alright.
now i'll journal about Semana Santa. :) ok. we were supposed to leave on a bus at 8 50. we got there, grabbed dinner and went to wait at the terminal. and wait we did! the bus had hit traffic and was late... so we waited at the bus station until about 10:30 when the bus actually showed up and we were able to get on. by that time my friends Nick, Danielle and Ashley arrived and left for their 10:00 bus. *angry face* lol. anyways... so we got situated on the bus and pretty much tried to go to sleep right away. for me, that didnt work so well. i got the jumpy legs about an hour after we got on and they didnt go away all night. i prolly slept 3 or 4 hours total. Finally at like8 or 9 in the mornign they started to play movies. we watched a lovely one dubbed in spanish about dogs in the antartic. a few of them died and it made me sad. but the rest of them got back to their onwer. so it was a happy ending. the next one was pretty much the best (and by best i mean worst) movie ever. it was about kids who smoked pot blew things up and killed eachother. best line ever:
girl: I think we should do it.
really confused and scared looking boy: do what?
girl : IT!

awkward! so then we finally got to puerto escondido and steped out of the bus and IMMEDIATELY began to sweat. we were supposed to call Darlene, who owns the B&B that we stayed in but we couldnt get our phones to work so we ended up catching 2 taxis (ps: "We" are Krista, Anni, Amanda, Kelly and Leah from Valpo and Dan and Sam from Minnasota) and attempting to find the B and b.... it took awhile, but we DID find it. and as soon as we got into our rooms (krista dan sam and I in one and the other girls in the other) we changed into bathing suits and went to find a beach. there are 2 beaches within walking distance of Casa azul and like 3 more a 5 minute taxi ride away. And the 1 is like a 2 minutes walk... but we started out the wrongway and it took us like 20 minutes, lol. but once we got there! man! there is a huge flight of steps down to the beach which is a little cove like thing with beautiful sand and the bluest water i've ever seen. the waves are huge but not too dangerous so most of us went out immediately. Sams toenail had just been ripped off, amanda couldnt go in for various reasons and anni doesnt actually like the ocean... but the rest of us got in right away. in order to immediately have waves break right on top of us and land us on our butts... with sand getting places that it certianly has no right to be...lol... it was a good time. we got farther in and could just float, and it was glorious. we found out that you could get an umbrella, table, chairs and food for relatively cheap. so we got quesidillas and ate, sunned and swam until about 6 or 7. then we all trooped back to the house and showered (they had an outdoor shower that was pretty much the cats pijamas... we all fought over it) and then went out to the main road and found a resteraunte. 3 of us got salads that were less than tasty, but everyone else was pretty happy :). the next 6 days were pretty much variations of the same thing with little differences. different resturants, different beaches. :) it was lovely. the next night most of us decided to go into town and walk around. the main strip is blocked off from 5pm to 6 am so that its just pedestraians and there are a million little shops and bars and resterants. We walked the whole strip and decided that we were hungry so we went to the next place we saw, which happened to be an italian place called "mario's" i had some fantastic pasta with shrimp and most everyone else got pizza... which was divine. we ended up meeting some people who were from notre dame at the next table. they had done the UDLA program years ago and now they worked in Mexico, so that was pretty sweet. after dinner we got pretty bored and kelly leah and i decided to head back. we took a cab that, unfortunately, had no idea where he was going. we ended up getting out is a super shady street and walking back to the main strip... luckily at some intesection the cab with krista, dan and sam in it passed us and stopped... so we all squeezed in and got back with no problems. well... 1. while we were at dinner anni and AManda texted us and said that they might have some info about valpo. and then again later saying guess what ? international student need to register early! like tomorrow! so pretty much we were all freaking out cause none of us knew what we needed to register for, or had gotten our advising holds tken off or anything. but by the time we got there the internet cafe was closed... so we had to wait til morning. we all sat outside around the table and chatted until