During February 2007 I took four weeks of lessons at the Spanish Institute of Puebla. I then traveled around Mexico for two weeks in March to practice what I learned, see the sites, and enjoy the warm weather. Following is a day by day accounting of my experiences on the trip.
Note that you will find a collection of trip photos at
http://picasaweb.google.com/royyem/Mexico2007
Put your mouse over any one to see the caption, or double-click to view it in a large format (recommended). You can also view all the photos as a slide show.
To play the videos later in this blog, click twice on the arrow below the image. Due to a YouTube incompatibility with my camera's file formats the videos had be converted to lower-resolution .mpg files :-(. Some day I hope you can see the originals.
You will encounter several maps like the one below in various formats. If one is off-center you can move it by dragging your mouse. You can zoom in and out by clicking the + and - in the upper-left. Also, you can click in the "Map|Sat|Ter" boxes in the upper-right to alter your view.
View Larger Map
I eagerly anticipated my journey but the days before I left were quite intense. I seemed to spend all my time doing things that absolutely had to get done prior to my Saturday departure.
2/1-Thurs
Today I got a call from a company called Unica in Waltham. Can I come in for an interview Friday? Can I prepare a 30 minute presentation? Well, there goes Thursday afternoon…
2/2 - Fri
I delivered the presentation to Unica. It went quite well and they subsequently said they’d like to pursue my candidacy for a training position...if we can do that while I’m in Mexico. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time for the actual interview....we know very little about each other. I did look over a Student Guide and it appears to be something I can teach. I’ll have to learn more about databases and SQL, however.
I had only a few hours to pack before having to drive to Northampton, to bring the cats to Ingrid. As I arrived it began to snow, and I had to drive home in a blinding blizzard. It was the hardest drive I’ve taken in many years, very slow and requiring tremendous concentration. I arrived home exhausted and stayed up until 2 AM packing.
2/3 – Sat
Got up early and drove Maggie to the home where she’ll be staying. I felt very sad and nearly cried on the way, but when she excitedly played in the snow with the 2 girls, I knew she was going to have a wonderful visit. After all, SHE didn’t know I’m leaving her for 6 weeks!
As always, I finally finished everything and Alexandra drove me to the airport for a fond farewell. The trip from D.C. to Mexico City was very slow due to 250 mph head winds (that’s what they said) – it took 90 min just to get to Atlanta. My plan was to catch the last (11:30) bus to Puebla, but the hour + delay meant I would miss it. So I began asking about airport hotels. As it turned out there was an unscheduled 11:59 bus, which I made with 10 minutes to spare. Puebla is about 2 hours Southeast of Mexico City.
In Mexico City I called the school and they said my host family would meet me at the airport with a school sign. I was expecting a husband and wife but when I arrived I was sort of met by 2 women, 70-ish and 30-ish, with no sign. It took a long time and a phone call to determine that they were indeed my host family (anfitrionas). I subsequently learned that at 4:30 on the Friday before my arrival, the woman who was staying with my original anfitrionas reported that they didn’t have a refrigerator. So they moved me. Finally got to bed around 3 AM (Central time), and it took a couple of days to catch up on my sleep. What a start!
2/4 - Sun
Day 1 was quite difficult as I could barely communicate with my anfitriona,
Maria Teresa (aka Teres). The other lady, Gabrielle, is her niece. After a slow morning we all went to lunch, then to Gabrielle’s house to watch the Super Bowl. But we were 3 or 4 hours early. I played with her 2 niños, watched TV and took a walk...quite boring and I was SO tired.
Muy interesante watching the Super Bowl in Spanish, although I missed all of the fun commercials. In case you’ve forgotten, Los Potros defeated Los Osos!
2/5 - Mon
My first day of school. After a morning’s introduction we were given a Spanish test: twenty multiple choice questions and an essay. I think I got 3 right, but they saw fit to put me into Level 2, advanced beginner. I’m in the largest class, with
5 students. There are less than 20 students total and, surprise, most are my age or older. One of my classmates, Joseph, is sharing Theresa’s house with me. We’re in the only “double up” situation, undoubtedly because of the problem with my original hosts.

My fellow students are here for a variety of reasons: Joseph has apple orchards in New Mexico and employs Mexican labor. Bill is from Canada and like me just wants to learn Spanish. Rogelio is in a religious order and has been living in Mexico for 3 years, but hasn’t learned Spanish well. Jamie discovered Jesus and just moved here on a mission to spread the word. The latter two will be back for more courses.
