knit in love.

Pattiann Rogers, I Hear and Behold God in Every Object.

yup, the end. that’s it, that’s all, hasta luego mexico.

i leave tomorrow and i am stoked. the time i had here is over and done. i learned A TON. i’m not sure what life will be like when i get back. our teacher says everything will be so different, nobody will care about your stories as much as you do, you won’t feel at home, blah blah blah. however, i prefer to take a more positive perspective. i realize that time did not stop when i was here. but i also KNOW that a lot of you who read this dumb thing have kept up with me all semester, as i have so happily kept up with you, and i want to thank you all for doing so and say i am thankful that our friendships will continue to grow when we are with one another in person.

(kinda awkward to affirm people without saying their names on my public blog, h8rs gon h8)

enjoy some final week pics:

[me at the fair with a horse with pretty braids, i look cross-eyed/blind?]

[megann, emily, and i after giving a speech to finish our art class— how does displaying your art in an art gallery for a final sound?]

[christmas tree o christmas tree]

[i graduated?]

[the westmont kids in “3rd year” spanish with our amazing and inspirational teacher veronica]

[my senora..]

[i went to a 3rd year old bday party— missin the kids]

my dear friend saph made a list of things she is excited for and things she will miss. i’m about to do the same.

EXCITED FOR:

1. free water at restaurants

2. not having to turn on the hot water and wait 30 minutes for a warm shower

3. my clothes NOT falling apart

4. my shoes NOT being destroyed

5. my amazing friends, family, and boyfriend

6. not being whistled/yelled/stared at because i have palER skin.. 

7. driving

8. the beach

GOING TO MISS:

1. food being super cheap and your money going further

2. the centro and the mercado

3. $4 movies

4. the teachers i had here

5. homemade comida everyday

7. walking everywhere, things being within walking distance

8. it being normal to speak spanish

that’s all for now folks, talk to you and see your lovely faces very very soon.

xoxo

See you in a week, America.

so i heard lots of rumors that mexico was the second or third biggest city in the world. i could believe that. i thought LA was big and a pain to drive through, but mexico city was much worse. let me give you some info about this place. it was built on top of a lake. i can’t exactly explain to you how it works, but basically it’s resting on a lake bed. every year it sinks 1 centimeter, and you can tell when you look at historic buildings and some of them are slanted or just sunken. example:

now here’s some pictures to help tell the story of my trip:

tenochtitlan. capital of the ancient aztec empire. built on lake texcoco. huge pyramida and ruins leftover… pretty awesome! and it rained a little when we were there.. not prepared.

palacio nacional. a few blocks from our hotel, this famous important governmental building contained some wonderful murals painted by the oh so famous diego rivera.

castle of maximillian the hapsburg. he was a relative of napoleon sent to rule over mexico. he was actually tricked into doing it by the conservatives(i think) at the time because they sent him a document containing a couple thousand signatures saying they wanted him to come over. he had no idea what he was getting into when he arrived. but thankfully he brought all things european, including his castle, with him to ease the transition.. then he was shot at cerro de las campanas.. which is either right next to or part of my school in queretaro. sweet history lesson huh?

we went to the zoo. this picture isn’t supposed to be about me, it was supposed to be about the panda. but he/she was so sleepy and lazy you can hardly see him/her in the background. anyways the zoo was packed with people and children on leashes. my mom told me there is reasons for that, i mean you don’t wanna lose your child at the zoo packed full of thousands of people. i still find it comical.

we took the metro there. cost us 5 pesos total. which is like 40 cents. sweet deal. super crowded and fast, but we did it!

above is my dear amigo justin and i about enjoy our extremely fancy dinner. and below is all the girls before we entered the auditorium to watch the beautiful ballet folklorico! it was a delightful performance, and a nice excuse to dress up. it was held in the palacio de bellas artes, a truly bella place.

our last day consisted of some of the coolest things ever. we went to the somaya museum, named after carlos slim’s wife, the richest man in the entire world right now. it held pieces by monet, dali(statue above), picasso, renoir, dega, i could go on. it was impressive.

we headed over to enjoy comida on these bright boats in xochimilco, where the floating gardens used to be. i can’t explain the gardens really, so if you really care type “chinampas” into google.

so i have 10 days left here. how exciting is that? time to write my final papers and do my final presentations.. a breeze compared to westmont finals. xoxo love you all lots and thank you for reading my blog for these past 4 months abroad!

