The Days are Winding Down

Hola todos,

I hope everyone has been enjoying their week. I've had a ton of stuff going on all week, but it's finally dwindling down to an end. Moments ago i just finished my last paper for the summer. All that's left for school is a little studying for my communication final. It's bittersweet.

But, before I get all emotional, let me tell you of my travels. Yesterday turned out to be quite a fun night. Kayla, Emily and I went to a poetry reading that our school was holding. It was pretty interesting. Most of the poems were in Spanish, so I didn't necessarily appreciate them to their fullest, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless. Not to mention we got some really delicious tacos.

Afterwards, a group of us walked to a nearby ice cream place. And let me tell you...Ice cream in Mexico is way better than ice cream in the states. I haven't quite figured out why, but it's far superior. I'm going to miss it.

Then, Emily and I ended up going to hang out at a bar with a few people. It was quite an interesting group. Five white girls and one Mexican guy. I'm sure he was the envy of the bar. It was a pretty chill evening, but I had a lot of fun. We each had a drink or two and shared some good conversation (most of which was in Spanish).

We called it a somewhat early night. Emily and I took a taxi back with Carlos (our Mexican friend) around 12:15. I was probably in bed by 1am.

Today, has been crunch time. I only had one class in the morning, and it pretty much ended up being a study hall. After that class I spent my time at school working on my final essay for English and attempting to study for communication.

It's hard to believe that I'm actually coming home this weekend. It still seem surreal. I'm sure I'm going to be a mess tomorrow.

Oh and by the way, my guitar performance was yesterday and I have a recorded copy if anyone is interested in listening to my mad skills.

It's about dinner time so I think I'm done for tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in just a few days (less than 28 hours!).

Love,

Katlynn

Orphanage Fiesta

Hola todos,

Today was a pretty eventful day.

I woke up as usual and headed off to school. My first class was cancelled so we could go see an author from Guadalajara talk. After I got past the fact that the speech was given in Spanish (with an extremely delayed English translation) it was actually somewhat interesting. She wrote a political novel about an incident that happened down town in the early 90's. There had been a gas leak that got into the sewage system, and despite many complaints from the locals, the government didn't do anything about it. After eight days there was a massive explosion and hundreds of people died. Her novel was about how the government ignored the problem and all of the controversy surrounding the issue.

I skipped my guitar class today to help set up for the annual orphanage fiesta. It was a project for my communication class. We split into groups and we all had to do a community service project. We decided to decorate the orphanage because there was no budget for anything like that. It turned out really nice. I think the kids enjoyed a little bit of color. And, they definitely liked playing with the balloons.

The fiesta itself was a hit as well. All of the kids gave us a concert. The older ones (probably between 4th and 8th grade) played instruments and the younger ones sang. It was adorable. Then we had tacos and played around. We also had four piñatas. One of which was taller than me!

It was really sad having to leave though. I can't image what it would be like growing up in an orphanage. It was really humbling to see all of the kids run around and play together, knowing that all they really have is each other.

After the orphanage, one of Kayla's friends stopped by and we hung out for a while and had a really good talk with our Senora.

Right now I think it's time for a shower and them some serious homework time.

Have a good night everyone. I miss you bunches!

Love,

Katlynn

Michoacan

Hola todos,

I hope everyone is doing well. I am once again recovering from an exciting weekend. I went to a few different places around Michoacan, which has a bad rep, but was completely safe.

We arrived in a city called Patzcuaro on Thursday and pretty much just hung out that night. There were a ton of street venders and small restaurants and stores. It was a pretty cute little town.

On Friday, we went to Angahuan to visit the Puricutin Volcano. The last time it erupted was in the 1940's. The lava covered an entire village, but you can still see the top of a church sticking out of the lava rock. The church was called (and I'm not joking) San Juan Parangaricutirimicuaro. We ended up taking horses down to the lava field and climbed around the rocks for a while. It was breathtaking. I've never seen anything like it before.

After a delicious lunch of homemade green tortilla quesodillas, we visited a national park. It was beautiful, but I was a little disappointed. All of the waterfalls and landforms were clearly man made. But I guess you can't win them all.

