First day of school 2015 - Day 2 in Cuernavaca

My day began with early morning yoga on my private balcony.  I was able to get up before sunrise to practice for a few minutes.  It was incredibly peaceful to work through my poses while listening to new birds, watching the sunrise and swatting away mosquitos.  I hope to do this every morning as my exercise routine will be disrupted severely by my change in location!

Breakfast was at 8am. Again, a nice bowl of ripe fruit with toast and scrambled eggs. This morning, however, there was a sliced hot dog in the eggs.  It was tasty!  

I walked to school with my housemate. It's about a mile.  We arrived in plenty of time.  When we got there, we grabbed a complimentary cup of coffee, picked up our textbooks and headed to our class.  For two hours, we studied advanced Spanish grammar.  For the second two hours, we studied teaching ideas and materials.

After school ended for the day, we walked home to have lunch or "comida" as it's called.  The afternoon meal is the big meal of the day in most Spanish-speaking countries.  Today, we started with salad and carrot soup. It was delicious.  For our main dish, we had ham, rice, potato salad and beans. Served on the side were corn tortillas and salsa verde.  It was filling!

After a short rest to regain our energy, my housemate and I walked to the town center, known as the zócalo. It's about a 2.2 mile walk on cobbled streets.  We met the rest of the teachers who are here for two weeks at a happy hour.  The restaurant we visited is called Casa Hidalgo.  For drinks, we had clericot which is the Mexican word for sangria that has pieces of fruit in it. We also shared some botanas (appetizers).  Lots of guacamole, empanadas, queso and chips.  We sat outside overlooking the main plaza of Cuernavaca.

After dinner, my housemate and I walked around the plaza. We saw many vendors selling crafts and street food.  Most of the products appeared to be mass produced items like bracelets, painted skulls and jewelry.  Most of the vendors had the same items as the ones just before them.  I do want to bring back things for my family, my classroom and myself, but I also want to bring back things that are meaningful to me.  I don't usually buy my things until the last couple of days of a trip.

Tomorrow, I will be in class all morning again. Then, we are going on an tour of the Cuernavaca cathedral and Hernando Cortez's palace in Cuernavaca.  Following that, we are doing some tutoring with underprivileged school age kids.  I plan to walk a lot tomorrow so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for no rain!

Buenas noches!