Un dia en la vida de Natalia

This is a picture of the outside of the casa in which I live:

This is my some of the things I see that on my trip home from school each day. I have to look for the Europa liquor store and the Super Gigante when I want to stop the bus.

There are some nice buildings and restaurants on the way home. The dress shop is where we catch the bus each morning, so I’m not sure why we have to walk 4 more blocks to get home than to catch it. This is cafebarracafe, my Mexican love because I figured out how to use the internet there and regain connection with the rest of the world! And it’s only 3 blocks from my house. This is the pharmacy where we go to call people at the pay phones .

So on Monday, Holly and I decided to just hang around the house because we didn’t know how busy our homework would keep us. I got to use the internet at cafebarracafe that day and talk to mi novio and mi familia so I was muy feliz. Our food was really good that day! We had some kind of pasta with cheese and tomato sauce [I actually ate those leftovers for dinner tonight – Wed!]. We also had ground beef with a few veggies in it and beans. It was good.

The classes are okay. They are really long, I feel like they have to try to find stuff for us to do sometimes. Plus, it’s early in the morning, so I’m trying to keep from falling asleep! I think they will help a lot though. In the conversation class, we read short stories and excerpts and I think that I’m becoming a lot better at reading Spanish – It doesn’t take me as long as it used to, which is good because I know I will have a lot of reading come the fall semester!

So on Tuesday, after the classes, I had my cooking class. It was fun. We made pollo rollenos con espinacas, which is literally, chicken rolled with spinach. We spread cream cheese on really thin pieces of chicken, then put sautéed spinach and onions in the chicken and then rolled it and baked it. Then we put “salsa” on top which was “pumpkin flowers” sautéed then put in a blender with cream. It was so delicious! I want to make it at home, but I don’t know where to find “pumpkin flowers”! This is me with Jen and Kayla in our clase de cocina. Oh! And we also made chocolate/coffee mousse and it was really good too.

That afternoon I ate la comida [the meal] at home too, because we only got to sample the food in the cooking class. Hilda made fish – Marlin chopped up and mixed with chilis. It was really picante [spicy], but good. We also had some yummy rice and some avocados – I was excited about that!

Later, Holly and I wanted to go to a museum, so we asked Sochtl [Hilda’s daughter] how to get to one that we read was open later than the others. Well, she told us and we found the bus, but then a lady on the bus told us that we were on the wrong bus, so we were worried. Luckily we found the street we were looking for, so Sochtl was right and we worried for nothing. Well, maybe she was only ½ right because she told me that we’d have to walk 8 blocks to get there, but it was more like 14! It was okay, there was a lot to look at and we got our exercise!
We found the museum [El museo de los artes de la Universidad de Guadalajara] and it was pretty , but there wasn’t much inside. It was modern art and neither of us liked it much. I have one picture before I found out that I couldn’t take fotos, lol. Some of the stuff was really crude and gross, and I wonder, what possesses people to want to make stuff like that, and then why do other people call it art?? There was also another huge painting on the ceiling by Jose Orozco Clemente.

Before I go on, Holly wants me to mention the Mormons. Lol! The last big group of girls that stayed with Hilda were Mormons and they came with a big group from their school. Well, Hilda talks about them ALL the time! Holly said I should just mention how we’re all the time being compared to the Mormons. Hilda is such a character. We talked with her today about the Mormons for a long time and we saw a picture of them with her that on the back said that they had a fiesta and Hilda danced with Carlos :). Oh, and just a few minutes ago, Hilda came in to talk to us and I noticed she had really dark lip liner on, and it took me a few minutes but I then realized that she was telling me it was tattooed on! Haha, she said it lasts for like, a year, and then asked if Holly wanted to get some! Haha!

So anyway! We didn’t spend much time in the nude-y museum, lol. Behind it was what I called a Cathedral because it was huge, but Hilda told me it was only a Temple because places only have one Cathedral per city. It was gorgeous!



