Friday, May 23

A beautiful painting of birds Paco gave me
because I told him Birds were my favorite
animals... I only said that because I didn't
know how to say Zebra or Squirrel in Spanish!

Per usual, I started my day at Solexico.  I’m finding the grammar and exercises we do in class to be wicked easy, but as soon as I have to have a conversation and listen to the words instead of read them, my mind just quits on me.  As I’m sure you could guess Paco was waiting for me in the courtyard…. This time with a giant bouquet of white lilies!  They were absolutely gorgeous, but Paco really can’t take a hint.  I tried to tell him I was busy, but he was just being so nice, I didn’t know how to say “I don’t like this” without sounding mean.  He asked me to go to the movies with him on Sunday and I told him I was going on a cultural excursion with Solexico and wouldn’t get home until late.

After he left, I started talking to my Spanish instructor and we created a great phrase to make Paco understand.  “Paco, tu eres muy simpatico, pero you no quiro un novio.  Nosotros solo somos amigos.”  Translated: “Paco, you are very nice, but I don’t want a boyfriend.  We are only friends.” Firm, but not mean.  My plan is to practice it all weekend so I’m ready to use it on Monday.

Octavio's flower choice today.

Today was also the day where we finally were going to learn what The Hub is.  If you remember, Rocky and I got the time wrong on Wednesday and had to reschedule for Friday.  We arrived at The Hub at 1pm…. But orientation was actually at noon…. We managed to mess up the times twice in one week.  I mean, they are in Spanish, but we need to pick up our game next week and make it to the orientation!

Rocky and I have another admirer back at our house.  Mrs. Irma’s son, Octavio, loves to greet us at the door with flowers.  Whenever he sees us coming, he runs somewhere in the yard to pick us a flower.  It’s a very sweet gesture and I’d much rather get flowers from Octavio than from Paco.

I didn't realize TVs like this existed anymore
until I came to Mexico and they're everywhere!

At 3:30, Solexico shows a movie in either Spanish with English subtitles or English with Spanish subtitles.  Rocky and I went and they played Amor Te Duele.  It was in Spanish, and basically a modern day Mexican version of Romeo and Juliet.  By modern day….I mean the 80s.  and by Romeo Juliet….I mean their love was forbidden and one of them dies.  Really is was just like Shakespeare.  Only much weirder with black and white style shots and too many close ups and naked people to feel comfortable.

Back at our apartment, we turned on the TV and enjoyed some Disney Channel.  Teen Beach Movie was playing and it actually was pretty good.  Very cheesy, but they spoke slow and had exaggerated facial expressions which made it easier to understand what was happening.  I will also admit to watching the Backyardigans and Curious George because children’s shows use basic Spanish that I can understand and actually learn new words from….

The streets were filled with people

Since it was a Friday night, we headed out to the Zocalo and watched our favorite clown perform.  Everything is so pretty at night here in Mexico.  It’s not like Boston where the night is beautiful but everyone has a destination.  Here in Mexico, there is no destination, you just wander and enjoy the weather.

The beautiful church in front of the Zocalo.

Paya, the clown, using all his muscles to
balance on the pole.

A little clown on a unicycle....with 3 wheels
...is that still a unicyle???

Rocky cooking Hot Cakes... they're just mini pancakes!

The clown, named Paya, invited us out dancing after his performance, but Rocky wanted to go home because she was tired and I didn’t think I should go alone with a strange man…. Aka have all my clown nightmares come true!  He invited us to join him at the Corona Music Festival in Oaxaca the following night and we friended each other on facebook.

I also got to pet a cute little fluffy white dog! And run away from a huge cockroach that no one else seemed petrified by.

My night ended with a fun Skype session with Gabriel.

Dulces Sueños,

Maria Katerina

Thursday, May 22

We found the paper store!!!!

Per my usual routine, I had Spanish Class at Solexico from 9-12, can you guess who showed up in the courtyard as I was getting out of class?  Paco!  He apparently did not take the hint that I don’t want to see him. In fact, he just wanted to check to see if my plans had changed and maybe I could go get lunch with him.  I just told him no and will have to brainstorm a better way to make him stop asking permanently…

After that wonderful surprise encounter, Rocky and I navigated the streets to find a paper store to just buy some notebooks and note cards and other school stuff.  Then we made copies of our passport photos so we can have an ID made at Solexico.  Apparently being a student in Mexico means getting in to many museums and other tourist attractions for free J  I was very proud of Rocky’s and mine ability to communicate in Spanish.

washing the strawberries I bought at the market.

