A couple unrelated things:

Finals are starting to hit for me. But there usually are not final exams here in Mexico, just final papers. Unfortunately I have a final paper for all of my classes, which means that I have five 10 page papers in Spanish over the next couple of weeks. Two of which of due this Wednesday...

Last night I bought the official jersey of the Mexican national soccer team. It is AWESOME!

At the mall where I purchased said jersey, some friends and I went to see the movie Lions for Lambs. The important part of this story is not how the movie was. It was the theater. We were in the VIP theater. What is that, you might ask. Well I shall tell you. In said theater you sit in your own personal reclining lazy boy style leather chair. Oh yeah, there are also waiters that come around taking your order. They offer all the normal movie stuff as well as mixed drinks, full course meals...etc. It was the nicest movie theater I've ever been to. Definitely VIP...

I am playing in a basketball tournament at the university today. I'm really excited because for once I may actually be one of the taller players. 6'2'' is pretty tall here. I'm not particularly skilled at this sport, but what I lack in talent I will make up for in enthusiasm and height. Wish me luck, I gotta go inflate the tongue on my Reebok's...

I face the harsh reality that no one who reads this blog will ever understand want I have seen in the last 5 days unless they too have been. I have now visited about a dozen ancient Mayan cities, some of them dating back to 1800 BC and each one amazes me a little more than the previous. Part of it may be that I am also taking classes about the Mayan culture that help me understand how truly advanced this civilization was, but my pictures just never do any justice to the remarkable architecture of the buildings and the beautiful art that decorates them. I left last Wednesday for a 4 day trip through part of the Mayan world in the Southeast of the Yucatan Peninsula. I saw the ancient cities of Cobá, Muyil, Xelha, Tulum, and Ek Balam. I also swam in the sacred cenotes that were the source of water or these cities as well as a common place of sacrifice. My favorite by far was the city of Ek Balam. The way that most of these cities are arranged is very symbolic of where the power in the city would lie. For example there is often a giant pyramid (usually decorated with the heads of a certain god), and then an alter close by to show that the gods had a very large role. Then there are government buildings and official's palaces facing the courtyard in front of the pyramid. And as the buildings get further away from the center of the city their importances lessens. This is why common people usually lived a pretty good distance away from the center of the city. But the part that strikes me the most is the preservation of decorations and hieroglyphics that are still readable today. In Ek Balam there is part of the facade of the King's Palace (the most beautiful building I've ever seen by the way) that was perfectly retained because a giant tree formed an air bubble around it. This air bubble kept the original stucco in place. You will be able to see it in the pictures below, but just try and imagine that every building that you see in the pictures used to have stucco on it like the first picture with engravings and statues, and the entire building would have been painted with very bright colors. This is how the entire empire would have appeared. Unbelievable! Here are a few pictures that can try and portray what I just experienced.

Can you imagine from these first two pictures what it would have been like to see all of the buildings with their original stucco and bright colors? This is amazing!


This is the ball court at Cobá

cool skeleton carving in the ball court

Coba pyramid

Temple of the goddess of fertility. It has an astronomical observatory on top (the round thing)

This is an artificial canal the Mayans made through the laguna to the ocean for a trade route. To this day they have no idea how they were capable of it.

Can you see the soldier hidden in the stone on the corner?

Oh yeah, and we slept in cabins on this beach...

Hola a todos!

I wanted to share some pictures with you from my latest weekend adventure to Punta Allen, Mexico. Punta Allen is a tiny tiny fishing village of about 400 people on the Caribbean sea about 2 hours away from any other population. Now this was one of the towns that was devastated by Hurricane Dean, so parts of the peninsula were still in complete disarray. For example we went snorkeling one afternoon and discovered that the hurricane had killed most of the reef, kinda sad. But the area is still beautiful. On the east side of the town are the beaches of the Caribbean and on the west side is a giant Laguna. The whole town is the point of a long and skinny peninsula, a 5 minute walk to completely walk from water to water. As you can imagine the town is nothing but white sand, palapa houses on the beach, palm trees, and hammocks. But that is exactly what we wanted this weekend. We saw a few small Mayan ruins, but the majority of out time was spent enjoying the slow life of the Caribbean. Tomorrow at 9 I leave for a 5 day trek through the jungles of the Yucatan to scuba in some of the most exotic cenotes and explore some of the least known Mayan pyramids and cities. I'll be sleeping in a hammock on the beach at the Mayan city of Tulum (see post Oct 11 for Tulum). I'll have unbelievable pictures in about 5 days. But here are a few pictures my friends took this past weekend as I forgot my camera.