While we were there, outside, the bells rang and from one of the windows came little plastic disciples and Jesus like you see on little Dutch clocks or whatever. It was neat. These places are so gigantic that I can’t fit the whole thing into my camera!

Lastly, I tried to take a picture of my elbow bend but it didn’t work. I have a nasty bruise from where I gave blood to participate in the diarriah study. It was my first time to give blood from anywhere but my finger.

So, today, we didn’t do much. I wasn’t feeling great this morning and after we had class and used the computers at the school, we came back here and ate. We had little chicken patties that were really good and rice and mixed veggies and beans. Then I took a nap because I was so tired and Holly went to Starbucks to study because she has a presentation to give in class tomorrow. Besides that, I did my homework and ate and played with Lucia and then did this!

Tomorrow we’re going to try to visit some place fun, so hopefully I’ll have another update soon!

Adios!

Mi primero fin de la semana

This is a continuation of the previous blog. There are a lot of interesting things to say about this trip!

I think I’ll try to finish talking about the family. We found out a little more about Hilda.  She lives in this house which used to be her mother’s. La-la used to be her maid when she was young, and now since her mother has died, Hilda brought La-la to live and cook here, she . She has a little house behind ours, but she is not here right now, I think she is visiting her family somewhere.

Yesterday, Hilda made our lunch and we ate carne con jugo [steak with juice] which was basically like soup with steak in it and she put a spoonful of beans in too, and it was really, really good. There was also something else with steak and onions and peppers mixed in vinegar, but it was supposed to be served cold on a tostada, and I didn’t like that much. I’m not a big vinegar fan, but also, I prefer my food warm! For dinner, she made us some cheese quesadillas. They were just cheese in a corn tortilla, but I really liked them too because the cheese is really good.

Okay, now I will start on chronological events. On Friday we had our Orientation at the school, then our placement exam. I am a genius and got into the class that I needed to get credit for UT. I’m kinda of worried because I don’t know of anyone who will be in my class yet. Most of the people are lower levels so I think I will be part of a very small class, but I guess I will see tomorrow! Anyways, after the test we went to a fiesta with the group and there was authentic Mexican food there. I had vaca [cow], and mole [shredded beef in sauce, most often made with chocolate, but I thought it tasted like really spicy bbq], and papas [potatoes] con queso [with cheese. Then we went to the school and looked forever to find their computers, but we found them and they worked well and quickly.

That night Holly and I went out to meet two other girls

that we met named Jennifer [white sweater w/ blue tank] and Kayla [red shirt]. We just went to a little restaurant to talk and it was really fun. They’re nice girls. We took a taxi back home and it only cost about $5 between all of us.

Holly and I got up early on Sabado [Saturday] because we had to meet our group at the school to go to the Centro Historico [Historical District Downtown]. Well, we got there on time and ended up having to wait about 45 minutes for the school’s bus to pick us up. It was annoying, but I guess that is just Mexican culture – they’re not really in a hurry about much.

So we took the owl bus (ha, that’s their mascot!) to el Centro. We got out in la Plaza de Ayuntamiento [Town Hall Plaza]. These are our views when we got off the bus:

Catedral de Guadalajara: Inside this Catholic Cathedral is so beautiful. There are statues everywhere of Saints and there is a glass box with something like a mannaquien inside. The mannaquien represents Saint Innocent who was a 12 year old girl whose father killed her [I’m not sure why] and this church has a mesh glove on the mannaquien that has actual bones and blood of the girl inside. Inside this glass box, people have put letters and cards to the Saint.




After the Cathedral, we went to la Rotunda de los Hombres Ilustres. I’ve copied down what my little tour booklet that I bought today says about this place. And for your information, I translated all of it from Spanish, thank you very much. 

