Lo que hacen los Mexicanos

Yesterday I explored beyond the city limits of Guadalajara and visited el Lago de Chapala. This lake is a hotspot for Mexican travelers due to the fact that the climate stays so nice all year round. The village that surrounds the lake itself is quite picturesque with the huge lake in the background.

Chapala: Rinconcito de Amor
               little corner of love :)
















To be honest, there isn't much to do in the village other than walking around or having something to eat. I have found though that Mexicans are happy just finding a nice bench in the shade and talking with the family while taking in the sights in sounds. There were a number of vendors selling helado (ice cream) and all sorts of little snacks. The weirdest one I saw was selling dried little fish. El lago de Chapala is a really nice place to spend a day just admiring the view of the lake and enjoying the fresh air.

The city in the background

Front view of el Fuente Pescadores

La iglesia













After my buddies and I walked around the village and had una cerveza, we headed to the nearby town of Ajicic. This pretty little town is a very popular retirement destination among Canadians and Americans. You can tell its a pricey area code because the hills are lined with large, beautiful houses.

Emma trying some complimentary tequila... don't worry, I tried some too.

My lunch at the Iguana de Piedra.... fish stuffed with shrimp and then fried. yum!













When we returned to Guadalajara I wanted to walk off lunch (it was a bit heavy since it was fried) so I walked down Avenida Chapultapec for a little bit. This is probably my favorite street so far in Guadalajara. There are ton of shops, cafes, trees, benches, and statues. On Saturday nights this avenue is closed down so as to facilitate pedestrian traffic. Its very charming! There are tons of families and couples that just come out onto the street and sit around talking. It is very interesting to me to see people so content to simply sit and talk! I, and I'm sure many other Americans, always feel the need to be "doing" something. I could read a book or grab a drink with friends, but I'm not sure I'm patient enough to just sit. I can sit fine by myself because there is a lot of good people watching, so I did as the Mexicans and just sat!

There were many tables set up with free activities, such as drawing for the little kids or chess for the older ones.

















Great day overall :)

Are you ready for the dance?

Last night I realized I was tired of staying at home every day (besides the day I visited el Hospicie Cabañas) & that I had barely experienced the city. I decided to attend a spanish conversation club even though I wouldn't know anyone there. The club is held every Thursday at a bar called Arles. The people who work there are young & really friendly so it was the perfect spot to meet new people and chat with the locals.

La vista arriba del bare; que bonita no? A la izquirda es el Templo Expiatorio y a la derecha es la Universidad de Guadalajara original.












After chatting for a bit, I went to meet my friend Emma at the hostel where she works. Let me just say, this hostel was awesome! Very clean, nice design, lots of rooms, and tons of young people. We sat out on the patio for a bit and chatted with other travelers. I met some people form Holland, London, and Mexico City.

Esas chicas son primas y son de Mexico City. Estuve hablando con las dos, pero la niña no pudo entenderme! Pienso que ella nunca ha oiste un acento como mio... no la pude entender tampoco.











More pics of the hostel:

After chatting for awhile, we decided it was time to check out the local dance scene so we went to a salsa bar.

On the way to the bar with my international friends....












I love this salsa bar!!! I wish I could salsa like the the girls that were dancing there. Actually, I'm fairly confident I could if I had a bit more practice but they were "muy suave." The guys were awesome too. I love Latin culture because the men take great pride in their dance skills. If they can move they aren't afraid to show it! I danced a little bit with some dude named Salvador. But don't worry, in Latin culture the men just want to dance with everyone so asking a girl to dance is just about having fun and not about making any moves.

The salsa band took a little break and that's when the party really got started! They put on pop music (a lot of Shakira, Juanes, Enrique Iglesias) and the whole crowd gathered together to form a circle. The next part was the best: the guys each took turns going to the center of the circle where they would display their dancing skillz (think Dirty Dancing style), then grab a girl, and form a circle around her with other guys and shout "hey! hey! hey hey!" while everyone else clapped. It was a ton of fun and really hilarious to see men dancing this way because I'm so used to girls dancing like that in America.

Everyone dancing & clapping....












.... this is where things got crazy hahaha. I was never pulled in the circle, gracias a Dios!

Me, Emma, & Sara taking in the sights & sounds

This guy said he was going to cry if Sara left him without a dance partner... HA!

















We worked up a pretty decent appetite after dancing, so we stopped at a little taco stand on the way back to the hostel. I just had two little quesadillas but my more adventurous friend tried a little of this....

See that on the chopping board.... can you guess what it is?