Looks like a Corona commercial

Beach that had hurricane "residue" from Dean

Sunset over the Laguna

Me on the beach. Lucky picture...accidental combination of 2 flashes.

Ha llegado el "norte"

I woke up this morning freezing. Last night a huge northern cold front hit us in the Yucatan. When I say cold front I mean weather in the 70s...but cold nonetheless. People here say, "ha llegado el norte", or quite literally, "the north has arrived". Which I think is funny. But the cold front comes each year and stays for about 3 days, so we should all still be a go for my trip back to the Caribbean this weekend.

Exactly a week from today I will be leaving on my excursion through the Inner Mayan World. I'll be sleeping in a hammock on the seashores of Old Mexico by night, and treking through the jungle to see rarely visited Mayan cities. I'll be seeing some of the tallest Mayan pyramids and scuba diving in their ancient cenotes (see post from Sept 22 to learn about centoes), I can't wait to post pictures.

I'm going to take the lack of comments on the last blog as a "you've said it so well that we have nothing to add" rather than a "no one reads this dumb thing..." But all of that aside. Do you remember when you were between the ages of like 12 and 14? Every time that I would walk into a store the employees would stop and stare to make sure that I wasn't stealing anything. Well sometimes I feel the exact same way here. Maybe they stare because I'm clearly a foreigner, but there are times when I know it is because they don't trust me. For example, tonight I was walking back from the bus stop on the sidewalk as a guy was getting out of his car. He walked up to the front door of his house and just stopped to make sure I walked all the by and didn't stop at his car. I don't know what he thought I was going to do, or if they have a lot of American thievery in Mexico... Whatever it is I thought it was really humorous, because that is a stereotype that I wasn't aware of.

This weekend! I forgot I haven't written about it yet. I went scuba diving in the Caribbean. The water was the most turquoise water I've ever seen. We saw barracuda, a sting ray, and tons of colorful fish. I didn't have the ability to take any pictures while I was down there, but it looked a lot like this...but it was a much bigger reef.

Why hello friends and family. It is such a beautiful day here in the Yucatan that I would really just prefer to hop a bus to the beach (only a 20 minute ride) and waste the day in a hammock with a non-school related book and a margarita. But seeing as I had class that technically started an hour ago and 2 more that I actually will be attending today, I can't go sit on the white sands of Mexico and watch the guy in his motor operated parachute that keeps him flying above the reef for hours at a time. (side note, I really need to become friends with that guy...) This is my first time in like a month that I have had more than 10 minutes to blog. It feels kinda nice to be able to write about what is going on without being rushed, and while recounting my weekend tales is fun and I'm sure you appreciate them, I think it's more fair to people like my parents and grandmothers who read this to know that I'm doing well. Saturday I have scuba practice again, but this time we are taking 2 Caribbean dives so I'll be heading over to Cancun at like 4 in the morning on Saturday in order to be ready for the dive by 9. It is funny the way that studying abroad effects your mentality. I find it almost impossible to be motivated to do school work, which is hard enough when you live in a town like Lubbock but when you live in Mexico near the Caribbean... Especially because all of my credits transfer as pass/fail. All I have to do is get a D and I get the exact same credit as I would if were to get an A...it's a dangerous system. Well, a few hellos to some people I've been thinking about recently..

-family: Mom, Dad, Adam, Brian, Dana & Grandmothers
-Ashley, Scott, and Mrs Seal
-CBC buddies (can't be individual, i don't have 3 hours but it's all love here)
-Tech Navs
-Cactus Shooters!!!
-Jeff, Julie, David, & Rebekah
-Tech Goin' Band
-Nurgypoo & D-Steve
-Kamp bros

Well, I need to get out of my hammock and get to school, but it feels like its going to be a good weekend. Hope it is for you too!

Today is this woman's 21st birthday. (I know what you're thinking, but standing next to her, everyone looks this bad...)

For whatever reason, she has allowed me to be in her life for a year and two months. But today isn't about how lucky I am, which I am. It is about how wonderful Ashley Nicole Seal is, and about how amazing I want her day to be. So, to once again steal the style from dear old Brent..

in honor of Ashley's 21st birthday today I will be...
-singing Broadway musicals at the top of my lungs
-being the sweetest/most genuine person anyone has ever met
-laughing at stupid jokes told by significant others
-text messaging all 24 hours of the day
-finding out how God has gifted me and using that to the best of my ability
-wearing a Kappa Kappa Gamma party t-shirt
-crushing on Zac Efron (won't really be doing this)
-having a great attitude about everything
-being the most lovable person in the WORLD!