We had a couple hours left before our scheduled Salsa Dance Class, so we decided to wander over to the market.  IT IS CRAZY IN THERE!  Think of the largest flea market you’ve ever been to, now double it, divide it into 4 parts, and create a pathway that doesn’t make sense so people are sure to get lost inside, and that’s the market.  Before you enter there are a bunch of stands outside selling food and crafts, items here are cheaper because more people go inside the market than shop on it’s outskirts.  This is where I bought a large bag of limes and a ton of fresh strawberries and plums. (I had to settle for limes because the market didn’t have lemons either L)

Women basket weaving at the market.

Then you walk in and there are many crafts and knick knacks to purchase.  Many of the items in Oaxaca are hand made.  Oaxaca is actually known for it’s crafts, in particular their green ceramics.  But there are many other crafts, such as basket weaving and wood carving and many textiles to choose from.

These bags with little people look
very familiar....

A little further in you finally reach the food.  You have 2 options, prepared food or food you want to cook yourself.  I have been staying away from the prepared food because there are flies galore over there.  And the meat they use is open to the air and not refrigerated and flies land all over it.  It definitely doesn’t look sanitary and for now, I will stick to cooking the food myself.  I have never seen so many spices and options.  There was a pile of chilies 3 times the size of me and there are huge bags of seasonings.  I’m still not quite sure what mole is, but they have so many different kinds in bowls for you to scoop and they have Chapulines all over the place. (Chapulines=fried grasshoppers that come in 3 different sizes with 3 different seasoning options…).  I told you about this yesterday when Rocky tried one at Solexico.

 

Chapulines....hop, hop, hop

What kind of chili were you looking for?

Maybe I could interest you in some spices instead?

Rocky cooking dinner on our little stove top

After our adventure in the market, we headed to dance class. Unfortunately, it had to be canceled due to a family emergency.  I am dying to learn how to salsa because many of the nightclubs around here are salsa clubs…and this is going to be a valuable skill since I’m here for 2 months.  Instead Rocky and I went home and cooked dinner.

My new gym!

I decided to go to the gym and sign up for Zumba classes.  The gym is only 2 blocks away and a 2 month membership was less than $50 US dollars.  The class was fun, but the people in the class are kind of old…and I’m by far the youngest person there.  But zumba is zumba and I had fun doing it.

Rocky and I finished off our night watching “Cheaters” in Spanish… trash TV is even funnier when you can’t understand it!

Shout out to Mairead!,

Maria Katerina

Wednesday, May 21

Today was a more casual day.  I woke up and walked to Solexico for Spanish Class… it’s only 3 blocks away.  One of my classmates, Jackson (a 27 year old doctor from Australia), brought in Chapolines for breakfast.  Chapolines are grasshoppers!  They are fried and have a garlic or chile seasoning on them.  They are extremely popular in Oaxaca, but I have no intention of trying them.  Everyone else dug in, including my roommate Rocky.  I kind of with I was more adventurous, but then again, I don’t want a bug leg stuck in my tooth.

Rocky trying Chapolines for the first time.

After class, Rocky and I walked to The Hub.  Honestly, I’m not quite sure what is… We thought we had orientation at 1pm, but it was actually at 4pm and I had already made plans.  So orientation is rescheduled to Friday and then I will tell you all about The Hub.

The Hub: don't know what it is yet, but it looks pretty cool.

Look at the Pigeon on top of the umbrella <3

Somehow I ended up meeting Paco, my hairdresser, for lunch.  Guess where we went?  Terranova, which is a delicious restaurant in the Zocalo, but I’ve already been there 3 times…. It’s actually the only restaurant I’ve been to in Oaxaca.  Since Paco’s English is very bad and my Spanish vocabulary is very limited, we spent a lot of time talking about birds… I think.  There were a lot of pigeons around the restaurant and they were quite distracting because they would land on the table!  They’re just like Seagulls on the beach!  Paco seems a little too friendly and when he asked me to lunch the next 2 days I told him I was busy…. I hope he takes the hint that I don’t want to see him.

Later that night, Rocky and I went out to meet other students from our Spanish School, Solexico, for a coffee social.  Coffee Socials don’t actually involve coffee, just going to a bar and trying to talk to each other in Spanish.  On our way there, we came across a bunch of people dancing in the streets.  There was a little marching band and a few people in costumes; it was really fun to stop and watch for a little bit.

Everybody's dancing in the street.

As simple as this day sounds, all this walking is starting to wear me out…  It’s like my Freshman year in Boston all over again, when we would walk around all day and night just so we could get to know our new city.

Testing Testing, I’m just suggesting, you and I might not be the best thing,

Maria Katerina

Tuesday, May 20

Egg Breakfast Burrito with Sliced Apples and fake Orange Juice.

Today was the busiest day so far.  In the morning I cooked myself breakfast.  I made my version of a breakfast burrito…scrambled eggs with garlic wrapped in a tortilla… with a cut up apple on the side.  I am really starting to crave Orange Juice because these mock SunnyD juice boxes are not hitting the spot.

The teachers are taking it to the streets.

