Getting settled...

¡Hola! Alright, so here´s the update from the past 2 weeks (it will probably be long like the last one...). The following is about salsa, classes, the last 2 weekends, and misc. observations:

Salsa class is definitely the highlight of my day. A bunch of us started out going to salsa, but Kirsten (the other Berkeley girl) and I have been the most consistent and usually stay for about an hour to an hour and a half PAST our own class (that's over 2 hours a day!). We also both have previous dance experience so we´ve progressed the most. I think the teacher has made us her projects for the summer and she´s taken us to a couple salsa clubs and hooked us up with partners for the night. I definitely feel confident enough to go to a salsa club back home and get along fine. It´s only been about 2 weeks but I´m learning dips and complicated turns...we´ll see what the rest of the summer lessons bring :)

School is definitely a LOT of work, but my our grammer is slowly improving. When we get our compositions back we get a chance to correct them and turn them back in for a slightly better grade, so that helps, although some of the teachers are hard graders! Last week was a trick organizing all of my work because a friend from Berkeley came to visit me! She was working on a farm for 2 weeks and came to visit me before starting a job for 3 weeks in Puebla. It was great connecting with someone I knew from home, and she even stayed at my house (she paid my mom for meals and a room for 3 days). It was good timing actually because last week was my busiest week (3 compositions, 4 corrections, and a presentation) and because she is pretty much fluent in spanish, she helped me do my work. But we also had fun too and I showed her the city, she came to salsa, and we went to a free orquestra concert. I feel like last week was a big hump for schoolwork, but now I´ve got midterms next week, blahhh.

Weekend before last: I went to Guadalajara with some classmates, although because we were a big group it was hard to do much. On Friday we toured the downtown area and plazas (I found a vegetarian restaurant!). Saturday was the highlight as we went to this place called Tlaquepaque which is in a really beautiful part of the city and it's primarily for shopping. There are tons of great stores especially for decorating a home Mexican style, and lots of artisan gifts. I got a few scarfs and earrings (Mom, dad, and Molly you would really like this place). We wandered around a little on Sunday and visited a lake, but because it was a 4 hour drive back we headed out in the early afternoon.

Last weekend: The beach!! Me and Kirsten (she´s also been my traveling buddy for all of the weekends so far) caught a bus to Zihuatenejo and met up with some other students. Zihua (for short) is the less touristy and less expensive place to stay south of Ixtapa, which was built primarily for tourists. I had NO idea how hot and humid it was going to be, almost as bad as India! Saturday was fabulous: we went to the island of Ixtapa (a 10 minute boat ride from north of Ixtapa) and hung out on the beach all day. We rented snorkel stuff and went swimming in the warm water with TONS of tropical fish. As soon as we stepped in the water there were 10 fish swimming around our feet. And it was great swimming over the coral reef where there was even MORE different species. And the beach had hammocks to take naps in the afternoon. Ahhhhh. Both Friday and Saturday night we went to this restaurant/bar a block from where we were staying in Zihua, where there was a live band playing salsa, cumbia music and the waiters always asked us to dance. All in all it was a GREAT weekend (and the rain even held up until Sunday).

Other observations:
-EVERYONE smokes. If you go into a bar or club, you REEK coming out. It´s disgusting and I´m sure the throat cancer rate is through the roof.
-because it´s rainy season, the clouds are BEAUTIFUL. I love clouds.
-a lot of people have extremely small white fluffy dogs, but they have american names like "ninja", "destroyer" (Kirsten's dog), or "vodka" (my dog).
-every single tree here has it's trunk painted white up until 4 feet off the ground. I've heard it keeps the ants off (who knows) and that they act as reflectors at night.
-when street lights are green, they flash a few times before turning yellow, like a double yellow light. i think this is a GREAT idea that america should adopt because sometimes it's hard to stop in time when the lights turn yellow.
-the food here is WAY salty, i repeat, WAY salty. when food is brought to me at the table, i already think there´s too much salt, but everyone puts MORE on, it´s crazy. not to mentions all the salty snack foods here.
-i found a soy ice cream place! the flavors are a little funky, but it's alright, and really popular.

Alright, that's it for now, I'll update ya later. Miss you all very much! Abrazos,

Mon

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