way past our bedtimes... and then stripped down to as little clothing as possible and went to sleep. the next day we went to the playa principal and had several old men hit on us. the sand there isnt as great, and the watersa bit greyer... but it was a change of scenery. we went back to the pizza place for lunch and for Dinner we went to a resterant owned by a portugese couple that had delicious curry. I had pasta with smoked salmon and broccali and a cream sause... it was def worth the money. which was a lot. we had portugese sangria with tons of fruit and dan and i split blackberry cheesecake. then amanda anni dan and i walked around town again while everyone else went back. We wentto a bar for margaritas and then walked the beach barefoot. wonderful! then more talking and sitting and whatnot and we went to sleep. thursday we went to Zigetella, which is the surfers beach (well they surf on all of themm... but zigetella has the biggest waves. wait. i'm missing a day. hmmm. oh! tuesday we just went to the internet cafe and tried to figure out classes, and then half of us went back to the close beach while the other half chilled at the house. anyways. thursday we went to the surfers beach which had rediculous waves. we'd stand in water halfway up our calf and then be smashed to the ground by a wave. re-diculous. but it was fun :) we had dinner at the piza place AGAIN and then went to a place that had a 15 person airconditioned theater where we saw most of "The Prestige"... but the power went off with 15 minutes left and so we just ended up going out. we went to a club for live music that alsoo had tech difficulties so we went to another one where we happened to meet Nick and another friend Kyle. so we spent the eveningwith them and most of us had fun. I ended up buying a gorgeous skirt on that street from a hippie shop and i also bought some sweet drawstring pants from a vendor on the beach. i'm trying to remember what else happened. hmmm... saw lots of topless people. and one chick with the craziest bleached crimped hair ever who was wearing a thong absolutely microscopic bathing suit that was gold... so at first we didnt think she was wearing anything. that was an experiance. her and sam were meant for eachother. lol, not really. ummm.... had dinner at another place closer to the house. really good burgers and guacamole.Friday night we all went to the end of the street and watched the sunset over another beach with a bottle of wine. the song "heres to the nights we felt alive" kept going though my head and it was just a slightly rediculously corny moment. but it was fun :) the last day, saturday. we got up and down to the beach at 7 for a boat tour to find tortugas, or sea turtles. we went pretty far out and got to see the sunrise over the mountians and found our first turtles. who happened to be mating at the moment. so that was... interesting. I thought it was really cool actually, and we found out that turtles mate for 10 hours. just bobbing in the water. *nods* then we actually found some dolphins and followed them for awhile, which was really cool. we went to find some more tortugas and the boys each got to pull in a fish and bash it on the head. The guides offered them to us for dinner... but we had to tell them that we were leaving in a few hours so they took them home for themselves.
we got lunch and then went to the pizza place AGAIN to get pizzas for the bus ride back. we got to the station super early and waited for ever. I drew tattoos on people with pen. and read. then we got on the bus back... we watched 50 first dates in spanish and some other things i cant remember and tried to fall asleep which was hard cause it was cold and the windows had a ledge so they werent comfortable to lean against. but yeah. we got in at 7 or so easter morning. Most people naped and a few went to church. We went to walmart and got foodstuffs... and anni and i made really good potatoes and chicken for anyone who wanted it... which i think ended up being like 10 people and yeah... it was fun. this week... ummm... no se. we only have one more week of casa verde. last night the girlfolk of casa verde made chocolate. we went to see the movie shooter this week. went to super cemitas and now i crave their chicken sandwhiches constantly. later last night we ordered pizza and tried to watch girly movies but ended up watching blood diamond cause thats the only one that would work in our dvd player. and then... i've really done nothing today. homework. and this. and this took a really long time. maybe i should eat. thanks for reading!

so here we go... vera cruz, puerto escondido and everything in between! whew! well... heres we go!
