City of the Gods

Disclaimer: Everything here is in spanish so sometimes it will try to translate the words I write and won't let me change it, so if my writing sounds strange or there's weird words/punctuation I'm sorry.

So I have not posted in a while but you can not blame me. Teaching Takes a lot more time Then you would think. Its like When you go to school till 2 Then have homework all day. BUT it's becoming more and more rewarding as the time passes. I do have a lot to post acerca and I 've been collecting pictures for my teaching post That I will write. Just a little about my lessons and how it works. That will be coming tomorrow. As for today, we had a 3 day weekend (much needed) Because friday was teacher appreciation day in Mexico! We decided to take our friday off and go to Teotihuacan-the city of the Gods. There are two pyramids. The Pyramid of the Sun and the one of the Moon. You are able to climb to the top and overlook the country and other ruins. Its magical.

It only seemed right to pretend to do yoga

The Sun

 The moon

 Also for your entertainment, here's what it's like being blonde in Mexico:

You can't even take a picture without at least 5 people staring and laughing.

More Tomorrow!

Saturday

We went zip lining today in the mountains today. It was basically really awesome! You pay about $10 to go on 5 zip lines, and its waaaay worth it. Pretty much you go on one zip line, go on a beautiful mini hike to the next one, and repeat 5 times. The instructor Cesar kept trying to convince us to turn upside down while we're going down. This video is of one of the shorter zip lines, as I'm going upside down.

Other then that we walked around the city. 

There's a lot of interesting plants growing everywhere

There's also rabid (but beautiful) looking dogs everywhere

 This our failed attempt at a jumping picture^

And of course a completely candid, unplanned picture of me walking.

Overall it was a very relaxing fun day, and a much needed mini vacation.

A Day in the Life

I did not die, but teaching is a lot more difficult Then it sounds. And by difficult I mean You have to put a lot of time and energy into it. But today I have a lot of good pictures and info to catch you up With. First, this week was kinda crazy. We did not teach on monday Because of holiday and we did not really teach today Because it was a mother's day celebration. We got to meet and see all the parents today, its always fun seeing parents Which belongs to who.

Anyway, we started out at 10:30 every morning and go through three rotations of kids. Altogether there's about 20 kids, so About 7-8 per rotation. You teach the same lesson and same subject to every class. Then we get at 1 we get another group of older kids, about 20 kids again. Then repeat every day. The school is half outdoor, indoor half. Pretty much exactly what you would imagine little kindergarten in Mexico would be. The little kids are probably the cutest thing you will ever see in your entire life.

Me and Angie could literally play for hours. If I could adopt her I would, she is so lovable and giggly.

Also my hair will always be in a bun, mostly because a lot of kids have lice. So we pull our hair back tight and spray this greasy anti live spray. Pretty gross but you do what you got to.

 This is Elian, I've almost looks arabian but is a sweetheart. In this picture I was crying Because He wanted His dad, but it was too cute not to document.

Angie is pretty much a wolf in little cute girls clothing. She is sooo cute and her hair is always perfect and lovely. But she is majorly hyperactive. Which is awesome when you 're playing, and not when you' re teaching. 

This is Abbi, she lives in the house above apartment out (we have the same yard and garage.) 

Gustavo is like the fuzzy penguin off of Happy Feet, we all agree.

Long story short, I'm in heaven with the little kids, but still working on how to effectively teach and keep the attention of the older kids. Its a working progress.

Yea! So there's a little sneak peak of a day in the life of an ILP teacher. Of course there is a lot more to it, but we are very tired from this week and hopefully we will have some awesome pictures from our weekends plans. Adios!

Long Day

Today i woke up feeling a lot more sick then yesterday and so this post isn't going to be too long. Also because other then teaching I pretty much laid in bed and slept. Teaching is probably the hardest, most frustrating thing when you're sick. So I'm just trying to get better. Anyway, it rained today and when Mexico rains, it pours. Here's a video that shows just how intense the rain is.

Hopefully the video will work This Time. As you can hopefully see, the street has transformed into a river. So yea! I'll post soon on what its like in a day of teaching soon.

Food Post

I know you are all excited about this post, and you have good reason to be. Kinda how our food schedule works is like this. We get groceries from the school every week for breakfast and dinner. For lunch we eat at a local restaurant. Usually at night we make mexican food on our own, but the Most authentic would be from the restaurant. Its Basically a three or four course meal, and everything is very homemade. Either you choose first course soup or rice. The soup is pretty basic. But Sometimes They do alphabet noodles. 

Then magic like this happens, but usually I get the rice because of wheat allergies.

Pretty basic.

Course two is Usually a mini toastada or taquito

Also Usually we get some sort of drink with it. Most of the time its some sort of lemon, mango, or pina flavored water.

Third course they'll bring out 3 plates with different main courses on it. Chicken and vegetables/salad is actually pretty common along with cheesy enchiladas and such. I usually stick with chicken because I like knowing what I'm eating.

BUT just for fun here's some more authentic main courses:

Course 4 is desert (and It Seems rude if you do not eat everything.)

Usually its jello, yogurt, or fruit covered in sweetened condensed milk. And if I'm really unlucky, its rice in sweetened condensed milk (barf, rice should NEVER be sweet.)