  Then I went to Spanish where I butchered the language, as usual, but I’m starting to feel more comfortable with speaking to the other students and we all are learning so it’s much easier to make mistakes and not feel so embarrassed.  After class, Rocky (my roommate) and I went to grab lunch and on the way ran in to our first Strike.  The teachers in Oaxaca are on Strike and want more money.  Later in the day there was another Strike of women who wanted a raise.  Apparently many people in Oaxaca aren’t paid well.

Enjoying our first meal out in Oaxaca.

  Rocky and I wandered around the Zocalo and picked a restaurant that had outdoor seating.  It was our first time eating out in Oaxaca!  I ordered Chicken Fajitas and Rocky ordered Enchiladas.  Within 2 minutes of getting our drinks, Rocky spilt her beer all over the table and 3 waiters came running over to help.  Not much spilled, but they quickly took everything off the table, changed the table cloth, and got us more napkins….just like a well oiled machine.  I wonder if this happens a lot because they really knew how to do it fast…  Our only complication was asking for to-go boxes and figuring out what an appropriate tip would be for the waiters.  After all the chaos, we just sat back and enjoyed the view.

It was the perfect view for People Watching.

Chicken Fajitas- a safe first choice of non-spicy food.

Unfortunately our leisurely lunch was interrupted when we saw the time, 1:55pm.  We had a cooking class scheduled for 2pm!  We ran all the way back to Solexico, just in time to watch the demonstration.  We fried tortilla chips and let them cool while we let our tomato-garlic puree simmer.  After 5-10mintues, we added the tortilla chips to the pot and let them soak up the sauce and become flavorful.  Our plates were topped with cheese and onion slices.  It wasn’t spicy, but it wasn’t my favorite either.

  The finished product.  More to come next Tuesday.  

            Our lovely cooking instructor frying tortillas.            

New haircut and new nail color, perfect for
a new country.

At 3pm, I had a nail and hair appointment at a salon located right across from our Spanish school.  They never heard of gel nail polish, so it took a long time before they were able to get it off my nails and then I had to settle for regular nail polish.  All in all, they came out very pretty.  At the same time, a man named Paco was cutting my hair.  He spoke a little English, but trying to explain how I wanted my hair cut wasn’t easy, in the end I settled for “I want to be able to put it in a ponytail, I trust you”.  I realize now I shouldn’t put that much trust in a stranger from another country, but he did a great job and the horrible red colored dead hair at the bottom is gone.

While my nails were drying, Paco started a conversation and asked me to go grab a coffee (I thought that was what he said).   There was a major language barrier, but he wants to grab lunch tomorrow, I think…. Note to self: ask about friendliness vs, dating in Oaxaca.  I really hope he is just friendly because he’s almost 50 and I’m pretty sure he said something about wanting 12 kids in his future.

I think this a double shot....

I met back up with Rocky and we decided to go explore the Zocalo at night.  On our walk over we heard Thrift Shop playing from one of the bars so we went in and took a double shot of vodka to loosen up.  Cheers to Tuesday Night in Oaxaca!

Bottoms Up!

Our funny clown friend that will be performing all this week.

Then we stopped and observed all the fun street performers from clowns to hula hoopers to street dancers to bands.  The Zocalo has it all.

She taught us how to Hula Hoop even though we were really bad at it.

Caught this band during their final song of the night...
"Welcome to the Hotel California"

 Goal for tomorrow: learn how to say “friend zone” in Spanish,

Maria Katerina

Monday, May 19

My dance partner from last night,
he smells delicious.

I woke up this morning and saw my lovely pineapple from yesterday sitting in a bag on the kitchen counter.  It smells absolutely delicious, but there was no time to cut it because today was my first day of Spanish classes at Solexico.  Rocky and I had to take a placement test and I found it surprisingly easy.  This is the first time I feel like high school Spanish wasn’t complete waste.  Rocky and I were placed in the same Level 2 class and there are only 4 students.  Our teacher is Adrian and he’s super nice.  Class lasts for 3 hours: 9am-12pm.

After class, we walked home and Mrs. Irma greeted us at the door.  She said that Gabriel, the kid from the Fiesta on Sunday, had stopped by and was going to come back at 1 to see us.  In the meantime, I decided to be kind of productive and do my Spanish Homework…. I finally remember why I disliked Spanish so much in High School, but at least the homework is pretty easy and doesn’t take more than half an hour to do.

Yay! Spanish homework.  New life lesson, even when
you're out of school, you're never truly out of school.

Sight seeing selfie.

 At 1, Gabriel came by and we went for a walk around the Zocalo.  I tried a snow cone, lime because they didn’t have lemon.  Unfortunately, I was too afraid to eat all of it because I have heard many stories about people from the States getting sick from the water and ice here in Mexico.  I’ve been only drinking filtered water, but the few bites of the unfiltered snow cone were very delicious.  We saw a movie later, 3 Days to Kill.  It thought this was a safe choice because I had already seen in once in English back home, but to my surprise, the movie was in English here too!!! Just with Spanish subtitles.  Next time I go to a movie, I’m going to pick one where they speak in Spanish so I can try to understand.