The day before veracruz was an event called "24 hours at el pozo" which is tho other name for casa verde. soo... amanda and i went to it, of course, and had a great time but only got... well i got about an hour and a half of sleep and she didnt get any. but Wess had his birthday party and we chilled and played guitar and wtched 24 and had a bonfire, and at 5:40 amanda dragged me off the matress on the floor and we went to Oxxo anf then to the bus stop where sally was picking us up at 6. after a really long drive that i pretty much slept though we had our first stop at Tijin. Tajin is an interesting place because a lot of it looks very oriental and makes people wonder how that happned and if there was some sort of oriental influence some how. anyways... it was hot and sticky but really fun to walk around... i got lots of good pictures. After that we wenrt on down the road to a town called Tecolutla, which is where the Tecolutla river meets the Gulf of Mexico. We stayed in a gorgeous hotel with a pool and beachfront. We went to dinner right by the river (i had delicious pescado mojo de ajo? or ajo de mojo? or something like that that was fried all garlic-y and wonderful. it was a whole fish though, which i dont mind but is fun with some of the others who dont like dinner to have tails and be staring at them :) ) after that we went on a boat ride that toured the river. we saw some fishermen who tossed a fish to us in out boat to throw back in the water, lots of families hanging out in pavilion type things with hammocks. everything was green and lovely. The coolest thing about the river is the mangrove trees, whose branches sit in the water like roots and you can climb all over them. Our guide let us sit in the very front of the boat (which anni and i immediately took advantage of) and took us though little gaps in the branches until we were pretty much in a swmpy forest, then we turned around and got to climb all over the trees and take pictures and whatnot. Daisy got stuck in the trees with her little butt in the air, whih was pretty funny. on the way out, our guide took us by these rocks with dozens of bright red crabs climbing all over and shaking their pinchers at us. When we got back to the hotel it was almost 6, but we all threw on our swim suits and ran down to the beach. Jess, krista, Mal, leah and i were the only ones who actually went into the water, but it was still an awesome time. we all made notes to tie our suits tighter when we got to puerto escondido. so we played in the water until it got dark, and then moved to the pool :) we watched Shakespere in love while we tok turns showering and then walked around the little bit of downtown that there was... 4 of us got ten tacos to split (keep in mind that these tacos are the size of a tea saucer, not a plate) and then just found our way back to the hotel and fell asleep pretty quickly.
Early the next mornign we got some yummy chilequiles (meat, beans and salsa rojo cooked with chips) and walking to get water were asked to dance by some random guy outside of a shop, lol. got back on the bus and went to Quiahuitlan, which is a site on top of a montian with a sacrificial stonestill on top of a small pyrimid, a lot of tombs and a great view of the bay where cortes scuttled his ships so that the sailors would have to stay. absolutely beautiful. The tombs are like little pyrimids and are unique to that site. we tried to go to Villa rica, which is one place that Cortes tried to build a city, but in a very mexican fashion... the site has apparently run out of grant money and is completely overgrown. we jsut drove through the town of antigua which has a house that cortes lived in (really cool looking ruins now... tree roots have invaded it) and a HUGE tree that dates back to the conquest as well as the first chapel built in the new world. After that we headed to Zempoala, which was the first Native city that Cortes visited... its cool because not that allthe plaster has worn away you can see how different the rocks are that we used to build this site verses the others that we have visited (here it was riverstones mostly, all smooth and rounded, where as volcanic stone is more common other places) Then we went into the city of Veracruz and stayed at another nice hotel right on the Zocolo. Dinner was... interesting. I decided ot be brve and try the house specialty. and well... youll just have to see pictures to get the full image... but it was a rice soup with seafood. so there was half a crab sitting in it, full squid tenticles, HUGE shrimp, chunks of octupus (which was actually prolly my favorite) and then a chunk of fish. I could handle the actual seafood fine... but there were amillion fish bones and scales and little peices of shrimp and crab shell and that was not so much fun. it was definietly interesting. :) then we went walking and found the pier, krista lost her contact (hard lens) but found it again. Irealized that water makes me think and thinking tends to be bad news. but i managed to pull out of that temporary depression and we went walking around the city. Amanda's birtday was the next day so jess and i bought her icecream. and by icecream.... you know those really rich layered icecream, mousse, chocolate and who knows what else things? they sell them kinda like bricks, only bigger? yeah, thats what we bought. and we had no utensils and were walking so she was just taking huge bites reight out of the plastic packaging. it was priceless. we hung out a bit at the Zocolo where there was a dance for older folks. which was super cute to watch... all these couples who had been together for like 40 or 50 years dancing. lovely! then we went to the pool... chilled out and then just went to bed. In the morning we met for breakfast at the Parroquia, which is a reseraunte where EVERYONE who has EVER been to Veracruz goes. they serveed some really good stuff, I had scrambled eggs mixed with beans and Krista had a tortilla espana which is like a omelett with potatoes. but! what they are famous for is thir coffee... which they serve reallyreallyreallyreally strong in a small glass. then someone comes around ad pours hot milk in it to make it bearable to drink. it was super yummy. Then we went to see the gold of te fiherman... which is enough to make you sick. see... this idiot fisherman found a bunch of aztec gold while fishing... and hmmm... lets see.... if i found a huge amount of priceless molded aztec gold... what would i do with it? oh i know! lets melt it down into little bricks and try to sell it! so yeah... there are a bunch of sticks of gold... but somone found out before he managed to melt all of it... so there are a few pieces of absolutely gorgeous jewelry incredibly intricitely moulded. but yeah.... oh! and the little fort that the gold was in was cool because it was made partially of coral. Enrique informed us that thats the only reason its still around, the coral can take the humidity and wont warp. The last place that we went to San Juan de Ulua which was pretty much a huge jail that used to be on an island (now its connected) its where Cortes first landed before going to VeraCruz. But yeah mostly it was a prison wirth horrible dank dark wet jail cells that housed way to many people. apparently there is a story of a guy (some call him the Robin Hood of Mexico) who got out by hiding in a barrel of excrement from his cell. i hope you werent eating. but now its a museum and a very pretty one at that. then we just headed back to UDLA. yep. i have no idea wht happened in the next week. i was delerious with wanting Spring break. and with that... actually i think i'll stopand try to write again later. cause this is already huge. whew. later later!