 The jello Might look good, but do not let it fool you. Its pretty gross.

Other than that its pretty much groceries! Just to give you a run down of what we got this week:

As you can see a lot of it is fresh produce which is honestly my favorite part about Mexico so far (honestly the pineapple is to die for.) Also the mangos pretty much taste like some sort of sweetened tropical drink, yes they are that good. Everything else is tomatos, onions, cilantro, eggs, torillas, milk, maple syrup, (not sure why they bought that for us cause they didn't get pancake mix or anything, just syrup) also bananas, leche, yogurt, peanut butter, frijoles, and queso.

And finally, el diablo of my life is the Panaderias. Mexican bakeries. You can literally smell them everywhere. Just Imagine someone fresh cinnamon rolls baking everywhere and thats what it smells like.

Mexican version of a cinnamon roll ^ 

oh and the ghetto version of ding dongs:

So yea! Hopefully that covers everything food wise for now!

Hola Amigos

Today was a Mexican holiday. I think Labor day sort of thing but I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, That meant another day We had absolutely nothing productive to do before we start teaching tomorrow. Todays adventure was going to the Christus up on the hill above our house. We wanted to hike it but Guillermo (the Principal of the School) was not confident we would make it and insisted Should we take a bus. We did, Which ended up Being probably the best option. I pretty much had a heart attack though, Because the bus driver would do esta Where cute thing I would drive a million miles an hour up the mountain, as close to the edge as possible. This did make for a gorgeous view ... halfway off the cliff. Check it out:

 I know what you're thinking, "Please no more pictures of the sky"

Psych! No can do. I mean its perfect.

But in all seriousness its a poor but beautiful area. People Actually Care About Each Other. People exist in the real world, and no one Cares About instagram. (Except I did cause me some pretty bomb take pictures.)

The Christus is Giant, if you're looking at it from the city it looks huge!

So Yeai not mean too much to Talk About BUT !! I wanna get you guys psyched for an all food post coming soon! Probably sometime this week. I've had people ask to view About What I 've been eating, and I know its a horribly interesting topic for a lot of us.

Ps. I'm sick again. I have a cold This Time. At least there's variety in my sicknesses though right?

Have I got a post for you...(read to bottom)

So naturally, today was Sunday. We had been informed our church was at 10 but when we arrived we were basically turned away... Have you ever been turned away from church? Me neither... BUT the man was very stubborn about us not going to his ward. He then informed us if we came back an hour 11 we could attend that ward, but not his. The church is about a half hour away from our apartment so we decided to just walk around a nearby park until 11. We then show up at 11 and the same guy tell us we still can't come in until 12. So we're about to go inactive, until one of the ladies from the ward at 12 saved us. And by saved us I mean recruited us to the ward choir. Which I may have preferred going inactive. But in the end it was good because before we came there were probably 6 people in the choir, 4 of which were tone deaf. So yea apparently we are singing a song in church next week for mothers day, in a language we can't even understand (Did I mention it has to be memorized?) Other then that church was spiritual, I think. I mean I heard the word "espiritu" at least 20 times. After that we decided to explore some more of the city. We're kinda at a lose of what to do. They dropped us off at the apartment a couple days ago and pretty much abandoned us. For all they know we literally could have no food in our apartment. Luckily we had some gourmet waffle mix leftover from the previous girls. Also some plain tomato sauce and pasta, saltines, and tortillas. Can you imagine the amazing and creative combinations we came up with? Anyways other then feeling abandoned its been a pretty interesting day. 

That awkward moment when the sky is prettier then you.

This sky though, and this one is not edited ^

The mexican sky does it once again, I promise my fetish with the sky is not serious

Now enjoy some more random pictures i took of the city (I promise this post will get more interesting):

HERE'S Where things get more interesting. SO I'm walking down the street taking a billion pictures. And a police truck comes down the road and it looks like they are hunting zombies. They all got their guns, and there's at least four standing in the back of the truck lookin pretty tough. This is where being a white girl comes in handy, they all get soft and start cat calling and waving. So we're off the hook right? No. El Policia stop and start walking towards us. Like many of the other Mexicans, he just starts going off in Spanish and we just stare (like usual.) "No habla Espanol," was my weak attempt at getting him to go away, but I guess letting him know we don't understand a thing didn't get the point across. He continued to talk rapidly for 2 minutes then shook our hands and left. Uhhh ok.

Then we entered central city .... And I think you should watch this video before I try to explain what happened there. I'm still struggling to understand:

Actually Apparently the video isnt gonna work right now, but I WILL Eventually force it to post. In the meanwhile here is a picture and a description to give you a little sneak peak.

So there was some sort of clown show going on it town, some wacky stuff was happening. Pictured above is a man dressed as a ridiculous curvaceous woman. The show consisted of thing unable to be explained by man. BUT of course being the only white people ever, we were automatically picked out of the crown by this character. He started showing off a little English, and insisted we take a "selfie" with his clown buddy in front of everyone (about 200+)

And here's the result. So yea! Pretty eventful evening, now I gotta go some lessons plan for school this week 

Ps. I wish I could save all the stray dogs in Mexico-cue Sarah McLachlan

PEACE !!!