Sorry fellas, she's kinda taken.
Happy Birthday Ash!

I woke up bright and early yesterday morning to meet my group for scuba practice. Right as I was walking out the door my scuba teacher called me and told me that he wasn't going to be able to make it early this morning because he had been robbed the night before. While he was in a restaurant someone broke into his van and stole his computer, which contained all of his work information, and thousands of dollars worth of scuba gear. So Memo, the scuba guy, worked all morning to get the window of his van fixed as well as find us the proper equipment so we could still have scuba practice...after being robbed. That is the most selfless thing that I have seen in a long time. And scuba ended up being really cool. I mean, we just practiced in a pool, but it was fun nonetheless. Pretty soon I'll be at the bottom of the Caribbean swimming with the dolphins and looking at the coral reefs. Wish you could all be there with me.

In honor of the Texas Tech vs A&M game today I will be...
...dressing like a pirate
...throwing tortillas at kickoff
...poking fun at those who have practiced yelling
...and just all around getting my guns up as high as possible

Go Tech!

I promise the days are going by too quickly. I really meant to blog on Tuesday, but the next thing I knew it was Thursday afternoon and I was leaving my last class for the week....it is the weekend again already. (At least for me because I don't have Friday classes) But this past weekend was unbelievable. For those of you who are not aware, my beautiful girlfriend Ashley and her friend Caitlin came down for a little visit to Mexico. They were unable to fly into Merida, so I met them in Cancun and we hopped a bus to Playa del Carmen for the weekend. Beautiful beaches, Mayan ruins, ridiculous condos...you couldn't ask for anything more. The first day we all just kinda hung out at the beach and met some of my friends from my program at their condo they were staying at. We're talking like a $2.5 million condo. Ridiculous! So beautiful, overlooking the beach with an infinity pool. Then Saturday, us three woke up bright and early and went to Tulum, a beautiful ancient Mayan city right on the beach (See pictures below). THE MOST beautiful beach I have ever seen in my life. I don't really want to continue this story because it gets sad...Ashley had to leave the next day. But I hope you enjoy the pictures below of our weekend.
Tomorrow I have my first SCUBA practice in a pool. Just a couple more weeks till I'll be scuba diving in the Caribbean. I know my posts recently have kinda just been about my weekends, but my weeks are very normal. I wake up and go to school, come home, do homework and start it all over again. Except for last night when I went to a place called Mambo cafe. It is a salsa club here in Merida with live Music. The band members are some of the most talented musicians that I've ever seen. They are all Cuban and play every instrument, sing, and dance very well. I didn't try, but there is no way that I could ever dance like that...Mom and Dad, when ya'll come to visit my host parents are going salsa dancing with us. Get excited. Anyways....pictures!

I want to apologize to all of the faithful readership out there. This past week I have not blogged for no other reason than my terrible habit of procrastination. I'll admit it, and take full responsibility. So, it is time to play catch up. Here are some of my pictures from last weekend's trip to Uxmal. This ancient city has one of the coolest pyramids in the world. These pictures don't even close to do it justice, but I hope you enjoy!

This is just me in front of the pyramid.

side view...

This is one of the business squares in the city. The architecture is very ornate with Mayan gods sticking out the the walls and stuff. Very cool.

I think this was one of the government buildings.

Pyramid from far away.

The city is much bigger than you can tell from the pictures. It has a really cool ball court. The Mayan's sport was very similar to our present day basketball, but you had to get the ball into the ring without using your hands. And then the losers, and sometimes the winners as well, were sacrificed to the gods. The ring and ball court is the picture below.


Skip ahead 7 days. My wonderful girlfriend Ashley and her friend Caitlin came to visit me in Mexico this weekend. They were unable to fly into Merida, so I met them in Cancun (a 4 hour bus ride from here) and we spent the weekend in Playa del Carmen. The weekend was amazing, the Caribbean was beautiful, and we went to an ancient Mayan city called Tulum. Now, I didn't take my camera this weekend so I'll have to wait until they send me copies of theirs before I can post some of them. But I'll try my best to post about this weekend before the next one passes...haha. I hope everything is going well for everyone.

