Reuben y yo

Pulque (P.S. I did NOT drink that entire thing)

Castillo de Chapultepec - Que bonito!

Economics museum

The kids at Universidad de la Comunicacion are so artsy! This is a display of some of their projects.

It's been a CRAZY week. The first half was really just studying and tests. REALLY that's all it was. We had two exams on Wednesday. The first was on the Mexica and all of their gods and such, and it was three hours of writing. The second was on business culture in Mexico. We were all exhausted after our tests, so we just did relaxing things. Peri and I went to Condesa to a store called The Green Corner. I LOVE going to organic food stores, and I got gluten-free bread (yay!) so it was a good day! Later, we watched Como Agua Para Chocolate for an assignment for class. I have to say that it's one of the better assignments we've had. I highly recommend this movie :)

Thursday was more class and more school work because I had a presentation on Friday. We also went to a really neat museum about Mexico's economy. It was geared toward kids, but that was a good thing for me because my Spanish is about at that level!

We went to a Tortilleria first thing on Friday morning. I don't want to go into too many details, but it wasn't my favorite part of the trip. At least I got a free tortilla out of the deal!

The next part of Friday WAS my favorite part of the trip - Castillo de Chapultepec. The castle was beautiful, and it was a perfectly sunny day. Castillo de Chapultepec has been the home of Maximiliano de Hapsburg, Porfirio Diaz, and other Mexican presidents/leaders. Now, it's a museum full of interesting artifacts from Mexico's history and massive murals and paintings of Benito Juarez, the revolution, and more. My presentation, which took place here, was on El Porfiriato (the era of Porfirio Diaz's reign). My partner and I took the class through his room, his study, his wife's room, and his gorgeous rooftop garden. I would absolutely love to live in that house.

That evening, almost everyone in the class went to a pulqueria with David, a guy who has helped with the Mexico LBAT for the past 5 years and who is dearly beloved by our teacher as well as all of the students on the trip this year and, probably, every student from years past. He's just great. Anyway, a pulqueria is a bar where they serve pulque, a Mexican drink made from the maguey (agave) plant. It's kind of slimy, but so was the pulqueria. Not to mention the people inside. There were quite a few borrachos (drunkards) who just wouldn't leave us alone. It was a an interesting look into another side of Mexican culture, but I won't be going again.

After the pulqueria was Lucha Libre! What is Lucha Libre? Directly translated, it's "free fight," which to me sounded an awful lot like Fight Club. But it was wrestling. Really, really theatrical wrestling. Which translates directly into, in my opinion, tons of fun! Lucha Libre is a popular event in Mexico, and vendors outside sell masks like the ones the wrestlers wear (which parents of small children and gringo boys happily purchase). There were also four extremely vulgar guys from London sitting behind us. They had been traveling all around South America for the past 3 months. I'm totally jealous!

Yesterday (Saturday), we went to a small town outside of the city to make crafts with kids. I love working with kids, and I love speaking Spanish with kids - they're so forgiving! We made puppets out of cardboard and painted them. I made an oveja (sheep). It was a very long day, and all I wanted to do when I got back was rest. I wanted to do something fun (it was Saturday night, after all), so two of my friends and I went to see Iron Man 2 at the Cinemex at Plaza Insurgentes right down the street. It was only $61 pesos (around $5 US), and it was really relaxing.

Today, I went with seven of my classmates to the zoo. It was absolutely packed because admission is free every Sunday, but it was still a lot of fun. We saw lots of animals (many that I've never seen before), and LOTS of kids on leashes, including one girl who looked to be about 12 years old. After the zoo, we went souvenir shopping at Ciudadela, which is kind of like a mall of souvenir shops squished into a relatively tight space. No one did much buying because we were just so tired from the zoo and the heat.

It was so nice to have such a fun-filled weekend. I'm loving Mexico City more and more by the day and really getting to know my way around. I can't wait to see what this week will bring!