so this is gonna be even more mixed up cause im doing a beach entry now instead of catching up on veracruz... but whatevs.
Im in puerto escondido where it is hot hot hot! seriously i have never had sweat roll off of me while doing absolutely nothing. gross. but! the water is wonderful... Ive decided that i love the pacific and i really want to buy some beachy property. and if anyone wants a nice vacation i can giove you some stuff to do here... the people are great and it never gets cold. ever. you are still sweating at night. and no one has air conditioning. but the ocean breeze is wonderful... and most beaches are ok with you going topless. i havent done it just to be clear... but ive seen plenty. we found an awesome pizza place and a place that sells amazing curry and pasta... soooo goood. lots of seafood as well. Beaches are gorgeous and werent over populated until today... and though we have all been completely dominated by the waves... they are super fun to play in. right now im at an internet cafe with sam... watching an awkward french movie. we are soon heading for dinner and then to a movie, which should be fun. the owner here likes me... he jokes around and gave us our wine free last night. wine... we are being classy :) only it was boones. haha. a word for the responsible feeling people who read this. i have yet to be drunk this week. and dont really want to start... hot and sick dont mix well--- what else... i think 6 of the 8 of us have been somewhat sunburned... but the worst is over and for the most part we are nicely tanned. i have yet to loose a contact in the water *knock on wood* but i have so much sand in my hair that i have considered shaving it again. i havent. dont worry. there are also an outstanding number of outstanding dreadlocks here. and ive decided that if im ever looking at mission work abroad for more than... a year and a half... im going to redo mine. yay.
OH! so valpo forgot to tell us that we need to register for classes like... 2 days ago. so weve been running around trying to figure it out... and i thought ti did and then i found out about a medical missions seminar... grar... thatd push me to 21 credits. so i have to think about it. anyways i gotta head to dinner! ill wrtite more when i get back to UDLA. *kisses* and peace

wow... i didnt realize it had been this long since i wrote. whoops! ok well the weekend that alan left i pretty much just hung around. We went to see the new hugh grant movie, which i would recomend to anyone who likes to see him shake his booty, cause he does it a lot! pretty much made my life. ummm.... and on Monday we decided to lay out, but the pool was closed so we just went to one of the feilds on campus... but then a security gaurd came up and was like "your foriengers, arent you? " which never means something good (but does get you off the hook alot, pretty much an excuse to be rude, though we try not to be) and proceded to tell us that we werent allowed to wear bathing suits on campus unless we were at the pool. so that was slightly embarrassing and funny. what else... well... i'm going to wait and post about veracruz later cause that deserves its own post and i have other stuff to talk about. When i got home from Veracruz i found out that a friend of mine is pregnant, so i had a bout of homesickness and wanting to be there and whatnot, which is never fun. But at casa Verde 2 nights later nate gave a really good message that was pretty much exactly what i needed to hear. lol... though when i tried to tell him that yesterday i just started to cry... i think he was confused *awkward dance* i've had a bunch of homework this week and need to register for summer classes before we head to Puerto escondido for spring break tomorrow night, and maybe fall classes... i need to read that email again. hmmm.... last night we celebrated amanda;s birthday! we went to Ice+grill (mongolian barbaque) delish with a pretty huge group of people and then to bambukos for drinks with an even larger group! it was a super good time for all of us. after that a smaller group headed to another club. this one is more formal and loud and whatnot, also a good time. EXCEPT that our friend chris promised that we'd leave by 2... that didnt happen. I was so tired for the last hour or so that i seriously sat down on a speaker in our corner and fell asleep on Pat's sholder. haha. but yeah... then we went home and i passed out on my bed... and when i woke up this morning i realized that one of my rings is missing *pout* it was a little big... i'm really despartely hoping that it slipped off in chris's car and i didnt notice... anyways... i'm heading toWalmart to get food with Pat, cause mal and I are cooking for the class today :) so i'll update again later about veracruz!

