIU, to play sports with some of the Mexican students. Tonight’s sport was volleyball, so of course I was really excited. My team ended up going 3-0 to win the championship, quite the feat for us! We sure cheered loud when Kenzie finally hit the ball over the net! :P The boys claim it was the training they made her do while we were on a break- basically running up and down the stairs! :P After sports it was just a night of rest, and we played some Rummy with family and then had la cena.  Off to catch up on writing my journals that I have been neglecting to write this weekend, shh! :P

Daily Spanish Lesson #13:

Volleyball- Voleibol

To write- Escribir

Cousin- Primo

I agree- Estoy de acuerdo

To Facebook- Facebookear   (No joke here! It is a legit verb!)

To Text- Textear (This one too! (: )

Amanalco Ravines

Martes – 25 de Junio.

Día 11. “Amanalco Ravines!”

                The second week of classes has officially begun, but getting up at six thirty in the morning is definitely not getting any easier.  After a full weekend of fun getting up this morning was not exactly enjoyable, but we did it, and headed off to school. Classes in the morning were the same as normal- 3 hours of learning grammar, vocabulary, the “textbook” Spanish stuff but then we headed off to the afternoon for some fun! We continued to make our piñatas… my group is definitely not going to win this prize, but that’s okay, we still get to smash our piñata! :)

                

         

After school we headed home for La Comida- today we ate cooked cauliflower with an interesting tomato sauce, rice, and beans. Mamá says that it is one of her favorite meals. We also were calling it the “piña comida” because we were drink piña coladas               and eating piña Jell-O. Muy Delicioso! After dinner we had a little time to just relax and then we headed to El Centro for a bus tour of the town and the Amanalco Ravines. Everything tonight was a little bit delayed because we were uniformed that there was a political rally going on downtown, the elections are July 1^st, and all campaigns adds must be down by Thursday so it was quite the rally. No cars were moving in the roads, there were hundreds of buses lining the sidewalks and sides of the roads, and there were thousands of people crowding the streets, it was quite the experience. The rallies were for Josefina, a women running for president this year, and from the people we have talked to, she isn’t the most popular.

     An ice cream cone later, and waiting for an hour we finally got our whole group together and we made it through the crowds to board the tour bus to Amanalco Ravines. On the way we saw quite a few monuments, famous houses, and even the first hotel in Cuernavaca, established in 1905. When we finally got to the Ravine 231 steps and 4 (terrifying!) bridges later, we got to hear the history of it all. Just 14 years ago the some 300 feet deep gorges were filled with over 300 million tons of accumulated trash. Kenzie dragged me across multiple bridges, we got some good pictures, and experienced a Mexican election rally- all together a great day!

Daily Spanish Lesson #12:

Prize- Premio

To Win- Ganar

Jell­-O- Gelatina

Election- Elección

To Vote- Votar

Sunburn Numero Uno!

Domingo – 24 de Junio.

Día 10. “Sunburn Numero Uno!”

                Sundays here in Mexico are primarily reserved for family- and since mí famila is really close we spend lots of time together on Sundays. Today we all hoped in the van and drove an hour and a half to  spent the day at the vacation house again, just like last Sunday. This time Papá and Jessica were not able to come with though, but Paulina’s boyfriend, Ivan, and two of her friends came with to spend the day by the pool. Kenzie , Nihal, and I spent the majority of the time tanning, playing volleyball, and swimming, but when the sun had sucked all the energy out of us we all played a couple hours of card games. It’s amazing how much fun you can have without any Internet! No one is allowed to quote me on that one :) ! After numerous games of Spit, BS, Rummy, and War we headed back outside for a quick round of Ultimate Frisbee then hopped in the car to head home. The day went by so fast and by the time we got home we were ready to crash.

Today, we found out the hard way about the Mexican sun, all over again- Kenzie and I both have quite the sunburn, mine definitely worse than hers for once though. Im sure I will be known as the lobster in this house from now on, since my sisters think it is real funny how red I get :P

Tomorrow we are back to getting up early and back to school at Universidad Internacional- Its crazy to think we are already starting week two, and that 3 weeks from tonight we will be home…

Daily Spanish Lesson #11:

Van- Camioneta

Boyfriend- Novio

Girlfriend- Novia

To Tan- Tomar el Sol

Cards- Cartas

Galleria

Sabado – 23 de Junio.

Día 9. “Gallería!”

                Today we finally got to sleep in! Sleeping until 10 this morning was amazing and we got to catch up on some much needed sleep before spending the day shopping and going to a movie. We went to the Gallería today to go shopping and went and saw Prometheus in the VIP movie theater. It was so nice and cheap compared to movies in the United States! We paid under 10 for reclining chairs and servers that came to us and served pretty awesome food. After a full day of shopping and movie watching we were tired and ready to go home.. But getting home wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be. We got in a Radio taxi, drove a couple blocks to find we had a flat tire and needed to switch taxis in the pouring rain! When we finally got home around 6 to find that the lights had been out for about an hour. The storms here today were crazy and it was raining extremely hard most of the day.. it still is! So we spent from the time we got home till about 10 playing card games by candle light, and when they finally turned back on we all got pretty excited! Now, we are spending another rainy night watching a movie- this time Paranormal Activity. Tomorrow we are off to the vacation house for a day of swimming, tanning, and family. Crossing our fingers for no rain! :)

Daily Spanish Lesson #10:

Movie Theater- Cine

Mall- Centro de Comercíal

To Shop- Comprar

To Drive- Conducir o Manejar