more photos and a story...

So first off, here's some more photos from the pyramid trip:

This is the bell tower (no longer in use as evident by the padding keeping the bells stationary) of the church on top of the pyramid. Inside the church was a neon sign labelling the Virgin Mary.
Yes, blue neon.

The view from about 3/4 the way up the pyramid. In the hazy distance, you can see our volcano (which is more visible from my hotel room window!)

The view from the top!

Spiderman got his web caught in a wire...
There were two more superheroes caught in the pole...
What is this world coming to?

Yesterday we took a bus to Puebla (about 15km away, the 4th largest city in Mexico). Though I brought my camera with me, I forgot my memory card in my computer (whoops!) so no photos. I did have my videocamera, though, and got some video of this really beautiful church and the city of Puebla (which was for the most part really pretty, though it is definitely a city). Sad news about video - I didn't pack my charger cord for my video camera, so unless I get really lucky at an electronics store or WalMart (which would be in Puebla), video will be posted once I get back home. More to look forward to! Anyway....

We walked around Puebla for a few hours, it's really nice, as cities go, and the buildings are all quirky and brightly colored or tiled. The churches are very ornate and there's a park every couple blocks scattered with vendors and benches and trees and statues. Very charming.

The only bummer about yesterday was that I wasn't feeling too great - something in the food had caught up to me or something and I was grateful to get back to the hotel at 3:30pm to sleep for a few hours. When I woke up, my friends took my temperature and I had 102 degree fever, which led to a call to Patricia (our fearless leader/professor) and to the doctor. Due to the late hour, he recommended waiting until morning for antibiotics (also because they are pricey) and recommended an anti-nausea medicine which my friends got at the Farmacia (2 blocks away). Upon opening the little box, I did not find the expected tablets, but little glass bottles which (after some confusion and a trip to the front desk for translation/advice) led to a Red Cross man coming by to give me a shot in my butt!!!!!! For only 50 pesos (about $5)...

When I woke up this morning, thankfully I had no fever and today was filled with relaxing and laying around inside and out by the pool in the sun. I haven't felt like eating much, in fact today I only had a half bowl of corn flakes for breakfast, a roll for lunch, and a couple crackers... and lots of bottled water. Woohoo...

Anyway, it seems like I'm the only one who's gotten sick (so far, knock on wood!) which is good, I suppose... and the craziness of last night will for sure lead to many laughs in the future.

Since I still feel weary, I won't be going out to the bars with some of the other kids tonight (Thursday is the party night here in Cholula because the University students usually go home for weekends on Friday and need to get their partying in...) and tomorrow is another mellow day. I'm not sure what the weekend will bring, but I hear the catacombs of the pyramid have free entry on Sundays (regularly 35 pesos - about $3.50) so maybe that adventure will be in store for me!

Have a lovely evening, folks! More later.

Day 1

Hey everybody! Well, yesterday I arrived in Mexico! Yay! And classes aren't starting until next week (woo hoo). Our group takes up pretty much the entire 2nd floor of rooms at the Hotel Las Iglesias (which only has 2 floors of rooms) and the third floor is our studio space and they're building us a little kitchen. Off the studio, there's a terrace that gives us a 360 view of Cholula - which is awesome. From my room, I can see the volcano (which is named Popocatepetl, or Popo for short I think) which is still active and smoking out the top...

Today we just hung around Cholula - explored a little and then made our way to the Pyramid - Mexico's largest man-made mountain which has a big yellow church on top. The pyramid is about a half-hour walk from our Hotel but once we got to the base, we walked around it for another 20 minutes to get to the steps (little did I know that there was a less steep path on the other side or I would have... regretted climbing all those stairs!). Once up there, the view was awesome and the following pictures are from this excursion.

Photos from our day:

These flowers were growing near the road on the way to the mountain/pyramid/hundreds of steps we had to climb to get to the top... they were pretty...

This was after the first half of the mountain... to my dismay there was another set of steps waiting for me, which my legs really did not like. I am an artist, not an athlete... but anyway, there's the church. :)

And here's me and Shelley after alllllll those steps... but we made it!

And then a bag of fried crickets was bought and I think I might have been the only one to resist trying one.
Oh well, I guess I'll just have to live my life with that regret... (oh the sarcasm)

There are more photos, but I am growing impatient with the internet (it kicks me off kind of often and it isn't high-speed, so uploading was taking forever/not happening). I will post them later on. For now, I think I'm going to get ready for bed and probably fall asleep before 10:30pm (my time - which is central time, only one hour behind EST).

Hope you're all staying warm in the States. It's beautiful here...