Each day we have class from 9 to 1. Lunch lasts from 1 to 2:30, with choice of a specific Mexican (owned by a Canadian!) or a Vegetarian restaurant. Both are very good, although I have little idea what I’m eating. Today we had a mushroom soup, a vegetable stew, chicken wings in some kind of barbecue sauce, rice, pasta, and salad. As it turned out we went to the Mexican restaurant almost every day, and there was enough variety that I never tired of it.
At 2:30 I go to el Zócalo, a public square at the center of every town. There I meet my guide and spend 2 hours walking around the city and talking solely in Spanish. Most of the guides are college students. This week my guide is Carlos, who’s an architecture student. He knows so much about the various buildings and their history, it’s fascinating. It’s suggested that we go to various cultural sites, and one day we toured a library that housed antique books. But most days we just walk around the city and chat.
Once back at school I usually read my emails. I can then either take the 10 minute bus ride or walk a half hour back to the house. Then I do my homework, which typically takes 30 to 40 minutes. Somewhere in between we have dinner, which tends to be something fairly light. And by the time I’m done with all that my head is too full to learn vocabulary. Instead, I might spend a half hour reading something in English before going to bed around 10. It’s a loooong day.
2/6 - Tues
I really like my instructor (maestra), Claudia. She understands and speaks English pretty well but talks almost exclusively in Spanish. Although she often talks quite quickly, she enunciates well and is easy to understand. She says everything three ways and slows down when necessary.
The lessons are quite interesting and varied. We begin each day by going over the homework for 20 to 30 minutes. Afterwards she might explain a new topic, such as how to conjugate in a new tense. She’ll then hand out a sheet with 2 dozen sentences that are missing the conjugated verbs. We’ll fill them in then read the sentences aloud.
We then engage in a wide variety of exercises. She’ll hand out sheets of pictures which we’ll describe to a partner or have a conversation about. We’ll listen to a dialog or song, or read a story, then answer questions about it. Some days we’ll go to the sunny balcony and play a word game. Breaking up the session into different activities really helps to keep it interesting.
We were given quite a few books. There’s a textbook and a workbook that we use for both lessons and homework, and we get additional handouts each day. We have an excellent student Spanish dictionary that provides often understandable examples of word usage. It also tells you where to find verb conjugations in the indispensable conjugation book.
Prior to coming I was told I wouldn’t need a Spanish-English dictionary, but that was obviously wrong. I bought one and use it all the time when I want to know the Spanish version of an English word. When I go the other way I usually look it up in the Spanish dictionary first to see if I can figure it out.
Add to those my class notebook and the little notebook for recording new words when walking with my guide, and I’m glad I have a knapsack. Oh, it’s a new knapsack I bought from my chiropractor that has an air tube at the bottom to take the weight off my back; it’s fabulous.
2/7 – Weds
Today’s Jamie’s birthday. We all gathered and sang…what? It sure wasn’t “Happy birthday”. It went on forever and I didn’t understand the words they handed out.
After lunch we took a class trip to the nearby town of Cholula. We first visited two of the most baroque, ornate and intriguing churches I’ve ever seen, one Spanish and one Indian.
We then visited one of the world’s largest pyramids, but didn’t get to see much of it. One pyramid was built on top of another, the whole thing was covered by earth, and a church was subsequently built on top! It wasn’t until the 1930s that the pyramid was discovered. We walked one of the tunnels that went through it but there wasn’t all that much to see. Still, I found its existence to be pretty amazing.
I was disappointed that the guide spoke only Spanish. I didn’t really learn as much as I wanted about any of these sites.
2/8 – Thurs
This morning we visited the Volkswagen plant. VW is the biggest employer in Puebla and I think this is the biggest auto factory in the Americas. We were greeted at the gate by 2 6-foot frauleins with straight blond hair practically down to their very short skirts – quite a shock after a week seeing only short, dark, round Mexicans.
The tour was more interesting than I thought, and I was glad I asked one of the women to translate the tour guide’s comments into English. It felt like cheating but I got a lot more from the tour. I asked her if this was the biggest VW factory and she replied, “No, my father works at one in Germany that’s bigger than Monaco!” Weeks later we concluded that the VW plant was probably the reason why so many of our guides were learning German in school.
During breaks and after class I try to keep up with my email and write this blog. I expected to find additional characters on the keyboard but was unprepared for how really different the keyboards are down here…it makes typing an email extremely laborious. Among the most dramatic differences:
· Characters like : and – are on the bottom row. Worse, ? is on the top row and all special characters are moved left one position.