A quesadilla, a taco de carnitas, and a mystery taco...

Ipe with his taco de lengua (tongue)!! He said it was really good... even if I ate meat I'm not sure I would try this :-P

















It was a great evening overall & I'm glad I ventured out of the house!

Enfrijoladas

Cada día después de clases, vuelvo a casa para almorzar. Esto es lo que comí hoy en el comedor:

Spaghetti, pescado, y verduras mezclas

Y después, helado. No lo pedí, pero es costumbre comer el postre con el almuerzo (y no me quejé porque me deleita el postre).










He mostrado un almuerzo tipico, pero mi plato favorito que he probado aqui es las enfrijoladas. Me lastima que no saque una fota cuando las comí.
Esto foto te puede dar una idea....

Basicamente, se hace con frijoles líquidos (como una salsa), tortillas colocados, y queso. Es muy semejante a las enchiladas, pero nunca ha visto enchiladas hacen como esos en EEUU. Muy simple, pero muy rica.









Ve otra vez el foto de mi almuerza arriba; hay un platillo de limones, un de aguacate, y un recipiente de salsa. En la mayoría de las comidas, se puede añadir cualquier cosa que te gusta. Normalmente, pongo las tres (salsa, limón, y aguacate) a mis enfrijoladas. Los limones son de un árbol afuera de la casa así que siempre están frescas. Eso si que es bueno!

Si tu estuviera comiendo las enfrijoladas conmigo, que añadías a tus enfrijoladas?

Los patios

This post is actually from yesterday, but the internet wasn't working so I couldn't post it until now. Enjoy!


Today was a very long day so I'm not going to write much in Spanish. It will take much longer and my brain is already tired!

I had my first day of real classes today and I'm already enjoying them. The classes are small with only 5 students in each. I already know the subjects we are learning, but I don't know them 100%. Plus, I think if I were bumped up to the next level I'd be lost. 
More pictures of my school:

Despues de clase, fui a la casa de una amiga de Mague que se llama, Heidi. Comimos una sopa de frijoles que me gusto tan much. Se servio con tortillas friadas, queso, crema, y salsa. Estuve contenta con la sopa, pero había mas comido. Pescado con arroz, pan, empenadas, y jello (for dessert). Todo fue requetebueno! I don't think anyone believed me when I told them I thought lunch was good because I'm pretty sure Heidi asked me twice if I liked each item on the table. I know she was just being extra nice though, so I didn't mind. You can tell that Mexicans go out of their way to make others comfortable, especially when it comes to their friends (or family of friends in my case). 

After lunch Heidi took me to see the Hospicio Cabañas, which is one of the oldest and largest hospital sites in Spanish America. It was opened in the early 1800s where it served as an orphanage and hospital until the 1980s. In 1983, el edificio fue cambiado como sede del Instituto Cultural Cabañas y dedicado a la promoción y difusión cultura. 


The pride of Hospicio Cabañas are the magnificent murals created by José Clemente Orozco. Orozco,  Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, of course,  launched the Mexican mural movement. The most famous of these murals at Hospicio Cabañas is Hombre en Llamas, Man of Fire. 

Hernan Cortez 

 The wheel of industry

It was an incredible sight to see and definitely worth the trip. I wish the guide had spoken Spanish a little more slowly because I know I missed many interesting details about the murals. 

One of the largest patios. There are 23 in all, which must be a lot because Haydee probably mentioned this fact to me about 10 times.

No hablen en inglés!

I'm going to do this post in Spanish & English; I know the Spanish section will be riddled with mistakes, but please bear with me as I try to keep my mind in Spanish mode. 
Hoy asistí a mi primer clase en CEPE, el Centro de Estudios Para Extranjeros. En la mañana, me levanté a las seis y media y hice yoga en mi cuarto. Fue un poco difícil porque no traje mi yoga mat, pero hacía ejercicios por lo menos. Después, me desayuné huevos revueltos, un poco de leche, y cafe. Traje la pan mostrado en la pictura (para comer luego porque es muy rico y tiene chocolate y alguna tipa de cacahuates, quizás nueces (walnuts) pero no me gusta tomar la azúca en la mañana).

Entonces, salí con Fernando, el chofer, a escuela. Llegué un poco temprano y por eso podía explorar la universidad un poco antes de la orientación.

El patio donde se puede usar el wi-fi.

La biblioteca. 