this weekend a few ladies and i headed to a cabin in the middle of nowhere to relax and breathe some fresh air. we’d all been missing nature, pretty much the whole time, cause if you didn’t know, we live in a city right now. we took a taxi with a nice man who sang along to the music and thank the Lord, found the place after asking a few locals and traveling down a rocky road. we arrived at noon, check in is at 3pm. luckily we were one of two groups staying in the cabins (there’s 6) and so the lady graciously let us check in early! for the next few hours, we went into solo time mode, and enjoyed the stillness. i couldn’t help but think of psalm 46:10 when it says be still and know that I am God. the quiet i experienced looking out on the lake and the mountains surrounding me, was the stillness God asks of us. to just chill out and trust. we stayed in a modern version of the tents at Adventure Mountain, it made me feel many emotions but here are some pictures:

notice the sheep below?

have i ever mentioned i don’t really like jumping pictures? i mean they’re fun.. they just don’t ever really work out.

corn fields.

four days from now i head off to mexico city.. pray for me.. xoxo love you all very much!!

captions above, photos below. too much happened for me to give you a boring summary. i’ll let the photos and captions be enough this time..

halloween party. i was a panda, the love of my life.

monte alban. an archaeological site hosting the ruins of one of the earliest cities in mesoamerica.

a super flashy picture of me near one of the the many beautiful churches in oaxaca.

oaxaca chocolate is different. i’m not sure why, i like it though. i’m bringing some home for you mom dad and sis. this is a famous place where they make boatloads of it and people come from far and wide to get some.

esther and i at petrified waterfall. you can see it in the background. it took a nice long drive up a mountain on a dirt road in the back of a truck to get here..

mitla, another archaeological site near oaxaca. people used to live in those things and constructed them by moving and cutting rocks without machines..

a super unflattering picture of myself next to a HUGE and obviously old tree.

pictures from the night we went to the pantheon/cemetary in oaxaca. day of the dead is a notoriously mexican holiday, and their perspective on death and life is much different than that of most americans. they bring mariachis, food, drink, etc to their deceased family member’s graves and celebrate and remember their lives.

my dear friend justin and i in a town called cholula. yes, one exists. and i don’t think they make the hot sauce. there’s a volcano in the background in that picture. but the spaniards came and built a giant Catholic church on top of some indigenous made pyramids. typical spaniards.

we went to another pantheon/cemetary. more mariachis, food, drink, but this time we saw people redigging graves and arranging the flowers and other decorations for their loved ones.

all over mexico there is gorgeous pottery. one specific pretty well known kind is talavera. real talavera only comes from puebla, a city we visited. our teacher asked if anyone wanted to go to a place where they made talavera and i jumped on that.

i went to many thing making places. blanket making, rug making, pottery making. i realized how much harder it is to make things by hand than it is to make things by machine. the sad thing is that people take hours to make products that they sell for less than $10. the good thing is that because it is their job, they get pretty efficient at making their products.

in case you were wondering, i bought 80% of my christmas presents on this trip and a whole new duffel bag to hold everything in. as much as i do love traveling and shopping and sightseeing and riding in a bus, i am glad to be back in Queretaro for 2 weeks before i go off to Mexico City. (after that is 2 more weeks and HOME.)

thank you for all your thoughts and prayers and always caring about how i am doing as i am away! i’ve got but a month left here in mexico and i can’t wait to come home and share stories. much love!

oh and ps: long live fanny packs.. two others have joined me:)

Hebrews 12:12-15

came home from Oaxca and Puebla to a package from my mother complete with the candy i was missing, the sunglasses i thought i lost at LAX back in august, the parent trap dvd (my favorite of all time), and other useful goodies. i love her. and i will write about my adventures from the past week of Dia de Los Muertos celebrations and much more very soon. but not today, i have class in the morning…

Christmas is in 2 months everyone. Weird.

i went to a lucha libre this week. it was a combo of (mexican) comedy, gymnastics, and fighting. i couldn’t take them seriously, but of course i don’t think they take themselves that seriously either. i wasn’t dying to go, but for 75 pesos (about 7 bucks), why not? an evening of entertainment. and when am i gonna be able to go to a lucha libre again? oh and by the way, i’ve embraced the “take all chances to go to cultural events because you only have x amount of days left” mentality. it’s been a good decision.

i went to an interactive opera in plaza de armas. basically a singer would sing a song, and the crowd that wasn’t sitting on benches would follow them around. they’d stop singing and a spotlight would appear on another side of the plaza and the crowd would move again. i have no pictures, but i have the beautiful memory in my head. (america, you need to get on these free entertainment things)

i went to a comedy version of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Imagine Shakespeare in Spanish. It’s difficult enough in English! we ate ham, bread, and cheese and drank some juicy sangria and enjoyed the show. my favorite part was the spiderwoman who climbed up into a ring that was hanging from the ceiling and did all sorts of acrobatic tricks on it.

this saturday, our group sets off for Oaxaca! here’s a map. so you can finally visualize where i am (queretaro). Oaxaca is the 2nd most popular spot for Dia de Los Muertos and we are going there during the whole week of the festivities!

i don’t have much to say this week, other than i ate a lot of good food?