· The character, ñ, is to the right of L, and beyond that is the accent mark, ´. It doesn’t print until you hit the next key so that it goes over the correct character. Unfortunately, I typically hit that instead of Enter, which is farther right than I’m used to. So I think I’m hitting Enter, nothing happens, then the next character gets an accent and I have to undo everything!
· In the U.S., the upper case of a number key is a special character. In Mexico, each number key has two special characters. One is typed as in the U.S., by pressing the Shift key. The other is typed by pressing a totally different key, called Alt Gr, located next to the space bar. I need to press this key to access such special characters as @ and #.
2/9 – Fri
After the first couple of days I didn’t see Theresa’s niece Gabriele again until my last day. Two other nieces, who are going to med school in Puebla, live in Theresa’s house during the week. We almost never see them and they never try to talk to Joseph or me. Thus, we don’t have a family situation, which is too bad.
Theresa has a weird work schedule – 10 to 1, 4 to 8, and uses a good chunk of the time in between on a long commute. It seems crazy to me, but isn’t uncommon here.
Each night Gabrielle’s friend Rosalba comes over and cooks our dinner…we never learned what that deal was. Dinner tends to be fairly light – tuna fish, or fried ham and tortillas. I had to lobby to add veggies.
The dynamic is interesting. Rosalba sits (or, at times when she is there to fix a meal, Theresa stands) and watches while we eat. If there’s anything we need she hops right up and gets it. Very “traditional” and it makes Joseph and me a bit uncomfortable. Once, when we had to delay our dinner I told Rosalba I’d cook it myself, but she couldn’t handle that!
Aside: the gender roles are very ingrained here. For example, men who work in dangerous or extremely noisy factories tend to not wear protection…it just isn’t macho. Also, the school director Antonio says he can’t hire male teachers because they keep hitting on the female students.
Rosalba is in eighth year English and teaching middle school English (which is hard to believe considering how little she speaks!). A couple of times per week we help her with her English homework and it is HARD! They’re teaching her a very formal and convoluted way of speaking. I’d say, “No one talks like this!” and she’d reply, “But that’s the assignment.” So Joseph and I try to figure out the best answers to the questions. It’s very peculiar though.
Tonight we went to dinner with Rosalba and her boyfriend Dario. He’s really nice, speaks great English, and we had a good time. When we got the bill there was an added charge of 1.5 pesos. I inquired what for and was told that there’s an extra charge on diet drinks (“Coca light”) as opposed to regular Coke. Never found out why. Weird.
2/10 – Sat
I spent today wandering around Puebla and getting to know the city…it really comes alive on weekends. Hundreds of people walking the streets, zillions of street vendors selling:

Food - which I’d better not eat
Clothes - many American knockoffs
Toys - really cheap plastics, which I suppose is what they can afford. Balloons and blowing bubbles are hot items. Many Disney characters, Spiderman, etc.
CDs and DVDs – All CD’s are $1, homemade .mp3s. Although I’ve seen kids with all kinds of rock shirts, the only non-Latin group I’ve seen is The Beatles - they are incredibly popular here.
Homemade crafts – none of which inspired me to purchase.
I wanted to go with classmates to my first bullfight tonight but they had an all-star bullfighter and it sold out. So instead we went to the Cultural Center to see a free Mexican folkdance show. Very colorful costumes. For one dance all the dancers chose audience members as partners and a “sweet young thing” invited me! I wish I’d had the presence of mind to give somebody my camera…Oh well, I guess I can’t record *everything*! Afterwards I attempted to find the local nightlife but, except for numerous couples making out on the Zócalo benches (lovers are not shy in Mexico), there was nothing doing. Carlos later told me that Puebla is a very conservative city.
It’s also huge. The sign as you enter town states there are a million people, but people say there’s actually 3-4 million. It’s very traffic-y and people drive like crazy. Don’t jaywalk because they don’t stop! Bus drivers start up as soon as the last person has a foot inside the door (although they usually pick you up even if you aren’t at the bus stop). And I like that the traffic lights flash fast green for several seconds before the brief yellow.
Except for the area around the Zócalo, I don’t find Puebla to be as pretty as other Mexican cities. It doesn’t have much to offer for tourists and there aren’t many…which makes it a perfect place to learn Spanish!