A monument consisting of a Hipóstilo [¿] Circle of quarry [¿], with 17 grooved columns and about them a border. It was erectedto honor some of the dawning sons of Jalisco. Previously the Plaza of the Church of Solitude was here. Around the Plaza Square where one can find the Rotunda, gardened areas serve the scenery and various sculptors in bronze, a majority of the works of the Guadalajaran sculptor, Miguel Miramontes who represented Valentín Gómez Farias – a political reformer, Pedro Moreno – an insurgent, Enrique González Martinez – poet, Manuel López Cotilla – educator, Manuel M. Diéguez – revolutionary precursor, Jacobo Gálvez – architect, Clemente Aguirre – musician, Luis Pérez Verdía – historian, Leonardo Oliva – botanist, Agustín de la Rosa – philanthropist, Ignacio Luis Vallarta – lawyer, Agustín Yánez – a man of letters and the governor, Dr. Atl and José Clemente Orozco – painters.

*A postcard that I bought also says that those men are all buried there.



Then we went to el Palacio de Gobierno. I have tour booklet info about this as well, translated from Spanish.

A left-over colonial construction, where an outstanding façade works in a baroque/churrigueresco style. It headquarters the political power of the state of Jalisco. Constructed in the second half of the 18th century to lodge the Palace of the Audience or Real Houses. [That is like House of Representatives, I think.] Then historically, it was here that Don Miguel Hidalgo and Costilla abolished slavery on December 6, 1810, as well as when from the 14th of February to the 19th of March of 1858, the then president Juárez and his waning cabinet took possession of the National Palace, and where he was to the point of being assassinated, done so that to avoid liberal politics and poet Guillermo Prieto, to declare to his aggressive threateners, “Lower your weapons, the brave do not assassinate!” The extraordinary interior possesses murals of the illustrious Jaliscan painter José Clemente Orozco, in the hub of the stairs; Social Fight, the Political Circle and the Sinister Fires, created between 1937 and 1939. In the vault of the antique hall of the State Congress, there is another mural by him; The Liberation of the Slaves, where the figure of the Cura Hidalgo gets worked up.

*The painting in this building is gigantic! I couldn’t even get ½ of it in my photo. The building was really pretty even though the painting was a little scary.



We went to a Theater next. At this place we were standing outside beside a fountain and a man with a nice camera came up and said that he wanted to take our groups picture for the newspaper! Somos famosos! [we are famous!] We got the name of the paper so we’re going to look tomorrow or Tuesday, it’s neat. I’m not sure about it though because later a man came up to us and had the group picture for sale. I bought one for $3 for my scrapbook, I mean, it’s a 5x7 so that wasn’t too bad – I pay more with BOPP! I also bought a sand painting from a vendor. It’s of the Aztec calendar, that’s the picture on the 10 peso coin and it’s done with lots of different colored sand – I like it a lot.



After that, we went to an old orphanage which has now been turned into a museum. There are really funny bronze sculptured chairs in front with different shapes. I’ve read about that museum and Holly and are going to go back to look one day. We’re actually going to go back a bunch of times to do our own self-guided tours and take our time looking at things and taking photos.



After that we had some free time and we all went to el mercada de San Juan de Dios [the market of Saint John of God]. It is absolutely gigantic. There are a ton of food vendors, traditional Mexican gifts and clothes and things and then jewelry and pirated things like movies and video games and cds. Next time we go I’m going to buy some burnt cds because they’re only about 1$ and today we met a girl who told me some good, popular Spanish artists to buy.

After that we went home for lunch and tried to make my computer work with Starbucks internet and then another places – it didn’t work and I was sad, but all is well now because again, I’m a genius and fixed it today.

Today, Sunday, Holly and I slept in. Yesterday we were informed that we are on our own for food and everything on Sundays. It is Hilda’s day with her family and what not. So we made our own quick breakfast here, the other thing is we have to wash our own dishes on Sundays. So then we went about 3-4 blocks down the road to cafebarracafe which is a coffee bar and I figured out how to use the internet so I was ecstatic! I think I was there for 2 ½ hours! But I had a lot of talking and emailing to do and I got to talk to my mom, dad, and aaron, so I was good for the day.

