Happy New Year's Eve!

Holiday post, coming soon!

Happy New Year!!

Rotary Trip: RUTA MAYA

Hello everyone! This is the long awaited blog post about my giant rotary trip! I really don't know what to say about the trip- it was probably the fastest 2 weeks of my life, filled with silly exchange student antics, incredible sights, and lots of time on a bus. So, get excited for cool pictures of interesting things!

Monte Alban! WOO RUINS

Barro Negro- passed down through generations! Literal translation: Black Mud

WOW DREAM BIG!

Giant Tree

Because I am on exchange in Mexico, we visited a Mezcal factory with Rotarians.

                                                            (Mezcal, basically tequila)

Sumidero Canyon

Cascadas de Aguas Azules (Blue Water Waterfalls) in Chiapas

My German friend Jula and I! Thanks Grandma for the flag :)

Palenque: Ruins

Tulum

After Tulum, we went to Xel- Ha, one of the many parks around Cancun. You can snorkel, swim with dolphins, and eat. It's really big so it's hard to do everything if you don't really know what there is, so it's a good idea to check out the park map beforehand! Since we are exchange students, we took pictures with the lifeguards! There are a lot more embarrassing pictures, but we'll just leave you with this..

Photo credit goes to Cleo Rogers from Nebraska!
Me, Cleo, Our Lifeguard Miguel, Jula, and Kira

We also went to Xplor, which was awesome! It was all zip-lining and tunnels and cool stuff. If you go to Cancun, go there! There are no pictures though :( We also went to X- Caret, but no one really had that much enthusiasm so there aren't really cool pictures.. sorry!

Next: Coco Bongo! Coco Bongo is one of the biggest/ best/ most famous clubs in all of Latin America. There is a show, a bar meant for dancing, and an open bar. If you like that sort of thing, it's definitely worth going. It is, however, made for tourists, and expensive. 

Photo Credit to Cleo Rogers! 

Last day in Playa del Carmen:

One of the 7 wonders of the world! Chichen- Itza!! WOO!

The last part of my trip was a quick stop (as in a hour) in Villahermosa. My friend from Watertown, Elaine Anderson, lives there! When you're in your hometown, it's not really that big of a deal to run into someone you know. But when you're in another country and you get the chance to chat with someone from YOUR town, going through the same things, it's really cool. Anyways, here we are eating Dairy Queen outside of my bus! P.S. Her blog is awesome- elenavaamexico.blogspot.com

That's all! I know it was sort of brief and not real detailed, but I hope you all enjoyed it! If you have any questions, please ask! Hasta Luego!

Mexico City!

Hi everyone!

On November 16th,  I got back from a trip to the Federal District of Mexico , the equivalent of Washington D.C, also known as Mexico City. Some fun facts:  

Mexico City is at an altitude of 2,240 meters (7,350 feet). I'm at sea level in Veracruz.

The Mexico City Metropolitan Area Population is 21.2 million people. Watertown has 30,000.

Mexico City is the 8th richest city in the world. 

Alright, that doesn't really tell you a whole lot about what it's actually like, but it does give you some interesting facts to whip out from time to time. I also can't give you a perfect look into the average day of someone living in Mexico City because I don't live there and I went as a tourist. I was speaking Spanish with my class from a town in Mexico, but we are still tourists. 

We went to Mexico City with our art teacher to see, well, art. It was my first trip to Mexico City and I was basically amazed at everything. It is an enormous city and there is so much to see. Instead of going through everything we did, I'll just share the things I found really interesting or important.

First, the Torre Latinoamericano, or Latinamerican Tower. There were elevators, but lucky us- one was broken. We had to walk up around 5 sets of stairs, which wouldn't have been a big deal except for the change from sea level in Veracruz to really high in Mexico City. Anyways, the view from the top of the tower was incredible. Mexico City is enormous, and we could see roads going in every direction off into the very distant distance.

One of the museums we went to had a really cool exhibit by Ron Mueck. We walked into one of the rooms, and we found this:

Yes, it's a sculpture of a woman lying in her bed. Pretty normal, except for the fact that it is enormous and extremely lifelike! Other sculptures included a woman carrying sticks, a huge head, a man in a boat, a giant chicken hanging from the ceiling, and a young man pulling up his shirt to check out a cut on his ribs. It all looks just this real too!

This next picture doesn't really have that much to do with Mexico City. I have made it a side goal of my exchange year to take as many pictures with soldiers/ marines as possible. So: In the National Palace, I decided to take advantage of being an American tourist and asked to take a picture with these guys!

Another cool part about the National Palace are the murals by Diego Rivera. There is one mural that supposedly covers the complete history of Mexico. Here's part of it:

Also, I was able to pass through the rooms used by the president! I have never been to the White House, so this was my first time in any such building. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed, so you'll just have to believe me when I say it's really very cool. There's even a picture of George Washington!

I had the opportunity to go to a ballet in the Beautiful Arts Palace during my trip. The ballet was "Taming of the Shrew" by Shakespeare, and it was incredible! It was a great experience.

One of my favorite stops was the Monument of the Revolution. It's basically a giant arch to remember, well, the Revolution. I enjoyed seeing the city from so high up again. I managed to grab a picture with some cadets while we were there.

The last stop we made, and probably my favorite, was in Coyoacan outside of Mexico City in Frida Kahlo's museum. The museum is her old house, and it's amazing to say you've walked through a famous artist's home. There is tons of original artwork, and you aren't allowed to take pictures, but I promise it's cool. If you remember Diego Rivera (from the National Palace murals), he was Frida Kahlo's husband. He later cheated on her with her own sister, but that's another story!

So, that's my trip to Mexico City in a nutshell! It was nice to be able to see another part of Mexico, learn something about history and art, and spend time with my classmates. Hope you liked it!

WOOO Mail :)

I know I'm supposed to be writing about my trip to Mexico City and my Rotary trip, buuuut I'll get to that. Today I'm going to write about the pleasant surprise I got in the mail! As you've probably seen in my previous posts, mail from the U.S. to Mexico is not exactly reliable or prompt. With this in mind, everytime I get mail is like Christmas morning, I hum, I dance, etc. Okay, all joking aside, it's a pretty big deal. It's even cooler when you get a package from a really good friend out of the blue.
The point of this post is to say that I like packages, and I have the best friends in the world.
Thank you to Taylor and her family :)

Your gifts and notes made my day!