Cooking Lesson and Lucha Libre

Dessert!

Friday during the day, we took our last test. It went well, and I finished in under four hours! That means that the first class for this program is now over. Hopefully I got an A! After that we went to a restaurant called La Fonda del Recuerda for a cooking lesson. We collectively made tortilla soup, chile relleno, nopal salad, flor de calabaza salad, and pears for dessert. I was on the dessert team, and it was such an amazing experience to cook with an amazing professional chef. His name is Leo and he is the son of one of the host moms here.

Our Pears

Final Product

Checking on the Pears

Flor de Calabaza Salad

Chef Leo: "Have you used a mixer like this before?" Pssht.

We boiled a mixture of water, sugar, orange peel, orange, and cinnamon sticks. We added wine and thyme once it had boiled. Then we put the pairs in and cooked them until they were "soft, and hard. A little bit crunchy." They cooked for about 20 minutes. Then we reduced the syrup and spooned it into the pears, and topped them with whipped cream. All of the food was fantastic, and Leo showed us the kitchen afterwards. It was so much fun!

My lovely group members

Cheese lover's heaven 

Homemade tortilla chips!

Margarita, asst. chef

Leo serving up the soup

Our meal!

Grown Men in Tights Doing Violent Acrobatics

We went to a lucha libre afterwards. If you've seen Nacho Libre...yeah. It was basically a big, staged fight between grown men in tights and masks. There were lots of flips and stuff and it was an experience. Not my favorite thing in the world, but I can say I saw it.

One of the wrestlers' masks fell off, and he wouldn't get up and show his face until he could get his mask back on. It was weird, since the guy who knocked him down (Rush) had his mask off the whole time. Turns out that there are some wrestlers who stay masked and people don't know their real name or what their face looks like. This guy, Thunder, has no info online. All I could find about him is that he's Australian.

Anyways, it was an exciting Friday followed by an even more exciting weekend. We went to Puebla, the town where the battle between the Mexicans and the French was fought, from which we get Cinco de Mayo, which isn't actually celebrated in Mexico. It was a blast, but between the test, the lucha, and the weekend away I know I'm way behind on my blogging. I will follow up with my post about Puebla either later tonight or tomorrow, but right now I already have to do some actual work for the next class, which starts tomorrow! 

Casa de los Refugiados

An excursion to the park

When we left for our excursion yesterday, we knew we were going to a "Casa de los Refugiados," but we didn't know where or what that meant, and we expected it to be a house with a lot of refugees and horribly sad.

A lot of immigrants actually try to come into mexico, and some of them are refugees. People have to leave their home country for various reasons, including political, class, race, or gender discrimination. Some of the immigrants coming through are trying to get to the US, but others are just trying to get out. Some stay for 2 weeks. Some stay for 30 years.

We walked to the Casa de los Refugiados. It turns out, the "casa" was little more than a small...I hesitate to say shack because it was very nicely kept, but it was very small for a house. The whole thing was one room with a table, a lot of chairs, some shelves of books, and other assorted educational and meeting related items within it. We had a guide named Timor who was from Germany and 20 years old, but he was pretty new to the job and seemed nervous to be speaking in front of a Spanish professor (his Spanish was about the level ours is). 

The Casa de los Refugiados is only where they have meetings. They have to kinda acclimate to Mexico, and they don't know the culture or the people when they come. Timor is one of the people that helps with that. They live in these safe houses, and we didn't actually get to talk to anybody, but that's okay. Our meeting at the casa was short and I don't think as detailed or sad as Doctora would have liked since it must have been a different guide than before, but that was just fine by all of us.

The back of the casa, a mural of the "bestia"

After we went and got alcoholic ice cream, which is a genius idea. Also, they had different colored powders to put on mango at a little stand, which was weird but cool.

Dark Ice Cream: the other side of ice cream

Today we had debates. I had to argue for capital punishment in Mexico, which was super hard for me but I think I got a 94. After, we got lunch at an Italian restaurant which was a good change. 

It rains almost every day here, which makes me super unmotivated because I can't go on runs so I take naps or eat food instead. I think next week it will be easier because our next professor won't be as tough and we won't be as exhausted. I am excited for this weekend and have loved having Doctora as a professor, but it has been a LOT. 

Tonight is Wednesday so normally I would go to salsa lessons, but tonight I can't because of our quiz tomorrow, test Friday, informe due Friday, and two article summaries due some time this weekend. However, I've learned so much in this three week course. I am pretty sure the hours of class we had total more than the hours of class for a three credit course during a semester. 3 hours a week for fifteen weeks is way less than 6 hours a day for three weeks. Granted, we have had a lot of excursions to cut down the class time. It's been such a whirlwind, as Doctora promised us, but so much fun. 

Last Full Day

Today, we didn't do a whole lot

Super exciting title for a post, I know. It was the last full day of class with Doctora Galloway. The rest of this week we have excursions and meetings and debates, and we will end with a test on Friday then a fun weekend at Puebla! 