Then I came home, where Holly had returned a little earlier, and Hilda’s nephew, who was really raised like a brother to her, was here with his family. Holly was talking with his son, Christian Fernando – 13, and his daughter, Paulina – 17, and I joined in. They’re so cute. Christian reminded me of my little bro!  Then their mother joined us and she is so sweet. She and Paulina speak English pretty well, so they helped us a lot.



Then we left for Wal-mart. Everything here is actually more expensive than it would be at home. We wanted to buy gifts for Hilda’s grandchildren because Mariano was just born 4 days ago and Lucia’s 2nd birthday is Friday. Well we couldn’t get much because it was very expensive, but we got a onesie and rattle for the baby and a Barney phone for Lucia because she loves Barney – we heard her listening to a Barney cd in Spanish the other day! I also bought snacks for me because I can’t wait from 745 breakfasts to eat again at 3pm or later. Yay! because I also found a fan so I can finally sleep more comfortably, although, last night and tonight there has been rain so it’s a little cooler. Luckily it hasn’t rained during the day like my books told me it would.

After we returned and ate, we hung out. Then we started watching Mexico’s version of American Idol – La Academia – with Paulina and Christian and Lucia. It was really fun. Paulina is the one who told me good music to listen to. We also asked her if we could go to a bull fight, but unfortunately, we can’t because they’re not having one until October.

The rest of the night we’ve just hung out. Holly was going to go to church with Hilda tonight, but when she got ready and went down there, Hilda said she was going to leave a few minutes later because she never got to see this family that was here to visit, but Holly said it was really because Hilda was baracha! [drunk!] She was funny, she kept asking us the same questions when we went down to eat dinner later. Holly’s boyfriend called, so she had to try to tune out the fiesta while they talked. We just hung out in our room and studied maps and things to do the rest of the night.

Oh, and this is Hilda's one year old granddaughter, Lucia:



I had a good day. I really enjoyed talking with Paulina all day, she’s sweet. Being able to use the internet and communicate and not feel stranded made me happy too. Tomorrow I start my class, so I guess I should get some sleep since it is late.

I miss everyone!!

Guadalajara: Posting numero uno

I have had some internet problems, so I am finally getting to update my travel blog. Trust me, these internet issues have not been without their share of emotions on my part, pero está bien.

Ok, so . . . Estoy en Guadalajara, Mexico. Actually I live in Zappopan and my school is there too, but it is like a suburb of Guadalajara. So far it has been . . . um . . . interesting. I was trying not to expect much since I had no clue, but it’s still quite a culture shock. Even though I have been to Mexico before, I was no where ready for this.

So I live muy lejos (very far – you will pick up good Spanish lingo reading my blog, ok?) from the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara. My roommate and I take a crazy, muy peligroso (very dangerous) autobus from about 5 or 6 blocks away from our house to the school each day. It costs about 40¢ each trip, but on Monday we can buy some tickets at the school for 20¢ trips, so that won’t be so bad because 80¢ a day or more for bus will get expensive!

Next: my roommate. Oh! She is soooo fabulous! I absolutely love this girl! Her name is Holly and she is from Washington. She has already graduated and has been a first and second year Spanish teacher for one year in a high school, but she is still only 22. She’s such a sweetheart and she can speak Spanish muy, muy bien (very, very well). If I didn’t have her here, I don’t know what I would do. She helps me with my Spanish since she is so good, but I can also help her with her grammar at times because it is a bit fresher on my mind since I am still in school. She is a good girl who doesn’t like “fiestar” (to party) so she is perfect for me. Also, she is similar to me about how we think about being careful walking around so we always go everywhere together – it’s nice to have someone who wants to stay with you and you can watch out for one another. She even has pepper spray! Oh, and I’m lucky because she really wants to practice Spanish while she is here, so she and I even speak Spanish to each other when we are together! I think that I can tell that I am already getting better. I’m going to forget how to speak English by the time I return!

