I went inside a volcano!! That is all.

---

Today started off like any other normal day... If you call waking up in a foreign, yet great, city normal 😉

After grabbing a quick bite to eat we were given our first assignment! Each student was paired up with another (aka roommate) and were assigned a street to walk up while taking notes on the kinds of stores that you see on that street. At the end of our 'street walk' we were to meet up at this kitchen museum that was also an ex convent.

When we got to the museum we were shown into the 'kitchen area', it was seriously so cool!! It was interesting to go 'back in time' and see how some kitchens were. They even had a fridge area; the fridge area was really a separate room that supposedly had water running underneath the floor and due to that, it gave the room the ability to convert into a fridge.

The convent part of the museum was blocked off due to construction so we weren't actually able to go in to the convent, but there was a small window in the 'fridge' that you could look into part of the convent. I didn't know this at first until one of the other girls asked in a very concerned voice 'is she real?!' I quickly go to where she was standing only to realize there was a window in front of her gazing into a small room which opened into a garden and open hallway. The freaky part? Two supposed mannequins fully dressed in nun attire placed oh so perfectly. Yeah, right. Just perfect enough to scare the crap out of us and send us running! Thankfully we were already done the tour!

Our next stop was another museum that was originally a house that was later restored as a museum. Each room held different pieces of Mexican history, one room even held a horse-drawn buggy (looked very similar to cinderella's carriage) and then held an old-school car to show the difference. All very cool. After oohing and aahing over the lovely fountain in the front foyer, we took a bunch of pictures and then proceeded on with our next activity!!

This next activity was extremely cool and on the top of my list of highlights! Driving up to the place it looked like any other ordinary park and playground area, a lot of it was paved and there were basketball hoops and a jungle gym in the far corner. We step out into the suns rays and still we think we have stopped at a nice park area. I'm not sure about anyone else but I would have been ok with playing at a park! Seeing our confused faces, one of our professors directed us over to this small mole hill looking thing with what looked like a mini water park/play area around it. Apparently it was actually a volcano! or at least was a volcano at some point in history. Now they turned it into a tourist attraction and for 10 pesos (approx. 1 CDN) you can not only climb up to the top of the volcano, but you can go down a, very steep, flight of stairs INTO the volcano!!!!!!

Without hesitation I jumped at the chance to go into the volcano, how couldn't I?! A few other of the students in my group did too! we went down and took a bunch of pictures before climbing back up to ground level and meeting up with everyone else. Our head professor told us some of the interesting facts and history of the volcano and surrounding area as a few passerby's stopped in a confused awe to listen to the professor and figure out what see what saying, and why it was in English (we were in Mexico after all!)

As soon as everyone got loaded back onto the bus our head professor told us about our evening ahead, there were three options (really four, since doing non of the above was technically a valid option too), we could go to a jazz performance at a local bar, a traditional dance show, or go to a Cafe Tacuba concert. All sounded interesting, however, my roommate had heard of (and loved) Cafe Tacuba and wanted to go! I, on the other hand, had never heard of them before but was still totally willing to go! Two other girls from our group were willing to go as well.

Next mission was to find tickets! this was the part where things got a little grey. No one seemed to know how or where to buy tickets... We tried online, but seeing as it was only a few hours out from the concert, no site was selling them online. Our next option was to call the building the concert was being held at and see if they had any tickets available; after trying multiple attempts to get a hold of the business office with no luck we gave up and resorted to our last option: go all the way down to the concert and pray that we can get tickets there. After going back and forth between the pro's and con's of going up there with no tickets hoping to get four tickets, we all decided we might as well go up to check! We called a taxi that took us to the front steps of the building, and just our luck that as soon as we stepped out of the taxi a young male came up holding a handful of tickets offering to sell them. Originally he wanted 800, but after a lil mini stare down (and us saying no) he brought it down to 700, which is what we would have originally payed for the tickets so we said yes!

At last we had our tickets -yes they were real! We had the guy walk us to the entrance area to make sure haha -now all we had to do now was line up and see them! There were multiple line ups to enter into the actual stage area so all we had to do was pick one. We lined up and waited, somewhat patiently, for us to be let into the area where the show would actually take place. They finally let us begin to fill up the actual show seating area, were we waiting for what seemed like an eternity for the band to come out. The band came out almost an hour late, but did not cease to deliver. they played from 9:40ish until 12, and although a little, okay a lot, bit crazy, they were extremely good! I was so happy to have went and got to see such an awesome band!

Another great day in paradise 😉

---