but alan went home today and i was sad and took a long nap. and then drank coffee. and then saw V for vendetta. soooo good. but now its 5 and i'm still awake. bummer. we went to a few museums since i wrote here. The coolest thing for me was a special exibit by miguel covarubias or something like that. He had all these murals that we "people of the pacific coast" or "homes of the pacific coast" etc. and they were big maps with icons of native people, homes, modes of transportation and economy placed near their geografical locations... it was pretty amazing. we also went to a car museum. ti was little but had a bunch of cool cars. OH! i just yawned! thats a good sign! anyways... i have to go back to the cholula house to get the rest of my stuff. like deoderant and my toothbrush. so i'll do that in the morning. i also have quite a bit of homwork... but i also have a three day weekend! so its all good. :)

so i havent written in a while, lots has been going on... letme start with...
its never a good time to get sick.... but to get sick while your boyfriend from a million miles away is visiting, when you are on a trip to oaxaca and when you have a test, a presentation and a paper, not to mention regular homework is just bad timing. and yet... here i am... sick. Luckily doing better than i was last night.
last monday i went to pick alan up at the airport, it is absolutely wonderful to see him again, and i just feel incredibly fortunate to have a guy like him around. we didnt really do a whole lot during the week, just pretty much hung out, went to asa verde, hung out some more. He and farid seem to be getting along famously and on thurs he met Juan when the tree of us went out for my new fav food; sushi! , sat we were up by 5 30 so that we could mmet thebus at 545 to head to oaxaca, it was a long ride... most of which i spent sleeping :) our first stop was monte alban, which is a huge ruin site on a manually flattened moutian top. We got to pretty much wander around were we wanted, but i was particularly glad to see the "danzantes" which are carved figures that noone really knows a whole lot about. they are called danzantes cause the people who discovered them thought that they were dancing... others think they are swimming, or are sacrificial victims, or deformed creatures. They are pretty sweet whatever they are, and its cool cause i remember sitting in Mrs shueys spanish 1 class and thinking that it would be so cool to see those. we did a bit of shopping at the market and then got back on the bus to go to the city of oaxaca (oh hak ka) we went to santo domingo... a large convent with an awesome museaum of pre and post conquest artifacts. we went to lunch, went to another touristy market, and managed to find the real market, which was awesome. thry had everything in there, fruit, veggies, huge hunks of meat just hanging infront of your face. CHEESE! oaxaca cheese is amazing. or and grasshoppers. which we got to try at lunch. they are kinda... salty and chewy and... weird. but they are a delicacy here i guess *shrug* the market also had a bunch of leatherwork, pots, flowers, clothes, shoes, jewelry and i dont even know what else. we kept on turning down isle and being like "i think we've seen everything" and then realizing that we were in a completely new place. it waspretty incredible. then we went to a chocolate factory where they made chocolate right in front of uyou and to the zocolo where there was a dance going on. we got to try some mezcla, alcohol made from agave and then went to dinner, where i ate a lot of guacamole. then i crashed. when i woke up in the morning i felt awful, and so did alan. we went to get breakfast (chiliquiles...yum!) and then went on a series of short stops that i can hardly remember(funny how not being able to breath through your nose does that) but i know we saw this sweet little organ that sounds incredible and has been restored almost exactly to is 16th century state. its pretty awesome, the only other thing that i really remember is going to see how oaxacan black pottery is made. this man (who apparently is faous for his work) gave us a demonstration, and it was realy pretty ncredible. they had no wheels in prehispanic mexico... but they did have plates, and he put one face down with another the opposite way on top of it, so that the bottoms could spin together and made his own potting wheel. there wasso much stuff to buy!! i managed to keep myself mostly in line. :) the ride home was fairly uneventful... except jess and i haveing a bonding experiance over a bathroom with no door and a need of toilet paper :) alll good stuff. but by the time we got home i was feeling really sick. i tried to take a hot shower but the house ran out of gas so we had no way to heat the water. so i just wrapped up as well as i could and struggled through homework (that,,, by the way my teacher never collected *mad face*) before just going to bed with as many blankets as i could. i felt better when i woke up... thank goodness... but i still cant breathe. ah well cest la vie! i should probably go and actually do homework... :)