This past weekend I went to one of the most famous Mayan archaeological sites, saw one of the coolest pyramids in the world, and toured an ancient city. I have some really cool pictures that I'll post at a later date. But right now I have a funny story that literally just happened about 20 minutes ago. It all started this morning with my test in Cultural History of the Mayan Area. I had an 8 am exam in this class and apparently did not study as much as I should have, a crime I am often guilty of. After the exam I was talking with some other students in the class and they agreed that the test was very difficult. So difficult in fact that it required a word other than the normal word for difficult or hard. And the word seemed very harmless, especially since the only definition they gave me was that it means "really difficult". I'm sure you all know where this is going by now, but one last thing about this part of Mexico is that are a ton of Mayan words that are still common in the everyday language, so hearing words that I didn't know previously is not an uncommon experience, so...I thought nothing of it. Until....I came home for lunch and my host parents asked how the test went. I proudly replied with what I thought to be a demonstration of my expanded vocabulary, only to get a wide eyed look from my host mother, and a 2 minute long laughing episode from my host father. No real harm was done, but in essence, what I was saying was "the test was (insert expletive here) hard". Lesson learned, don't repeat words you do not know the meaning to. You'd think I would have learned that lesson back in high school after repeating that phrase in Dutch that Justin told me to say only to be slapped by his sister. I mean, the kid was a missionary kid for goodness sake. I'm way too trusting. Well, blog topics have to come from somewhere....

Last night I went with my host brother to the gym that he attends and bought a membership. And by the way, it only put me back $20 a month and that includes a personal trainer. I wasn't planning on getting a personal trainer, but I did because apparently everyone here does because it is so cheap. From what I can figure out, this guy's job is to just tell you what exercise and how many sets, and then he walks away and works out while you do your sets. This guy obviously works out all day every day seeing as he was only 5'5'' and outweighed me by a good 100 pounds of muscle. But back to the point of this blog. I've been working out for a good part of my life, not saying that I'm in great shape or anything, but I know what to expect when I go into a gym. Or so I thought. Well my PT, Orlando was his name, worked me for 2 hours of weight training, upper body only, and then told me that he'd see me tomorrow for legs. Well I can't move my arms. My elbows and shoulders are stuck in that painful soreness that you get after you've had surgery. It really feels like my elbows have been operated on and I'm terrified to go work out my legs, because those always hurt anyways, and with this guy I'll be paralyzed. Either I'm just a wuss, he's great at his job, or a combination of both...no answer needed.

On a side note, I've watched Dumb and Dumber and The Count of Monte Cristo over the past two days. Sometimes a good movie in English is all you need to make your day.

I woke up this morning with the strangest of realizations. I am used to living here. For the past month I have opened my eyes each day and been in someone else's home, and gone to someone else's University. But today I woke up in MY bed and took the bus on MY bus route and went to MY school. I guess it is the adjustment we all make in new situations. That's just how the cookie crumbles i guess.

But moving on, my friends and I are making plans to spend a week in Mexico City in December during the week of the Virgen de Guadalupe. That'll be a very culturally rich experience, putting aside the fact that Mexico D.F. is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. (I probably shouldn't say things like that on a page that my parents, grandparents, and girlfriend all read) And on top of that we are in the process of figuring out the best way to get four Americans into Cuba. It turns out that it isn't as hard for Americans to get to Cuba as you would think. As long as you go through other countries (ie. Mexico) it is very possible. The only scare is that if you get caught getting off of a plane from Cuba by American officials you could get slapped with a $5000 fine, but the guides all say that this is a formality and doesn't really have to be paid..mainly because it isn't constitutional to tell an American citizen that they are unable to travel where they please. All of that to say that these upcoming months will be full of...well..let's just call them experiences. Until later.

As promised…here is what went down. I woke up bright and early at 6 am yesterday morning in order to be in the center of town by 8 because me and some friends were traveling to the nearby by town of Cuzamá. The guide book told us to catch a bus at a specific intersection downtown, but when we arrived there were no buses to be found. After asking around and getting 5 completely different sets of directions, we found out that we were about 10 blocks away from where our bus was going to be. So we walked…We finally found our bus and began our one hour bus ride to Cuzamá. None of us had any idea what to expect when we got there. When we pulled up to this small Mayan village, there were taxis waiting by the side of the road to take us to the Hacienda that we were going to visit. By taxi I mean there were children between 9 and 12 with bicycles that had a seat for two on the front…this is what they called taxis. Feeling very uncomfortable with having the child labor that should, without a doubt, be in school at that very moment bike us around in the 100 degree heat we asked the bus driver if he could take us 2 miles up the road to the Hacienda. He said he would, thankfully. We stepped out of the bus, paid our fare, and hopped into what they called a “horse drawn carriage” which was a little cart that rode on a miniature railroad and pulled by a horse. Really neat actually.