Oh, that’s another thing. I feel like I have already been here for soooo long! As I am writing this, I have only been here for 2 ½ days but it feels like forever. I can’t imagine how I will feel after I’ve been here for 4 weeks. I’m thinking that it is a little too long, but what can I do?

Ok, so now: mi casa (my house). I live with a Señora soltera named Hilda Flores. I’m not sure if she is divorced or a widow – Holly and I have not gotten the courage to ask yet. She is very cute and nice. She acts as if she truly wants us to be really happy here. We had a conversation with her today about how she thinks that we should be like a happy family here in Mexico and how one time she kicked a French girl out of her homestay for being disrespectful [she accused Hilda of trying to rob her by taking her cigarettes, lol, we got the whole long story]. Anyways, I want to take fotos of her to show everyone, but she said she wants to look bonita (pretty) first, lol. Also, her daughter – Sochitl, or something like that, there is a tl at the end that we just can’t pronounce – just had a baby the night before I arrived. He is soooo beautiful and is named Mariano. She also has a one-year-old daughter named Lucia. Her husband is Victor and he speaks English very well because he studied in the U.S. when he was younger. They are staying here for two weeks so that Hilda can help with the new baby and everything. I want to take pictures of all of them to put here, but I haven’t gotten the courage to ask yet, but I will. They are all very nice and Hilda is all the time trying to feed us. But sometimes it is akward. We eat breakfast and it’s hard to tell her what we want for that because we don’t want anything heavy like eggs and bacon or whatever, but we might ask if we can go grocery shopping with her one day. Also, lunch is the big meal, you never know what you’re going to get to eat. The first day I was here, I ate pozole (po-zo-lay) which I thought was a soup type dish with chicken in tomato sauce and a few veggies and then she put cabbage and radishes on top and then squeezed limón (lime) over it. Well, today she told me it was vaca (cow) not pollo (chicken) but whatever. It was okay, not my fave, but I could eat it. Dinner has been hard because it is a small meal, and she’s always like, “Que quieres?” (“what do you want?”) and we don’t really know what is an option or we don’t want to eat what are the small foods around here. They don’t put some things that they should in the fridge – como mayonesa (like mayonnaise) – so we have to be careful.

The house is interesting. downstairs: It seems to me that a long time ago, like in the 70s, it was quite hip, but since then has been kept the exact same and not cleaned too too often. downstairs: I mean, I don’t feel dirty eating here or anything, but it’s still a little dusty and old. And it’s very far from the school. We went to use the internet at a Starbucks tonight and it was about 10 blocks or so away and it seemed like such a far walk, and that is at the place where the bus drops us off to come home! [Yes, the bus picks up and drops off at different places, no sé por qué (i don’t know why)]. Another thing about the house is the dogs. We learned today that they’re not actually her own dogs, but strays that she feels sorry for, and feeds, and has named, so they might as well be. They bark ALL NIGHT LONG. It’s quite annoying, but I’ve been so cansada (tired) that it hasn’t mattered too much. What has mattered is the heat. I’m used to going to Mexico and having to wear sweatshirts at night, but here, there will be no breaking-out of the sweatshirts. It is miserably hot in my bed at night. Holly brought a fan, and it’s fabulous. We’re going to Wal-mart tomorrow so I think I will buy a small one.

my room:


bathroom:


rest of house:


That’s another problem because I haven’t been able to go to an open bank to exchange my American dollars for pesos and I’m running low, so hopefully Wal-mart will take USD (U.S. dollars) tomorrow.

This will have to be continued tomorrow, I am out of internet time! Hasta luego!

i pet a giraffe!

So we went to the Jacksonville Zoo today and I got to pet a giraffe! It's very exciting!

It was sooo pretty!

I really liked the koalas too . . .




This old monkey was sitting right up at his window and he was really lonely. I felt sorry for the poor thing. I played with him though.

The gorillas were fun too.

I must say though, it's about that time to be going home . . . .