This weekend was a lot of fun at home with all my family. I really enjoyed getting to see Kayla and celebrate her graduation with her.

Forgive me for being cheesy, but my sister is beautiful and smart and incredible and talented, and I am so proud of her.

Today was long, but we had tamales after class so that was fantastic. Mandy and I  both took a super long nap when we got home, and after dinner we found a bakery with 4 peso bakery items (26 cents). 

We have a vocabulary quiz tomorrow and Doctora never posted the words. :(

Anyways, tomorrow we are going on an excursion so this blog should get more interesting again. For now, buenas noches.

Palacio Nacional, Palacio de Bellas Artes, and Colegio San Ildefonso

So much art!

Yesterday we went to three museums in one day, and at the Palacio de Bellas Artes I had to give my second presentation.

First we went to Colegio San Ildefonso, which is actually a school where some of the greatest artists painted murals. 

We looked at the building and its beautiful, baroque style architecture. 

Colegio San Ildefonso

We also got to walk through and see some beautiful works of art, including a mural by Diego Rivera and another by David Alfaro Siqueiros. Up the stairway we saw some pieces by Jose Clemente Orozco. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of many of these. I wish I could show you. 

Mural by Orozco to critique war

The pictures I could take weren't good either due to the lighting on the stairwell and the inherent blurriness of my camera. If you ever get a chance to go here, do. The pieces by Orozco on the stairwell are just incredible.

A beautiful stained glass window from Germany to welcome students.

Next we went to the Palacio Nacional to see just one mural, a mural by Diego Rivera that tells the entire history of Mexico. Again, I couldn't capture the whole thing in a picture, but you read it from right to left along the bottom then from left to right along the top then the leftmost side, and the amount of symbolism in it is mindblowing. Rivera paints portraits, and many of the faces in there are individual people. He also painted Frida Kahlo and his first wife into it, teaching children about socialism. He likes to paint his own face into things, and in this one he is a priest who is with a prostitute. If you know any faces from Mexican history, they will probably be in there.

By this time it was already about 3, so Doctora took pity on us and let us go eat lunch. I tried to eat pasta because I have been craving it, but it was a terrible disappointment. On the way though we saw some pretty views. There was a rainbow in the sun. My host mom only remembers this happening one other time, but it happens when the clouds are really high and they freeze.

Cathedral behind the Zocalo

Next we went to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, where I gave my presentation. It was 30 pesos to take pictures inside, which I am morally opposed to paying, but I did sneak a picture of the piece I had to present on.

Hombre, controlador del universo

This is just a close up of the center, because as with many of Diego Rivera's pieces, a far away picture of the whole thing looks busy and doesn't do it justice. 

This piece has an interesting story behind it. It was originally commissioned by the Rockefellers for their center in New York, to be called Hombe Encrucijada (man at the crossroads). The theme for the center was new frontiers, and the fresco was meant to show man looking with apprehension but hope at the future. However, the final product was very different. Rivera was very leftist, and his communist friends kind of peer pressured him into putting Vladamir Lenin in there (you can see him to the right of the figure, clasping hands with workers of different races). He also put Rockefeller's dad in there, with women and a drink in his hand in a scene to criticize the elite. Rockefeller demanded that the image of Lenin be removed. Rivera said no, but offered to put Abraham Lincoln in there. Rockefeller paid him in full, then chipped the fresco off of the wall.

I won't bore you with a full explanation of the symbolism in the final mural, but it shows a man controlling machinery in between two sides, one representing capitalism, and the other representing communism. It is, over all, a very hopeful piece.

(Ask me to explain the whole thing to you some time and I will get really excited).

Doctora said I did excellently. 

We saw two other pieces in this museum. One was a piece by Siqueiros, and the other by Orozco. The one by Orozco was called Catarsis, and it was terrifying in the best of ways. Of these big three muralists, Rivera is the most optimistic, Siqueiros is the most realistic (though his work is symbolic, the ideas are realism) and Orozco is the most pessimistic. His works are often dark with stains of red. Catarsis was full of violent scenes and man and machine merged together. There were many knives and guns, with guns being the center of the piece. There were also three prostitutes, with horrible, crazy smiles on their faces. It was all very symbolic, but hard to understand at first. Google it. It's incredible. The work by Siqueiros was called Nuevo Democracia, and it was really three parts, with the central part encroaching onto the wall above the allotted space. They are all incredible. If you're ever in Mexico, go see them. Better yet, take me with you! I can explain them to you!

Yesterday was exhausting and I fell asleep super early, so I didn't get to blog. Today was just a normal class day, though Doctora moved the class time back to ten so that we could rest a little bit. We talked about a movie we had been assigned, talked about the PRI a lot, and ended at 3:00. We then went to this international festival thing at the Zocalo. It was cool, but pretty crowded. There was music there, though, and it was pretty fun to just hang out for a bit. You can see it in the picture of the Zocalo earlier in this post. 

After that, me and my friend went back to Ciudadela for a bit since she didn't get to go the first time, and then it started pouring rain so we went home. 