Ah! another sucsessful casa verde night! tonight instead of worship we had open mic... and let me tell you, it was a good time. We kicked off the night with a lovely rendition of "hey mickey!" by non other than amanda, hannah, jen and myself. I had learned the coreography an hour before and still didnt know the words. Good thing we were lip syncing. :) anyways... i got to make a lovelty fool of myself showing off all the cheerleader moves that i knew. which is none. which means that i made it up. But apparently we were funny, which is all that matters. Several of my favorite peoples sang... including a farid/juan band, chris,liz and jonathon singing white and nerdy. Wes, and kami and elizabeth, both with a hartmelting rendition f "i will always love you" and an interpretive dance to the lyrics time after time. They were brethtaking. Amanda sang "you were meant for me" and i accompnied her, following up with my own, the first melissa ford original, "better days". If you havent heard this song, dont be ofended, because almost no one has heard it. I have no idea why i sang it tonight, and i was shaking for like 3 minutes afterwards. I messed up a few times... but overall it went over pretty well... so i'm ok with it. anyways.... the night was way fun, and i cant wait for more casa verde tomorrow!
in other news....
I'm done with my homework!
*mad laughter and run away*

1. I am dropping out of school to save the little children soldiers in Africa
2. I got to see blood diamond the other night... it was good. and convinced me to drop out of school to save the little children soldiers in africa
3. my hair is a huge mess
4. This is because i just dressed up like scary spice for the Casa Verde oscar party. Amanda was posh, leah baby, anni ginger, and krista sporty. it was a good time
5. my feet hurt because of the shoes worn for the above stated
6. i still have homework to do. and i really want to sleep
7. Sleep would probably be a good idea, because i've been hacking up a lung for the last 4 days.
8. I need to get rid of this cough within the week. BECAUSE ALAN IS COMING IN 8 DAYS!!!!

the end

DONT PANIC! this is not as scary as it sounds! Let me explain. There is this place on campus called Casa Verde, the green house... it is a youth group thing run by young people in the school and occasionally attended by pastors from around town and such. It is filled with simply wonderful people, both Mexican and International who love to have good clean fun :) so every tuesday there is worship, followed by free food. and on wednesdays is Meircomida... which is free food delivered with a short message. Good times for all. They also have random parties... movie showings... trips and open mics, it has quickly become one of my favorite places on campus. anyways... last week was Valentines day... and Casa verde had a party to celebrate. There was food and music, a cupid runing around handing out valentines, a spot to get your pic taken (which was then photoshoped into greece, paris, hawaii etc) and to top it off, a place to get married! I was planing on marrying my friend amanda, but she was whisked away from me by some kid named Juan, and so i married a kid named farid that i had just met. It was lovely, we vowed to love eachother and be more or less faithful for the rest of the party, then we exchanged twist-tie rings and got out picture taken (we decided on greece for the honeymoon) farid is lovely. He is from Vera Cruz, plays drums and his favorite disney movie is Cinderella. :D ***disclaimer: I AM STILL IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH ALAN... WE ARE CELEBRATING 6 MONTHES ON FRIDAY AND HE IS COMING TO SEE ME IN 12 DAYS! NOT THAT I'M EXCITED OR ANYTHING*** but anyways, i'm mentioning this now because i just got back from casa verde where i got to hang out with him, Juan and a couple other people. I feel like i have finally made Mexican friends! YAAAAY! His english is very good and he likes to practice but wants me to learn spanish so he is helping me out with that. Its all good. *sigh* yay friends!