2/11 – Sun
When I first got to Puebla it was very cold, and there’s no heat in any of the buildings. But it gradually warmed up through the week and I spent this morning outside, shirtless, studying my Spanish. I am very fortunate that the t-shirt and shorts weather remained for the duration of my trip, and I never again got to use the jacket, fleece, and long-sleeve shirts I was instructed to bring with me. Sunny and dry every day, pleasantly cool at night, I could not have had better weather.
While I’m thinking of it, they have the weirdest blankets here. In several places I slept the blankets had a braided, 3” fringe all around which I found very annoying – the braids would poke my eye or go up my nose, and I had to wrap my sheet around them as best as I could. The water in Puebla is different too: very hard. I can’t even get suds from Dove soap.
This afternoon Jamie and I attempted to play tennis at the local club. What a joke. The court was an incredibly hard concrete that quickly wore out the balls and our shoes. It imparted a forward spin to the balls so that they’d shoot ahead and bounce really high. We had fun running around in the sun, but it sure was schoolyard hacker tennis.
2/11 – Mon
I can’t believe how sleepy I am. I’ve been going to bed at 10 and getting up at 7:15 and still feel like I need more sleep. I guess thinking is wearying. I should try to do less of it!
My guide this week is Waldo, who led the excursion to Cholula. He’s working on his PhD in history, specializing in Mexican Indian culture, and is a wealth of knowledge. Unfortunately, he’s not especially forthcoming as a guide or outgoing as a person. He’s a nice guy though and we did have some good conversations. I decided it’s a good week to visit historical sites.
Today we visited Museo Amparo, Puebla’s jewel and one of the top anthropological museums in the world. An early room had huge reproductions of cave drawings from France, Utah, Australia, Norway, and Mexico, showing how similar these drawings were around the world.
Another room had a timeline (I bought a poster) across 5 continents between 2400 B.C. and 1500 A.D. It’s fascinating to see that the birth of Buddha occurred at approximately the same time as Cleopatra’s reign, the creation of Venus de Milo, and the building of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan. And how recent the Egyptian pyramids were built compared to many of the objects in the museum.
The artifacts are of a type that would be familiar to you – figures of animals and people, utensils, bowls, jewelry, etc.

I found it remarkable how well done most were and that they were in excellent condition. I especially liked a prehistoric figure of a man thinking that could have been carved today, as well as dolls with moveable arms and legs.
The objects represented hundreds of civilizations leading up to the Mayas, the Aztecs, and then the Spanish. You could see from the art how the people moved from solitary, agrarian communities, to ones that began to trade and create societies, to the introduction of war, to the Spanish coming and killing everybody in the name of Jesus.... Having Waldo explain the history of each culture added immeasurably to the experience.
I also learned that the Celtics lost their 18th straight game. Glad I’m not home to witness that!
2/13 – Tues
Oboy. I woke today with an upset stomach and by the time I got to school I began having shivers. Carolina had that bug and it lasted a week (her friend said, “You give new meaning to ‘tossed salad’!”). The director gave me an antibiotic to take for 4 days and that cured it. But I’m constantly wary of what I’m eating.
Afternoon Waldo took me to the ex-Convento de Santa Rosa. The guide spoke so quickly I didn’t understand a word, and afterwards Waldo walked through it with me again and explained the important parts. It’s a fascinating place. The nuns would enter and never again have contact with the outside world. They grew most of their own food, and the Mother Superior would hand a shopping list through a slit in the door & someone would get them other items they needed. They’d literally wear a crown of thorns to bed so that they would sleep poorly and not have impure dreams about that other sex. Afterwards Carolina, who’s a retired nun, said that when she joined her order it wasn’t really all that different.
Once an ex-convent, Santa Rosa eventually became a textile and crafts center and is now a museum. It’s filled with sculpture, pottery, masks, clothing, and items for Festival and The Day of the Dead. Kind of like a follow-on to Museo Amparo. Artisans still sell home-made goods in the courtyard.
In the basement is a huge kitchen whose walls are paved with bright yellow Talevera tiles. Supposedly, this is where mole poblano (literally “stew from Puebla”) was invented. The local specialty, it’s chicken breast in a (non-sweet) chocolate sauce. Although far better than what I’ve had in Boston, it’ll never become my favorite dish. Coincidentally, we had it for lunch today!
2/14 – Weds
Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s a big holiday here. Guys give their novias bouquets of…balloons! Balloon vendors everywhere for the past few days and today I saw some women with 3 or 4 huge “bouquets”. Chocolate’s popular too. The school made us foam hearts and handed out heart-shaped lollipops and chocolate kisses. Lollipops are very popular here too. What’s not popular is cigarettes. I don’t remember ever being in a city with fewer smokers – maybe 10%. It’s wonderful. The citizens suck lollipops instead.
