National Museum of Anthropology, Part 2

Hello again,

I hope everyone enjoyed the slide show of the first half of my visit to the Anthropology Museum. Yesterday I had the chance to go back and finish my trip. I was there for another two hours, and at the end I finally realized that I spent the whole weekend going through the museum backwards. One of the last exhibits I visited was entitled "Introduction to Anthropology", which tipped me off. Either way, it was still amazing and for anyone who ever goes on to visit Mexico City, this is a must-see. Below is another link to the slide show for the second 100 plus photos I took. Hope you enjoy them!

Slide Show Part 2

By the way, I also have photos and videos from the museum visit and my visit last week to the Historical Center. I will post all of these throughout the week.

Trip to Teotihuacan- Videos

Hello everyone,

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. I had a nice blog post worked out for today, but then my computer froze so I lost it :(

Therefore, below are the videos that I took on my trip yesterday to Teotihuacan, one of the largest ruin sites in Mexico. I will post more about my trip and the photos I took tomorrow.

Trip to Teotihuacan

Hi everyone,

Hope everyone enjoyed the videos from yesterday! Today I wrote about the trip and loaded the photos i took as well. Like I mentioned yesterday, Teotihuacan is one of the largest Pre-Colombian sites in Mexico, about 25 miles to the northeast of Mexico city. If you want some more information, below is the wikipedia link:

Teotihuacan

So, we got there at about 11 o'clock, where we first met up with our tour guide. He told us his name in the native language, but none of us could pronounce it, so we just called him Gorilla. We got to see a small workshop where someone was making artifacts out of jade, limestone and other volcanic rocks (we were told that no metals are used). He and someone else then showed us a large agave plant. They cut off the center stalk and explained to us that they drain the aguamiel (honey water) from the plant to drink. There was a shop there too, where I bought a sombrero (I couldn't resist).









By the way, this isn't the sombrero I bought. We all took turns wearing this stuff, it was a lot of fun!

After we finished up at the shop we went on to the ruins. What I really liked about Gorilla was that he wanted to do more than just show us the ruins, he wanted to teach us about his culture as well. When we first got to the ruins he gave us each a red headband, which his people wear during rituals and ceremonies. Below are the pictures I took. I have explanations with some of them, but some of them are just there for everyone to enjoy!













Calle de los Muertos- Road of the Dead that leads from one side of the ruins to the Pyramid of the Moon, in the back.


Gorilla is showing us their numerical system.


They Ladybugs that burrow in here are scraped out and crushed, that's how they get the color red to paint with!


Very steep!!!





Going inside the ruins...














After we visited the ruins, we went back to Gorilla's house for dinner. The food was sooo good! There were soups, rice, chicken, and fajitas.






Being entertained by Gorilla's granddaughter.

Hope everyone enjoyed the photos. It was an amazing day, learned a lot about their culture and got the chance to see some great ruins.

This week is the bicentennial of Mexico's independence, and therefore have off from school Wednesday until next Monday. I hope to go to the city center tomorrow to see some of the festivities. I hope to take some great pictures and videos for everyone!

Trip To Puebla, Part 3

Happy Thursday Everybody,

It sounds like everyone enjoyed the photos from the Safari that I posted yesterday, that's great. Today, I'm going to finish posting about my trip last weekend to Puebla.

After the Safari, we went to the city center of Puebla. There was a convent near the city center, and we got to walk around the main plaza for a little while. Soon after we got there, though, a bad storm came so we spent some time inside a small mall- if you will- where we walked in and out of stores. For a while everyone was entertained by some clowns. They were bringing in children from the audience and doing tricks, it was a lot of fun. Until, that is, the cops came and scared them off. Apparently they were illegal clowns.


Below are some pictures from the City Center.



















After an exciting day, we went back to the villa and hung out for the rest of the night. This included going swimming in 60 degree weather in a 65-70 degree pool, but it was still fun :)

Sunday morning, we just woke up and left. We were all pretty tired, but it was definitely a great weekend. Not soon after leaving, we passed by a great view of the volcano Popocatepetl. It was the perfect ending to a great weekend.





So that's all I have on our trip. This week has been going alright so far. I had three group presentations to give this week which was kinda hectic:

• For my International Business class, we had to present the balance of trade of any nation, we presented on Canada.
• For my Green Marketing class, we had to present an environmentally conscious company that operates (at least in part) in Mexico. We presented on Bacardi.
  