A las nueve, la orientación empezó y los estudiantes y yo aprendimos a todos los detalles de la escuela. 
We were then tested on our oral and speaking skills one-on-one with una profesora; I was placed in level 7 & 8 of grammar classes. I would probably guess that this is an intermediate class because I overheard another girl say she was placed in level 9 and she was already speaking spanish pretty well. After taking care of some necessities, I met a few other students. Una se llama Eileen (la chica que ya habla muy bien), Torry de Oregon, y Amy de New Orleans. Hopefully Amy is in the same classes as me because she seems pretty cool; she teaches in New Orleans so I think she is a bit older than me and actually studied here at CEPE 7 years ago. She said she was confident I'll learn a lot here and that CEPE is very well respected.


Other cool things about the program:
- At the end, I can take a certification saying that I speak Spanish at a certain level. If its a high level, I'm going to put it on my resume because I think it'll look impressive.
- They have excursions every weekend. The prices vary according to how many students want to go, but it is typically pretty cheap. I'm looking forward to the one to Tequila, una ciudad donde se produce la tequila ;)
- They have a "friendship program" where they set me up with a native speaker to practice my Spanish one-on-one. I'm most looking forward to this feature.
- Today was only the orientation so we could speak in English, but from now on les digan a los estudiantes "No hablen en inglés!"Don't speak in English! That way we are surrounded by Spanish throughout the day and really have to rely on our ability to recall the language to learn & speak with the other students and teachers. 


Tengo una sorpresa!
This weekend Mague's family is taking me somewhere fun outside of the city... any guesses? Whoever guesses correctly in the comments section is guaranteed the Mexican candy of his/her choice (& if you don't like Mexican candy, ahem... Cody, then just guess for fun)

La almuerza tarde

I'm very curious to see how my eating habits are going to change in Guadalajara. First off, I'm not supposed to eat fruits & veggies the first couple of weeks. This alone is very hard for me as I love fruits and vegetables. Second, they don't eat lunch here until two or three in the afternoon. If I wake up at 7 and have breakfast, how is this supposed to sustain me until lunch? Ok, I'll just have a snack. But if I do that then I don't really see how I'm going to be hungry for dinner with basically three meals already under my belt for the day.
Anyway, lunch was a little late today because Mague y Polo were a little late coming in from their trip. Montce, una amiga de Tania, joined us for lunch con su hija, Sofia. Sofi es tan chula y comporta muy bien al restaurante. I was pretty hungry by the time we arrived at the restaurant, Los Arcos, but thankfully the restaurant didn't disappoint!

Para empezar, comimos el Taco Goberbador, which is basically a crunchy taco filled with shrimp and some sort of cheese sauce. We also had pulpa, which is octopus! I've tried it before but I really like the way it was prepared this time inside of a taco con limon. We shared family style some shrimp, a fillet of fish stuffed with shrimp, and more octopus that seemed to be sautéed with lots of peppers. It was spicy pero delicioso.


Los pescados afuera del restaurante.

Sofia, Mague, and Montce feeding the fish. She's so cute!

Despues de comiendo, regresamos a casa y jugamos con Sofia un poco. Luego, Tanio y yo vimos al una pelicula, Toy Story 3.
Tania and Mague are leaving in the morning for Dallas because Tania is going to some doctor's appointments. She showed me how to use the pager to call the chauffeur to pick me up from school and gave me the names of some of her friends who are going to take me to lunch while she is away in Dallas.  I'm excited to meet new people and practicar mi espanol mas!

He Llagado a Guadalajara... I have arrived!

Yesterday I arrived in Guadalajara. To be honest, I was pretty nervous boarding the plane in Houston because everyone around me was Mexican, which made me realize how difficult it is to understand native Spanish. I can understand my family very easily when they speak Spanish, but it is another thing to listen to strangers who speak faster and with different accents. I remained calm and the next thing I knew we had landed, gone through customs, and I had picked up my luggage. My cousin, Tania, was waiting for me and we were soon at her home. Then, Tania showed me my room and no podria estar mejor, I couldn't be happier. I have my own bathroom, wahoo!

 Cute welcome display in my room that my aunt prepared for me.

My desk area para estudiar mucho el español.

The view from my window. There are lime and apple trees down there!
Last night I just studied Spanish & I'm doing a lot of the same today until my aunt & uncle arrive later. We went to the pharmacy earlier because I needed some anti-frizz hair creme, but I had no luck. All I could find was gel :( So looks like my hair will be frizzy for 5 weeks! 
Plans for the rest of the day:
- Figure out how to insert Spanish accents
- Go to lunch with my aunt & uncle
- Hopefully work on the blog design as it is pretty basic right now