School, Pizza and Shopping - Cuernavaca Day 10

In spite of the huge amount of walking and Zumba-ing that I did yesterday, I still was not able to get a good night's sleep.  Last night, it was due to a terrible thunderstorm.  Each time the thunder clapped, I jumped out of my bed.  There is no air conditioning here. They don't need it. However, the windows and doors stay open most of the time.  My bed is next to a large floor-to-ceiling window and a full patio door.  It was a wicked, wicked night, but I survived!  If it weren't for the rain, the city wouldn't be so full of beautiful flowers every where you look. Rain here is good!

In school today, we focused again on the use of the preterine and subjunctive in sentences that don't follow the typical Spanish language rules.  We are having very challenging discussions that go way beyond anything I learned in college foreign language.  I'm excited to be at this level where I am truly analyzing the structure and use of the language.  Two weeks isn't enough to make me sound like a native, but I am definitely feeling confident in my ability to circumlocute in pretty much any situation that presents itself to me.  My vocabulary is very general still and I could benefit from more exposure to specific subjects such as medical Spanish, Spanish slang, etc.  Overall, I'm thrilled with my progress and find myself thinking in Spanish more often than not.  

After school, I walked to the town center to have lunch with my teacher friends at Marco Polo, a quaint Italian place.  I have had authentic Mexican meals for every meal since I have been here.  Today, I wanted something else so I had veggie pizza.  It was great! The restaurant served us warm bread with marinated vegetables (including peppers) before our meal.  I ate every bite of my lunch to the shock of my friends.  They warned me not to get used to my metabolism (they are a few years older) and told me my days of eating a whole pizza would soon end.  Not if I can help it!  After all, it was a pizza chica (small).

                      

We decided to visit the Morelos Museum of Popular Art after lunch.  Here are some photos of the unusual and colorful works of art found at this free public museum.

                                    

                            

                                                   

While my friends shopped, I stopped at Burger King (yes, they have Burger King here) to get a cold drink and use the Wifi.  The Wifi wasn't working so I spent a while just watching people.  My view of the Palacio de Cortés was really neat!  The hustle and bustle of a modern city juxtaposed with the castle of a 16th century conquistador.  Fascinating!

I'm planning a quiet night at my house.  There is homework to be done and some planning to do before Brian arrives on Saturday.  I don't particularly want beans, tortillas or cheese for "cena" tonight, so I stopped by the convenience store to get a yogurt and some trail mix for a snack.  

Tomorrow, I will go to Zumba for the last time. This has been one of the more entertaining (and exhausting) activities of my trip.  They don't Zumba here like they Zumba in the US.  It's a whole different ball game here.  Look for another post soon about staying in shape while traveling.  

Thank you for reading and for putting up with my strangely placed photos.  When I return home, I hope to edit my posts and rearrange photos.  I am using my iPad to do all of my uploading and writing.  Since Google and Apple don't alway work well together, there are limitations with how much I can edit on the road.  

Have a great evening!

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!