The house and business part of this Hacienda no longer exists but the main tourist attraction, as it turns out, are these three cenotes. Three of the most beautiful cenotes in the world. Now if you remember back to my post where I discussed what cenotes were, they are natural pools of water that the Mayans used for many purposes…everything from bathing to spiritual purposes, ie) sacrificing. These three cenotes were covered cenotes, meaning that they were inside of caves. We had to climb down into the cenotes and the water was (depending on which cenote) about 40-80 feet under the surface of the ground. I can’t even explain the beauty of the water in words, nor do the pictures I took with my camera do any justice, so here are a couple of pictures of these cenotes that I visited that someone else took as well as a couple that I took. The water is turquoise blue, and clearer than the water in a swimming pool. There were places in the cenote that were almost 100 feet deep and you could see the rocks at the bottom. UNBELIEVABLE!





That part of the trip was beautiful, fun, and unforgettable…but it doesn’t end there. Back to the bus ride that brought us 2 miles off of the normal route to a secluded Hacienda. The bus driver told us that he would meet us where he dropped us off at a certain time. So like anyone who wants to eventually get back from the middle of nowhere, we were where we were supposed to be when we were supposed to be there. And we waited. And we waited. And waited. It got to the point to where the “taxi” drivers/riders were telling us that he wasn’t coming. But we held out. Mainly because, like I said, we weren’t big fans of child labor. It became very clear that the bus wasn’t coming so we took matters into our own hands. A man and his family were getting into their truck and so I walked up to him and asked if he could drop us four off in the middle of town 2 miles down the road. He immediately said no, and rolled his window back up and started to drive off. Then he reversed back and said that they could, so we hopped into the back of his truck and were officially hitch-hiking in Mexico. When we got into town the man told us that he and his family were going to stay at a Hacienda close to Merida and that we could ride along if we wanted. So we naturally accepted his hour of free transportation, but we were unaware of how terrible with directions this man was. He took more wrong turns than I thought were possible, but we finally started going the right direction towards Merida. And then he started to turn the wrong way again, so we all started yelling from the back of the truck to turn right and he did. It struck me as odd that he would listen to directions from four hitch hikers in the back of his truck but we got to the right place. As we pulled up to the Hacienda 10 kilometers outside of Merida, a window rolled down and the man’s wife said, “Your ride ends here.” Weird way to put it, but we couldn’t complain so we hopped out of the truck, asked some locals how to get into the city, and took a bus on into Merida.

I know some of you are curious to know how the whole sick thing went. Sorry I didn't post sooner, but I'm fine. It was more or less just a 24 hour flu virus that came and went. I've just been so busy that I haven't had the time to post. The same holds true today...BUT, please tune in tomorrow evening because I will be writing about what happened today. Today was probably the most crazy, adventuresome, awesome day in Mexico EVER. I hate to leave you with that, but I want to make sure that I have the time to sit down and record every detail, and this evening does not offer me that opportunity. I'm sorry for the short absence, but I can only hope that you will all understand today's events in the near future...Let's just say it may involve hitch-hiking and caves...

Well friends, I'm sick again. Not like last time, today it's the flu. Body aches, slight fever, and I'm exhausted. Nothing more, but nothing less either. And my throat is killing me. Is that normal with the flu?

Besides that I have tons of homework due today that I didn't do last night because I needed to get sleep, including a class presentation. We'll see how that goes.

I'm off to class...

Saturday night, which I just haven't had time to post about, was Mexican Independence Day. I went, along with 70,000 other people, to the center of town to watch "el Grito" Spanish for "the shout". This is a tradition in which the Governor comes out on the balcony of the Governor's mansion and shouts "Viva Mexico" five times in honor of their Independence. Well, I'm not going to lie, it was quite the experience seeing all of these people united by this one event. It caused me to think about our Independence Day celebrations in the US...where we usually have small gatherings of family and friends, maybe some fireworks, and then we all go home. It's a fun day. Really it is. But I realized this weekend that Americans celebrate the present America on July 4th. We celebrate where our country is now, what is going on at this moment. I love our country and our traditions, but I feel that because we tend to celebrate the present, someone who may not agree with current policies or leadership feels less of a desire to celebrate the current position of our country. I would never call anyone unpatriotic, but you know where I'm coming from. And of course, this is America and that is their freedom. But Mexicans celebrate the past. For one day, ok for a full month, they put aside all of their nations problems (which is a lot to do) and remember the fight against Spain. They remember the first time a leader of their country stood up in front of a crowd and shouted "Viva Mexico." They remember what it was like to not be Independent, and the pride that now exists. It brought chills to my spine listening as 70,000 people crammed into a square block, all shouted "VIVA!" Kinda cool. I guess I would just really love to see someone dressed like Paul Revere riding down the street in every major American city shouting "The British are Coming, The British are Coming!!!" I think that could do a little something to unite us.