Aside – just before I left for Mexico I watched a boxing match in which the Latin boxer was famed for his entrances. On this night he entered on a horse wearing cowboy gear sucking on a lollipop. I can’t imagine Sonny Liston entering the ring with lollipop in mouth!
Today I had a sudden realization that Claudia had been talking non-stop for 3 or 4 minutes and I understood everything she said! Wow, was that a wonderful feeling.
Wednesday is tour afternoon but, unlike Cholula, the remaining 3 tours aren’t free. I decided to not go on them because I didn’t think I’d get that much from Waldo’s Spanish explanations. From student reports I made the right decision.
With Waldo gone, Carlos was my guide today. He took me to a part of Puebla I hadn’t seen and explained the architecture and the history of the area. It was fun and interesting.
2/15 – Thurs
Navigating Puebla’s Streets:
View Larger Map
Puebla has an interesting street organization. At the center of town, as in most Mexican towns, is El Zócalo - a tree-filled village green or Common. In Puebla it’s a block square in size and contains some old palm trees, lots of benches, and is a very active center of town.
The main north and south roads intersect at Zócalo and change their names when they do. I won’t tell you all their names or you’ll be more confused than you’re about to become! I spend most my time around Calle 16 de Septiembre, which runs south from Zócalo. Parallel to this street are the Calles, numbered 3, 5, 7... to the west of 16 de Septiembre and 2, 4, 6...to the east. My house is on 7 Sur, which is 3 blocks to the west of 16 de Septiembre and south of Zócalo.
Avenidas run east-west. To the north of Zócalo they’re numbered 2, 4, 6...; to the south they’re numbered 1, 3, 5.... Furthermore, to the east they’re named Oriente and to the west they’re named Poniente. I live off of 41 Poniente. This means that I’m 20 city blocks south of Zócalo and 3 long blocks west. My school is on 11 Oriente, 1/2 block from 16 de Septiembre. Thus, my walk to school is about 15 blocks north and 3 blocks east; it takes about 20 minutes at a good clip. Alternatively, I can take the bus for 30 cents…if it chooses to stop!
Straightforward, right? So why did it take until now for me to figure out my way around this place?
2/16 – Fri
Today Waldo took me to the Cultural Center to see a movie. It was hosted by his academic advisor and the movie’s director was there, so we had a most interesting conversation beforehand. Even better, it had English subtitles!
De Nadie is a documentary about the plight of illegal aliens…in Mexico. Mostly Hondurans, many of whom lost everything they owned in a hurricane (sound familiar?), they have to traverse Mexico to get to the “promised land”. Along the way they’re attacked, beaten, raped, and killed by either gangs or the police. A film-festival award winner, it was quite a harrowing movie to sit through.
Today in class we finished our discussion of direct and indirect pronouns. They say English is a funny language. Well, I’m learning that Spanish is too, as the following example shows. Skip to tomorrow’s entry if you know Spanish or aren’t interested in language structure.
Take the following sentence:
I eat ice cream in the kitchen.
“I” is the subject and “eat” is the verb.
“Ice cream” is the direct object and “kitchen” is the indirect object.
In Spanish we write the same sentence as follows¨:
Yo come helado en la cocina.
In English we can substitute pronouns for the actual words and say:
I eat it there.
The same is true in Spanish. We can replace the word “helado” (ice cream) with “lo” and “en la cocina” with “le”. But the pronouns come before the verb and in reverse order. Thus, the sentence would read:
Yo le lo come.
So when I want to say this sentence I have to ask myself “What are the direct and indirect objects, what are their pronouns, and where do they go?” Gee, that’s asking a bit much! But wait, there’s more.
It was decided that “le lo” doesn’t sound very good. So we replace “le” with “se”, giving us:
Yo se lo come.
Which basically translates to I there it eat.
One last thing. Let’s change the sentence to
I want to eat ice cream in the kitchen.
Now there are 2 verbs. One is conjugated (want) and the other is not (to eat). The Spanish version is
Yo quiero comer helado en la cocina.
Where “quiero” is “want” and “comer” is “to eat”.
I can rewrite this using pronouns as:
Yo se lo quiero comer.
When this structure occurs, you can simply take the pronouns and stick them on the end of the infinitive:
Yo quiero comerselo.