(above) Me hanging out in the lava

(below) View of the volcano from the lava field

(above) The top of the church that wasn't covered in the eruption

(below) My guide and horse that took me too the lava field--yes he was half my age

On Saturday, we went to Tzin Tzun Tzan, which is a small fishing village located on an island. It seemed like something out of a movie. The boat ride was perfect. The water was calm and mountains surrounded the lake. As we started to move closer to the island, we saw a ton of fishermen with huge butterfly nets. The island itself was very tall. All of the streets winded up to the top of a hill, and were cluttered with every kind of shop you can imagine. I could have walked around there for days.

(above) Fishermen

(below) View of the island from the boat

(above) View from the boat

(below) One of the streets on the island

After the island we went to see some pyramids called "Las Yacatas." There were five of them, identical, and lined up in a row. It was pretty interesting, but looking back on my pictures, I seemed more interested in the landscape.

From there, we went to Morelia, where we spent the night. We had a walking tour of the city after dinner and hung out in town.

On Sunday we wandered around the city again until it was time for the World Cup. I watched it in a bar with my English professor of all people. But, it was fun. She is an incredibly smart and interesting woman, but she loves to gossip. I don't know who watched the game, but it wasn't all that exciting in and of itself. We were both rooting for Holandia, but it was clear everyone else was happy that Spain won.

Anyway, I should probably start on my homework. I'm in my last week of class and have a presentation and three papers due before Saturday. Yikes.

But I will be home be for you know it.

I miss you guys.

Love,

Katlynn

Lucha Libre

Hola todos,

I’ve had quite the adventure since my last update. Let me tell you about it…

I hung out with Kayla for most of the afternoon, while she spoke to Kevin and Brian on line. The four of us ended up going to Lucha Libre totally last minute, and it was fantastic. For those of you who aren’t quite familiar with Lucha Libre, it is basically the Mexican version of WWE wrestling. And, let me tell you, if you thought American wrestling was fake, you haven’t seen Mexican wrestling.

Men in ridiculously small costumes came on stage and proceeded to slap each other-opened fisted. Apparently they can slap pretty hard because it would send their opponent flying off the stage into the crowd. When someone kicked another wrestler in the stomach, the “injured” one would twitch uncontrollably for about a minute and miraculously jump back up and start doing his own damage.

My favorite wrestler of the night was named Maximo. He came on stage in a roman style mini skirt and a huge hot pink Mohawk (he was one of the few that didn’t wear a mask). He was clearly supposed to be gay because he kept skipping around the ring slapping the other wrestlers’ butts. The crowd loved him. Whenever he came close to some one else (either a wrestler or a ref) everyone chanted “Beso! Beso!” Which means “Kiss! Kiss!” And of course he tried, but was immediately body slammed to the ground. I kept my fingers crossed for him the whole time though, and he ended up winning the match.

But, the crowd was by far the best part. We ended up sitting in the “poor section,” and I’m glad we did. We were in the first balcony above the floor seating-the rich people. We ended up maneuvering our way through the crowd and our group was right up against the front of the fenced off balcony. The men around us were nuts. The majority of them wore t shirts that said (roughly translated) “Bitches sit below” and on the back “1000% Poor” (and yes, there are three 0's) then something about “doing your mom.” By the end of the night we ended up yelling at the rich people with the best of them.

I wish I had some pictures to share, but they didn’t allow cameras in the stadium.

It was super late when we finally got home and I went straight to bed. School was a little bit of a struggle today. But, I did go to a somewhat interesting speech by a US embassy rep. He was talking about relationships between the US and Mexico.

Right now I’m sitting in the laundry mat enjoying the air conditioning. I’m hoping I won’t have to come back again.

This will probably be my last update until next week. I’m leaving for Michoacan right after school. It should be an interesting weekend. I’ve heard it’s beautiful.

Until then…

Love,

Katlynn

Happy Tuesday

Hola todos,

I hope things are going great at home. It's been another beautiful day in Mexico.

I got up around 7:15, got dressed, and ate breakfast. We had eggs and hot dogs again. Then Emily, Kayla, and I went off to catch the bus a little after 8:00. There is a group of missionaries from the US that live near our bus stop and we ended up talking to one of them until our bus arrived. She was really nice, but made me a little nervous. Apparently one of the other missionaries was going for a run around our neighborhood yesterday and he was held up by a guy with a knife at 4:00 in the afternoon. It was a total freak incident and everything was okay. Luckily he was okay and the guy didn't steal anything.