• For my Services Marketing class, we had to present an assigned case. We had to present on a Dr. Beckett's dental practice located in California, and how they provide the best service possible to their patients.
  

Overall, I'm pretty relieved that tomorrow is Friday, even though I still have a lot of stuff to take care of. Not sure what's on the agenda for this weekend, but whatever it is I'll let everyone know!

ARZVBXWNEM85

Trip to Puebla, Part 2

Hi everyone,

Before I continue with my post about my weekend, I would like to share links to my friends blogs. We all are studying abroad this semester and I want everyone to check in on them too:

My friend Mike, who is studying in Beijing:
http://mike-china-blog.blogspot.com/

My friend Peter, who is studying in Nairobi:
http://thoughtsandstoriesfromkenya.blogspot.com/

Today I will continue about my post about my weekend to Puebla. On Saturday, we spent the day at Africam, a large park that is half drive-thru safari and half zoo. I took many pictures, so I decided (per the advice of my sister) to upload them to photobucket so everyone could check them out. Below is the link to a slide-show of the pictures:

http://s841.photobucket.com/albums/zz340/cb3383a/Africam/?albumview=slideshow

The safari was great. The first 1 1/2-2 hours we spent driving through the safari. This was my first safari since I went to the one at Great Adventure with my father many years ago. There were so many animals!! Coupled with the scenery, it was a great experience.

After the drive-thru, we walked around in the zoo. There were a lot of exhibits; we saw spiders, reptiles, Emus, and got to walk around a semi-open area with wallabies and kangaroos. We spent all day there, and I don't think we saw everything. The pictures will show everything that we saw.

Tomorrow I will post more pictures from our trip to the city center Saturday night, and some pictures from Sunday before we left. Take care!

Trip to Puebla, Part 1

Hello everyone,

This weekend, my friends and I went to Puebla, about 2 hours outside of Mexico City. The trip was pretty amazing. It took us about 40 minutes just to get out of the city (I've been told it takes about two hours to get from one side to the other). We passed through areas of the city that I haven't seen before. On the outskirts, I was told that people live on less than 100 pesos a month (about 7.60 USD).

After we got out of the city, we went up into the mountains, through a place called Rio Frio. The fog up there can get very dense, although it wasn't too bad when we went through. The temperature dropped drastically as we went through the mountains; you could feel the cold when leaning on the windows. After we got through the mountains, we drove for about an hour more before we made it to Puebla.



We stayed in a little Villa for the weekend. There was one of three or four that circled an in ground pool. Above is the outside of the villas, and I have to say the scenery was absolutely amazing. We were a little drive from the lake, but wherever we went there was a view of the rolling hills, and farther out a view of the mountains. The street we were on was very quiet; it was the closest I have been to nature in a very long time.

After we got settled in, we went for a boat ride around the lake. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures (this was the ONLY time I forgot my camera over the weekend). We only had some time to see the cliffs on the closest side of the lake because of a bad storm coming though. It was the blackest sky I have ever seen!!!! After the boat ride, we went to the grocery store, where I saw for the first time the makings of a tornado



We were very far away, but I have to say it was pretty cool to see it for the first time. Apparently, tornadoes are pretty common around Puebla due to the open hills with very few trees.





This pictures were taken on Saturday morning. The building in front kind of blocks the view, but I hope everyone can see the hills in the background. The view in the morning was beautiful.

So, this is part 1 of my trip. Tomorrow, I will post about our trip to Africam, a Safari and Zoo that was just 1 kilometer away from where we were staying (about .6 miles). Hope to hear from everyone soon!

The Lost Video

Hi everyone,

So it just occurred to me that there was one video that I forgot to post from my trip last week. It features these strange creatures that I have never seen before. One of them actually jumped on me because I had food in my pocket, but all went well. Let me know what you think of them.

In case you haven't already noticed, I have no idea what these creatures are called.

Trip to Tepoztlan, Part 2

Good Sunday everyone!!!

Here a some more pictures and videos from yesterday's trip, hope everyone enjoys!!!

These pictures and videos were taken at the top of the pyramid.















These pictures and one video were taken at the market in the town after lunch.