This translates to a slightly more familiar I want to eat there it.
Great in theory, but I despair at ever coming to grips with it in practice!
2/17 – Sat
Jamie and I went to play tennis again. All the courts were taken but two men asked us to play doubles. This was much more fun than the last outing…a more normal court for one thing. And pretty good competition. Plus, I learned words for lots of tennis terms, like deuce, ad in, wide, etc.
Afternoon I walked around Puebla again. Took lots of photos. Bought a fabulous bio magazine on Bob Dylan…in Spanish. I actually discovered it early last Saturday but didn’t want to carry it around all day. Then during the week I couldn’t find it again. Turns out, they only put it out on the weekends. What’s that all about?
In Spanish, “ice” is hielo and “ice cream” is helado. So why is “ice tea” te helado?
2/18 – Sun
Today we met at the school at 7:30 for a class trip to Teotihuacan, north of Mexico City. My alarm didn’t go off and Theresa awoke me at 7:00. During the night my watch decided to reset to midnight on January 1, 2000…but why did it choose today? Anyway, I was out the door in a flash and just made it on time.

Teotihuacan was perhaps the oldest Mexican civilization, circa 200 B.C., and it’s quite well-preserved (although much of the artwork has been moved to museums). It has two huge pyramids, the Temple of the Sun and Moon. Everyone warned me about how hard they are to climb, but I found them surprisingly easy…especially as compared to, say, Chichén Itzá. The quantity and quality of structures on the well-laid-out site is truly impressive.
Afterwards we went to Mexico City and visited Chapultepec. It’s a *huge* and pretty park with a lake for boating, museums, and lots & lots of vendors. Within the park is a very high hill that provides a 360 degree view of the entire city…at least what is visible through the smog.
Atop the hill is a fortress, el Bosque de Chapultepec, where Emperor Maximillian lived. During his reign he imported an amazing collection of furniture, tapestries, china, and artwork from France. The rooms are stunningly beautiful, albeit quite out of place for Mexico. It must have cost a fortune…no wonder he was executed!
Adjacent to the park are the famous anthropology museum and a couple of art museums. Lots to see when I return to Mexico City. There’s also the National Auditorium and I noticed that the day after my course finishes they’re hosting a Cold Play concert. Now that would be kind of fun to attend!
Finally, we drove to Mexico City’s enormous paved Zócalo. Visited the Cathedral and square, then wandered the streets. Got to watch the very formal military lowering of the gargantuan Mexican flag. As soon as the soldiers marched away some Aztec dancers “reclaimed” the square with drumming, dancing, and incense.
We returned home in the dark at the end of a very nice day. A few regrets though: Waldo was again our guide and I would have liked more English information at Teotihuacan. And more time…making 3 stops was too much. Also, in my haste, I forgot about hat and suntan lotion, and in the altitude I got quite the neck and nose burn…
2/19 – Mon
My new guide, Chava, is quite outgoing and flamboyant. He’s a language major and fun to talk to. Today we revisited Museo Amparo. But whereas Waldo explained everything in a serious, historical sense, Chava asked me lots of oddball questions like, “On the timeline, when would you like to live?” and “What do you think that figure is thinking?” That got me to use the language differently, and we had lots of laughs making fun of the various artifacts. Very different and irreverent.
I realized that I’m in danger of running out of money. I learned that many hotels and buses are “efectivo” – cash only! I have limited traveler’s checks, I left my bank cards at home, and I don’t have credit card pins because I never had to use them for cash. Not to mention that one credit card decided that my Mexico purchases could be from a stolen card and blocked its usage. I had to call the fraud dept. to reactivate it. In the future I’ll plan better. But for this emergency Antonio allowed me to write a check to the school and gave me cash. Whew!
2/20 – Tues
Truly amazing day, with an uncomfortable beginning. We were asked to sign a pledge that we’d speak only Spanish. I knew I couldn’t keep that pledge and felt out of integrity to sign it. I weaselled out by adding, “cuando es possible” - “whenever possible”!
After only an hour’s class we traveled to a town named Huejótzingo, about an hour away, to experience a traditional Carnival (Mardi Gras). Participants marched the streets wearing various bright, elaborate costumes and masks that mocked the Spanish and represented the various other cultures that have been in Mexico. Marching bands and drummers played truly horrible music.
On the way there we were all given earplugs and we quickly learned why. The overwhelming sensation was the sight, smell, and sound of guns being continually shot off. It was so very different and not a little unnerving, especially when one marcher spooked a horse.