Escuela

We arrived to our host city last Saturday. After a somewhat bouncy 45 minute flight from Mexico City mountain tops emerged through the clouds, and the outskirts of the city became visible through the mist, surrounded by a patchwork of fields. At the airport we were picked up by our host mom, who brought us back to her beautiful home. Our house is almost like a hostel because there are four other american students who are also staying here, although they are attending a different school. Our host mom has been very welcoming and hospitable, she has a cook and a cleaning lady who have been preparing us excellent food. On Sunday we had a chance to explore the city. It has many old buildings with beautiful architecture and cobblestone streets. As in Mexico City the amount of colors here is very beautiful, the buildings come in an array of pastel colors which improve your mood just to look at. Downtown there is a market which sells just about everything, although the specialty of the region is grasshoppers with coated thickly in something that appears to be chili powder. My goal is to be brave enough to try one before I leave, but I doubt I will become that courageous in the next two months... Another specialty of the region is cheese. The cheese here is very thick, with an appearance almost like string cheese, it has a very pungent smell and a little bit of a different after taste than I am used to. Being a Wisconsin girl I absolutely adore cheese, and can eat an impressive amount of it. But my cheese consumption has gone to a whole new level here, and I'm actually starting to get a little tired of it. Even I am impressed by the amount of cheese that goes into, enchiladas and quesadillas foods which I have been eating frequently. Something that I have really enjoyed since coming here is Mango. At the market I bought mango for around 25 cents, and it was some of the best I have ever had. It seems to be common in the region because you can see trees laden with mangoes as you walk down the street. My goal is to have on fall on me some day as I am walking so I can get a free meal.. Yesterday was our first day of school. We had three hours of class: grammar, culture and literature. Afterwards we had two whole hours of salsa dancing lessons which was fun but tiring. Yesterday we also felt our first earthquake, we were sitting in Literature class when there was a tiny little tremor. I hardly noticed it but our professor had us stand outside for a few minutes afterwards to make sure it wouldn't get more serious. Today will bring more school, salsa and most likely mangoes which are beginning to make up daily life for me here in Mexico.