School was school as usual. Nothing too exciting is going on. Next week is finals so things have been a little crazy with class work. Luckily, my classes seem to be a lot lighter than some of the other classes.

After school we had a delicious lunch of chicken mole tacos. If you haven't tried mole, you are missing out. I highly recommend it.

After lunch we just kind of hung out. Kayla has been going through the music on her computer and deleting all of the random stuff that she doesn't want any more. So we've been rocking out to terrible 90's music all afternoon.

I've had this song stuck in my head all day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Z3YrHJ1sU It's not a 90's song, but they are constantly playing it in all the clubs here. I hear it practically every day. Is it famous in the US as well?

Anyway, the plans for tonight are still up in the air. I was hoping to go to Lucha Libre, but I don't think I'll be able to make it until next week. Either way, I think I'm going to run over to Walmart to buy a cheap pair of jeans. It's been in the 60's here for the past couple of days and it's not supposed to warm up any time soon. And I heard that it will be even colder on our weekend trip...And I only brought one pair of long pants with me. Oops.

Enjoy the rest of your evening.

Love,

Katlynn

Guanajuato

Hola todos,

Happy (late) Fourth of July. I hope everyone enjoyed their celebrations. There was a party and a picnic and some fireworks going on in my head.

But I did have an amazing weekend. Guanajuato is probably my favorite place ever. It's a beautiful colonial town, extremely touristy, but a lot of fun. We did so much this weekend, the whole thing kind of just mixes together, but I'll try to give a decent overview.

Thursday night we went salsa dancing at a nearby club. It was really interesting because our study abroad group basically had the club to ourselves. It was unlike any other club experience that I've had, but it was a ton of fun.

Friday we went to the mummy museum, which, according to Gueniss Book of World Records, is the most disgusting spectacle in the world. It was pretty amazing. They had over 1,000 naturally made mummies. None of that Egyptian pyramid stuff. These were created from the environment. Some of them were still wearing the clothes that they died in and had hair on their heads.

After that the weekend gets a little fuzzy. We went on a ton of walking tours and I cannot for the life of me remember which one was when. But, believe me, they were all beautiful.

I do know that we spent Friday in San Miguel, which is about an hour away from Guanajuato. There is a large American population there, and it was bizarre to be able to fully understand stranger's conversations.

We also saw a walking mariachi band on Friday night. They were hilarious. They sang and danced and told jokes and stories, while wandering through the streets at night. It was one of the best nights I've ever had.

Sunday was my friend Melissa's 21st birthday so we went out Saturday night to celebrate. We wandered around the city a little bit and ended up at a few different bars and clubs. That was also quite a fun night.

Now for a few pictures:

(above) This is the smallest mummy in the world.

Anyways, if I ever return to Mexico (and I hope I do!) I will definitely be going back to Guanajuato. No questions asked.

Have a good night everyone. I miss you guys. I can't wait to see everyone in (less than) two weeks!

Love,

Katlynn

A Quick Update

Hola todos,

I hope everyone is doing well on this fine Wednesday.

I have an update about the military officers I saw yesterday. Mexico is holding some sort of political election on the fourth (I don't know much about it. I apologize. ) and one of the leading candidates had a strong platform against drug trafficking. Well...he was assassinated on Monday the 24th somewhere in Northern Mexico. Apparently the officers that I saw yesterday were accompanying another candidate on his trip to Guadalajara. The circumstances of the assassination were terrible, but the scene here looked a lot worse than it was.

Other than that, today has been rather relaxed. I've been working on a paper for my English class for quite a while now. The goal is to finish it before dinner so I can go out for a while tonight. But, we'll see what happens.

I still need to pack. I'm going to Guanajuato tomorrow. It should be interesting. I don't know much about the city except that it is famous for it's "kissing balconies" and mummy museum. I am very excited to see a more traditional Mexican town that isn't geared as much toward tourism. It'll be a fun weekend.

Until next week...

Love,

Katlynn