power outages, candles o' death, mountains, museums, and the arrival of karen

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so, to be completely honest with you guys, this has been an incredibly difficult trip. my heart has been thrown more punches than i can count. my emotions have been up and down the whole time, and i apologize to anyone i've closed off or exploded to. i never, ever, ever thought i would say these words, and truly mean them. but:

i don't want to leave.

seriously. i realized that it is my very last week in cuernavaca this morning as i was walking to class. nobody knew, until paco invited us to a barbeque at his house on friday, and i said i couldn't go because... i am leaving friday night. i honestly teared up. i am going to cry a lot.

this trip has been one of the hardest things i have ever done. but right now, there is NOWHERE i would rather be. (i mean, lake week would be nice, but it can wait til august.) there is no doubt in my mind that i will try to take advantage of everything i can this last week i have here. i finally understand how people can be in LOVE with their study abroad trip.

because i finally am. 😊

okay! so. a LOT has gone on since i last wrote. for one, i forgot to write last time that i had my first encounter with a scorpion on wednesday night. i went into the bathroom and looked down and there was this ant looking thing but it was running around like a maniac. so i stomped on it (with my shoe) and after its death, i realized it was a scorpion. ah! tina told us we should look in our beds before we get in them and in our shoes before we put them on because scorpions are really common. lauren had one in her bed on tuesday. ahh! but all is well.

thursday evening there was a huge tormenta (thunderstorm) at our house. we had planned on meeting ricardo and carlo at mambo café (a really exclusive, hard to get in, but apparently not very fun club) at 10:30, but right when we had finished with cena, las luces se fueron (the lights went out). and they pretty much stayed that way the entire night. tina and nacho told us that they thought the entire city was out (turned out, it wasn't) so we decided to stay in and light candles. for some reason, i love losing power. it makes everything slow down. so yes, tina gave us a bunch of candles to light in our rooms, including one for leslee that was pretty big, and was filled with fake flowers. honestly, is that not the worst idea you have ever heard? fake, flammable flowers IN a candle? so, obviously, the candle burned down the wick, then the flowers caught fire. i mean, we didn't really stop it either, leslee and i were kind of mesmerized. we took a bunch of funny pictures, but then the candle started getting out of control. one flower fell off onto the dresser and we tried to blow it out but ashes and flames went everywhere. i ran and got some water and poured it all over, so luckily we didn't burn our mexican home down. therefore, the candle was henceforth known as "the candle o' death"... it was a pretty crazy time, and we laughed pretty hard. good thing we made it out alive 😊 when the power came back on, i went to check my ipod, and it wouldn't turn on. great. the tormenta turned it into a friedPod. (hehe)... i was mad, but i figured i'd make it without music for 2 weeks. the possibility of losing it made me think about what i value in life. kind of sad, really. somehow, in the morning, i checked again and put it down on the table and it worked. huh. made me realize i rely on tangible objects so much. are we defined by our possessions? just something i was thinking about.

anyway. friday, we finished our oral part of our exams, and then we watched an extremely cheesy movie - a walk in the clouds - starring keanu reaves. yuck. hehe. then, our group left for tepoztlán. tepoztlán is a small city (with so many less merchants, its really nice not to be asked every 2 seconds if you want to buy a bracelet) famous for its mountains and a pyramid (tepozteco) at the top of the mountains. we went to a museum in an ex-convent.. woo.. it had a nice view of tepozteco, though. every mexican i talked to about going to tepoztlán emphatically told me NOT to climb the mountain since it was still wet from the tormenta the night before. however, our group decided to. i was really nervous, and a lot of it was pretty strenuous, but we all made it and nobody got hurt 😊.. and the view was "preciosa" in the words of dr. massei. oh, and guess who we saw before we went into the convent? oh, definitely the "meaning of life" guy.. all decked out in his wristguards, visor, and tennis racket. hilarious. we got some comida later on, and dr. massei treated us all to some ice cream, called "tepoznieve".. its more icey than regular ice cream, similar to gelato. sooo good. i got durazno (peach) and amaretto. yum. 😊

