Blogs from Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico, North America - page 39

Off to Oaxaca. Nervous and excited simultaneously. Overpacked. Totally excited about being immersed in another culture, another language, another way of expecting life to be while at the same time trying to bring everything I'm used to with me: my blowdryer, jeans, makeup, candy (skittles). I've even considered packing my blanket because it's the perfet blanket. I catch myself just in time. How can I be so excited to go somewhere different while not wanting to be without what I'm used to wanting and having? Habits. Conditioning. Part of me wants to get beyond my comfortable habits and really dive in to life and another part justs really wants to be really comfortable. I'm off to study Spanish at the Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca in Mexico. Soy una estudiante de espanol por un ano y voy ... read more

As the saying goes ¨when in Rome do as the Romans do¨. Well we are in Mexico and are definitely doing as they do. We eat Mexican food, have a siesta in the afternoon, say mañana a lot (we will do it tomorrow) and have now been to a Mexican hairdresser. All I can say about the last experience is they do it differently here. We don´t quite look the same as when we left Australia. Maybe something was lost in the translation or I said the wrong Spanish word. Oh well folks it will grow on you as it has on us. Geri went off too class this morning and I decided to go out and have breakfast and do my study there at the restaurant. Yes I ordered my meal in Spanish and a ... read more

happy easter from Oaxaca. This will be a short one -- no photos, but we will be back in Michigan the night of the 19th, so there will be plenty of pictures and stories to share in person. Chiapas: We took an overnight bus from Puerto Escondido to San Cristobal de las Casas, site of the 1994 Zapatista uprising and takeover of the city. San Cristobal is a beautiful, beautiful city -- reminiscent of Oaxaca in its colors and architecture, but with a more Mexican (less European-touristy) feel, though it has its share of tourists and tourism, much more than we had anticipated. And we were not there long enough to get a handle on the current political situation, but it is calm on the outside. While in San Crisobal, we took day trips to an ... read more

We had our first mexican cooking lesson yesterday after going to the market with our Spanish shopping list. Waiting to see what they produced was very entertaining. It was interesting learning to cook with the teacher speaking Spanish, it was all put into context when the action was put with the word. Eating our creation was the best part of the lesson. Muy bien. After cooking we headed off to our respective classes. The class went for 3 hours straight with No break. In my class there was only another woman and her name was also Carol. She was the evil CAROL. It was like having two teachers in the class and I wasnt one of them. It was bad enough that the real teacher (Martin) spoke only to us in Spanish even though he ... read more

The Ado overnight bus was a long 12 hour journey, but it went really fast. The bus is fairly luxurious, plenty of room, complimentory drinks, and films, we watched Terminator 3 and Pirates of The Caribbean! I couldn't get to slepp however. We pulled in to Oaxaca as the sun began to rise, and got a taxi from the bus station to our hotel, arriving around 8.30am, and its now Tuesday 11th April. Most of the day was spent by me sleeping. Once caught up, I went around the City centre, and its quite a big place, 1 million population apparently. The main square is pedestrianised and is full of churches and very old looking buildings. It is a beautiful place, just very busy, cars and people down most streets. For me, and if you are ... read more