I am going home this weekend for my sister's graduation, which is super exciting because I will get to see literally all of my family (I think, not sure who is going to be there). I won't be posting tomorrow, and I'm not sure about Sunday. I have a cab coming at 5:00 am on the dot tomorrow so I'm leaving bright and early.

Try not to miss my blog posts too much this weekend, and I'll pick back up with my Mexico adventures on Monday. :)

Castillo de Chapultepec

I live by a castle!

Yesterday, we went to the Castillo de Chapultepec. It is in the huge park/forest of Chapultepec, right by my house. We went as a class to explore some of the history that took place and is represented there. It's a pretty neat place. It was a military academy, the home of Porfirio Diaz and several other presidents, the home of Maximilian, an Austrian prince who was a ruler in Mexico during the Second Mexican Empire (making the Castillo the only castle in North America that was actually home to a sovereign). Now it's a museum, and the inside is filled with incredible art, and you can go up to the top and look out.

It was stunning. 

A monument outside of the Castillo

The photos below are from the walk up to and in front of the Castillo.

The next mural, on the ceiling, depicts one of the Ninos Heroes. Juan Escutia was one of the young cadets defending the Castillo during the Mexican-American war. He wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and jumped from the building to prevent the Americans from getting it, and is honored among 5 other boys who died defending the Castillo. 

Ninos Heroes 

There are many murals inside of the museum, but I only got to take a few pictures.

The following mural by Siqueiros covers an entire room and my pictures don't do it justice.

Porfirio Diaz surrounded by soldiers, his cientificas, and debauchery

Some key revolutionary figures, and a woman in the front lines representing Mexico

Corpses paving the road

I'm not sure which mural the next one is even from, but I think it's a Rivera one

Miguel Hidalgo and other revolutionary scenes

I will have to go back to the castle. Yesterday, I got very sick. Mexico is at a higher altitude than Atlanta, and it can really affect some people. There is also a lot of contamination in the air. Both Mandy and I have noticed the effects a little bit. It's a lot easier to get winded by just walking up stairs, walking fast, or running. However, when I got to the top of the castle, I got really dizzy and lightheaded. Everybody said it was probably from the altitude then climbing then being up even higher, but it definitely made me miss some good picture taking opportunities.

Luckily, I live super close, so I will get more pictures some other time.

We were treated to a lovely four course lunch by our professor afterwards, and when I got home my host mom got super concerned after she heard that the altitude had made me somewhat sick, and made me soup for dinner which was really sweet. 

We had a lot of homework due today, and I have a presentation tomorrow. I have heard that once we get through the first three weeks, the second two with a different instructor are a lot easier, but so far it is still a whirlwind of work and fun, and exhaustion and excitement.

Test Day and JWT Advertising

Today I met a turtle.

I don't remember it's name but that was probably the most exciting thing that happened to me today.

We had our first test. There were 11 multi part written questions that took an hour and a half, and then an hour of spoken evaluation. I think I did well. Later we went to JWT Advertising to hear about what one of the people there did. It was interesting, but pretty ill timed. We were all exhausted from the test.

So yeah, that was my day. 

I wouldn't even need my pepper spray

Mexico has something interesting that they do at the metro during rush hour. During rush hour, it can be so crowded that everybody is smushed all together, so they separate the guys and girls into different cars so that the women don't have to be packed in with a bunch of men, for safety reasons. At first it seemed a bit strange, but then I realized that it is probably a huge way to let women ride the train without worrying about being harassed or groped. It's kind of cool. You will be surprised to hear (Mom and Dad) that riding the metro in Mexico City feels about 100 times safer than riding the Marta. There are a lot more people, all the people are kind and respectful, there are always police there, and now I have learned that they do this as well.

Some bathroom misadventures

The other day I was showering and I went to adjust the hot water. I barely touched the handle, but it came out of the wall. Hot water started gushing out of the wall onto me, and I couldn't turn it off because I was holding the thing that was meant to control it. It was also blocking the entrance to the shower, so I eventually had to give up and awkwardly exit out the side of the shower. The bathroom was soaked and getting even wetter, so I called for my host mom. She in turn had to call for her 30 year old son to come fix it. While that was all going on, I had to stand in my room, wrapped in a towel with shampoo in my hair, freezing cold, while Mandy just laughed at me. Remember that this whole interaction was in Spanish. I mean, they don't teach you how to yell "Margarita, I broke the shower and now there is a geyser in your bathroom" in Spanish.

Today we discovered that the toilet is not attached to the ground and has the potential to tip over. Don't ask us how. At least that makes me feel better that I didn't manage to break the shower because of any extraordinary clumsiness, but rather, it's just an old bathroom. 

Exciting things

I found a running route that goes through a forest and by a lake. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks to be very scenic. Speaking of scenic, we are going to the Castillo de Chapultepec tomorrow. Also, I bought some veggie straws at the supermarket, and they are the only sort of chip I have tried here that don't taste different than in America; sometimes the littlest things in life are the most exciting.