What an amazing weekend! I went to Campeche with no idea what to really expect, and I discovered one of the coolest cities in all of Mexico. The city was, at one point in time, completely walled it and much of the wall is still up today. Campeche was constantly under attack by pirates in the 18th and 19th centuries, and so you will find huge forts enforced by dozens of canons throughout the city. But apart from being the obvious historical goldmine that it is, it is such a comfortable city. The streets are lined with 200 year old, two-story buildings all the way down; each building being a different color than the buildings to either side. It honestly felt like I was walking through a town in 1820 Mexico. Way cool. So after touring some forts and walking on parts of the city wall we decided to check out this whole Festival of the Black Christ thing. So we starting walking the direction the nice Mexican lady pointed us in and began to see this in the distance.

It was no different from your normal American fair...other than the obvious lack of certain safety regulations. Hysterical. Oh, and the part from last week about the Christ being burnt during a period of persecution...absolutely not true. The story is even cooler. Apparently, El Cristo Negro is just made out of ebony wood and is naturally black. Not the cool part of the story, however. The story goes like this: It was made in Rome in 1554, shipped to Venezuela, and then purchased by the people in Campeche. In order to get the black colored crucifix to Campeche they need two things: 2 weeks and a Catholic captain to get it there. On the first day of the 2 week trip from Venezuela a huge storm hit the sailors and they were seemingly unable to keep the boat on route. The captain and the crew went beneath the deck for safety while one sailor volunteered to steer the boat through the storm. No one on the crew knew who this sailor was. Meanwhile, back in Campeche, someone had informed the city that the black Christ would be arriving on the first day of the voyage so the entire town was waiting on the beach with torches. And sure enough, the boat makes it through the storm to safety, to arrive in Campeche on the first day of the trip. However, when the captain tries to find the mystery sailor who had maneuvered the boat through the storm, he is no where to be found. And when they open the box containing the crucifix, the box is completely dry but the black Christ inside is dripping wet. Who was this mystery sailor??? Was it Christ himself? Anyway, and so to this day the black Christ hangs in the Church of San Roman and has never been painted and hasn't rotted even slightly in 400 something years. Kinda cool. Here is a picture, I couldn't get close to the crucifix because they were having their daily mass.

Here are some other random pictures from the weekend. The first one is actually here in Merida, it is the oldest cathedral on the continent. Enjoy.

Ok, a little more info on the Festival of the Black Christ. I'll obviously know a lot more when I get back, but apparently there was an era in Mexico in which the governing body was opposed to anything religious(surprising with how Catholic Mexico has always been). But during this period the government would destroy religious buildings of any kind. Well the church is Campeche was burned and all that remained was a statue of Christ that had turned black from the fire. The fact that it remained intact calls for celebration every year (still unsure how long it has been) since.

I thought it would be cool to have a word of the day that we could all celebrate together in three languages since my class of the Mayan language is so awesome. The words will obviously be very simplistic seeing as I will probably never be able to use complicated words in Mayan. So today's is:

Maya: Ki'ichpam
Español: guapa
English: pretty (in the attractive sense)

Used in a sentence....Ashley is very Ki'ichpam.

Hasta

I went to a restaurant called "La Musa" tonight to watch the Mexico vs Brazil soccer game. Talk about intense. They sure do love their soccer in Mexico and, even though we lost, it was one of the most fun things that I've ever done.

This weekend, Saturday to be exact, is Mexican Independence day. I'm definitely going to buy a huge Mexican flag. And also this weekend is the Festival of the Black Christ in a little town called Campeche on the west coast of the Yucatan. Now, just to make things clear, there is nothing racist OR sac religious about this Festival. Apparently there is just this statue of Christ that is in black iron and they celebrate it every year. So a few of us from the program are going on Friday to experience whatever the Festival of the Black Christ might entail. Both of these events have tons of tradition built into them, especially the whole independence thing as you can imagine. Check back for pictures and stories. I can't wait to share them with you.

Viva México