So this weekend was our last trip to Mexico City, and this time we went around the Norhtern part. Our first stop was to the Basilica of Guadalupe... this is a story thats pretty important to Mexico, so i'll explain it for those who dont know it already. There was a peasent named Juan diego, who, in 1525 became one of the first Natives to be baptized. He had to walk a long way around and though mountians to get to mass... but he did it dutifully, and one day as he passed the hill of Tepeyacac, a woman appeared to him, told him in his native Aztec that she was the Virgin mary and that she wanted a temple built where she was standing. He took her request to the bishop person of the area, and although the bishop listened, he didn't believe Juan diego. On the way home the virgin spoke to him again and told him to try again the next day, which he did. The bihop again didn't believe him and asked for a sign. Juan diego was discouraged, and to make matters worse, when he got home he discovered that his uncle was deathly ill. Going to fetch a priest for last rights, juan diego tried to avoid the Virgin by going the other way around Tepeyacac, but it didnt work. as he was trying to explain to her why he wasn't back with the bishop trying to get the temple built, she told him that his uncle was cured (which he was) and then she told Juan diego to go back to where he hadfirst seen her... and pick the flowers there for the bishop. When he got up the mountian he found castillian roses, out of season and in infertle ground. He gathered them in his Tilma (the rough cloth that Aztecmen wore tied around one shoulder) and presented them to the bishop. When he let the roses fall to the ground the tilma miraculously had the impression of the Virgin on it. and the bishop imeaditely commisioned a chapel to be built. Several more have been built since then, including presently a very modern basilica with a moving walkway below and behind the alter where tourists (me!) can see the tilma wothout disturbing mass. It is still very bright and supposedly has endured many years of kissing and toughing from pilgrims and a bomb that bent in half the crucifix that was placed below it. It is very important to Mexico in general, because at a time when they were horribly persecuted by the spaniards (it still is somtimes considered somewhat shameful to have aztec as opposed to spanish roots) the virgin appeard to one of them... and spoke in their own language, in a way blessing them. Anyways, there are several chapels and gardens all focused ont he virgin and we spent a good amount of time wandering around the plaza there.
the next stop was Tlaltelolco, which is a really cool place because there are ancient ruins (most likly the sever layers of a GIANT pyrimid) a conquest era, church and the very modern Mexico City surrounding it. We went to the Zocalo of Mexico City and went to the National Palace, the National Cathedral and the templo Meyor (only sidetracked for a few minutes by some AMAZING break dance/beat boxers lol) The national Palace has murals by diego rivera all over the second floor, so most of what we did was check those out, followed by a short detour to a little garden. Then we headed to the national cathedral with was pretty... but really nothing special. The Templo Meyor was pretty awesome... excepting the fact that some dipwad thought that it would be a good idea to put in a sewage line on top of it. it's now been turned into a walkway, but its still kinda wierd to see this brick tube cutting through an ancient temple. The museam there was pretty sweet as well. We went back to the hotel and prompty crashed. My entire room slept for an hour and a half before draging ourselves to get food at 8 30. I bought myself cheap valentines chocolates :D We watched the 5th element in spanish and read glamour until we fell asleep. TODAY.... we got to go to the ZOOOOOOOO! i was super excited. we saw pandas and elephants and zebras and giraffes and monkeys (lots of monkeys) and a black panther and a panther that looked like a lepord and a tiger and a white tiger and gorillas and another bear and a skunk and deer (white tailed...for serious... i was like... i have these in my backyard..) and yaks and buffalo and kangaroos and polar bears and peguins and tucans and a sloth and we had mcdonalds for lunch. *deep breath* it was fun... i like zoos :) We wenr to the museum of anthropology which is HUGE and got to see lots of bones and asorted artifacts (lots of jewelry) one thing that was really cool was the various diaramas that they had, of neanderthals birthing, killing mamoths planting food etc. And they also had a pretty sweet Mayan exibit that we hung out in because we are focusing more on the aztecs... so we wont see that stuff in real life. We realized how tired we were when i started to growl at the stone Jaguar and couldnt stop saying really really stupid things, including "huh?" when three 10 year old girls asked me what language i spoke. after that anni, amanda (hereafter called panda pants) and i bumped into them quite frequently and asked various "como se dice...?" (how do you say...?) questions, which were rather amusing. after that we went shoping (i bought a rather gorgeous and cheap ring inthe shape of a hand) and then promptly fell asleep on teh bus for three hours before landing back here. *whew* pictures are uploaded... journal is updated... i'm runing out of excuses to not do homework! aahhhhhhhhhhhhh!