saturday, we went back to mexico city. i was expecting pollution, too many people, and all around yuck, which was similar to what went on last time we were there. instead, we went to 3 museums (including a modern art one, where we saw the dos fridas, and obviously took a picture in front of it, posed just like it) along with our buddy nacho.. who talked foreverrrr. we rode a train up to a castle museum, and also watched men do some acrobatic thing. when we got back to our casa, we made our own cena with chocomilk. quite an experience.

on sunday, we had our second free day here, and so we got up late - around 9:30. crazy that that has become late to us now. sunday was the day of elections, so that was exciting. we went to the mercado a second time and bought a bunch of regalos! and helado (queso and straciatella flavored.. but not really QUESO - cheese - more like cream cheese, or something. i dont know, it was good) and i also bought a hammock for our apartment next year! yay. i hope it works. we came back for la comida, then bummed around the house for a while. then we decided to go rent a movie (as good as it gets) and go to starbucks to see if we could meet up with ricardo and apologize for not showing up on thursday. turned out to be a really good idea 😊... we had really fun time all talking (and i got chai tea and he gave us a cookie to share.. it was limpia, don't worry. hehe).. then, once again in our lives, the lights went out! argh. another tormenta. we tried and tried to get a taxi, but it took about 40 minutes of standing in the pouring rain to get one, so we didn't get back until 10:30. oops. also, the presidential election wasn't announced since it was so close! how dramatic. 😊

one thing i have left our so far is that tina has been talking about a lady named karen (that she pronounces "kahr-en") this entire trip. she's like, her favorite person ever. tina got a call last sunday (or sometime last week) that karen would be coming to visit! kind of triste, leslee had to move out of her room and into mine with me because the mysterious woman was living in the extra room.. so we moved leslee in sunday. its fun, makes me excited for next year 😊... anyway. tina always says that karen speaks amazing spanish, and has been coming to cuernavaca for like 14 years, and knows it so well, and is so great, so i for one was REALLY excited about la llegada de karen (the arrival of karen). i was picturing a 30-something woman who was really excited about mexico, loving to talk, really friendly, you know. but when we returned from starbucks last night, we found a woman in her late 60's in our kitchen who has the most horrendous american accent in spanish i have ever heard. like, its ridiculous. i can't explain how funny the whole thing is. and, to top it off, she thinks the three of us are stupid. she constantly talks to us in english with tina in the room (which we all think is really rude, cause she can't understand).. its just really weird. and in the car today she was being a backseat driver, horribly. but they love her!! i do not understand. all of us think it is hilarious. its sad that we have to share our last week here with kahren, but i think we're going to be laughing.. ALOT.

gosh, what a novel! hope you read it all 😊.. i may have time to add a few pictures! more tomorrow...

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Photos

volcán popocateptl
we get to see this some mornings on the way to school

view from the convent in tepoztlán
if you look really closely you can see the pyramid tepozteco in the distance, to the right of the middle of the picture.

we made it!
molly, leslee, me and emily at the top of the mountain in tepoztlán

hi friend
there were about 5 of these weird, tame animals at the top of the mountain. emily made a new friend. (after screaming)

clearly
leslee and me (and the dos fridas)

smog in mexico city
here's what we were breathing. yummmm.

acrobats
wheeee

kids and bubbles
it doesn't get much better than that, folks

milk in a box!
we have fun during cena. and yes, mexicans drink milk in a box, that doesn't need to be refrigerated before opening.

leslee and me
(..and a fake horse?) at the mercado in cuernavaca

Comments

[dad]

have a great time during your last week in cuernavaca...see you late next week...

[anonymous]

your pics are great - thanks for sharing them with us! are the acrobats from mexico city?

[mom]

I LOVE the dos fridas!