 

I cooked my first meal in our kitchen, I made stuffed peppers and a salad.  I forgot to mention before that the supermarket didn’t have tomato paste, mint, or plain balsamic vinegar, so my salad was only dressed with oil and garlic and the stuffed peppers were lacking a bit of flavor, but all in all, they came out very delicious.

Later in the night Rocky cut up the pineapple and it was so sweet and delicious.  Mrs Irma, who we now refer to as our mother, cooked us each dinner.  She made Rocky chicken with Mole, and because she knows I’m a picky eater, she made me plain pasta in plain sauce.

It was a busy day so I went to bed pretty quickly.  A couple other random highlights of my day: I figured out that the hot water in the shower is the left knob only, I downloaded Season 4 of Pretty Little Liars on my laptop, and Rocky has me super excited for the World Cup!  I put up sticky notes on our wall with important game days…

Sticky notes are probably the most important thing I packed,

Maria Katerina

Sunday, May 18

Traditional Dancers taking pictures in the streets.

Today was an amazing and beautiful day in Oaxaca.  Rocky, my roommate, and I started our morning with an orientation with Carlos, the director for the Adelante Program stationed in Oaxaca.  We walked around the town and became aquainted with the street names and some of the locations.  We saw traditional dancers taking pictures for a photo shoot.  They are going to be on posters advertising the Gualguetza, which is a huge festival held during the last 2 weeks in July.  We visited the zocalo, which is the town center, and learned the history of the San Domingo Church.

San Domingo Church

Orientation only lasted about 2 hours, and when we arrived back at our apartment, Mrs. Irma, our land lady/pseudo mother, took us to the supermarket.  Things they don’t have in Mexico: lemons and lemonade mix…. For those of you who don’t know, I put lemon on pretty much everything and, since I don’t like plain water, I really only drink lemonade.  I bought a lot of American brands, Frosted Flakes in Oaxaca are called Zucaritas!  But they did have hummus and feta cheese so I will make due.  We spent about 2 hours shopping because it is so hard to read everything in Spanish and not completely understand which aisles have what.

When we returned to the house, Mrs. Irma invited us to a Fiesta.  It is her cousin’s birthday in one of the neighboring towns.  Rocky and I said yes, but I grabbed a bag of ritz crackers just in case I didn’t want to eat any of the food again.

The amazing view of the mountains from the Fiesta,

20 minutes later the roads turned to dirt and everything looked like barren farmland.  We pulled into a parking lot, not a driveway, and walked into a huge tent with 150-200ppl sitting down a tables.  In the distance, you could see the mountains and it was a very nice view.

The Spicy Soup

Mrs. Irma introduced us to many people and we said hello to the birthday girl and a few familiar people from the fiesta before.  The entire party was catered.  We started with a spicy soup that had beef and bull meat in it… I guess I could kind of relate it to minestrone soup, but it was so spicy I only ate half.  Then came dinner, which was seasoned meat, seasoned with what I don’t know, but I think it was beef… We ate it rolled in a tortilla with beans and guacamole.  Last came the alcohol… Mezcal to be specific.  It’s kind of like Tequila, and it hits you very fast.  I only did one shot, but Rocky did like 3 or 4.

Dinner: meat, beans, and guacamole with tortillas

Time to acquire a taste fro Mezcal.

The Mariachi Band playing on the other side of the
table covered in flowers.

After dinner, the DJ started playing music and soon after a Mariachi Band arrived.  The DJ stopped so people could sing along with the Mariachi Band.  During this time, more and more people kept arriving.  With them, they all brought 3 things: 1)a birthday present, 2)an extravagant arrangement of flowers, and 3)a case of beer.  By 6pm there were 2 tables full of presents, 2 tables overflowing with flowers, and an entire wall stacked up with beer.  It was quite the sight.

"We we just handed pineapples?"  "Just go with it!"

When the Mariachi Band finished, the DJ started back up.  Everyone quickly got up to dance, including Rocky and me, and was really fun.  We were handed pineapples about 20minutes into dancing for a traditional song.  From what I could understand of Mrs. Irma, we are celebrating a harvest and hold the pineapple on our shoulders for the first part, then we wave them in the air while walking in a circle, and then put them on the ground and grab a partner to dance with you around the pineapple.  This was one of the more interesting things I’ve ever done.  After, we were given handkerchiefs and the men put on cowboy hats and you grabbed a partner to dance with again and we waved our handkerchiefs around and just laughed a lot.

#LifeinOaxaca

...Now walk around the pineapple

Handkerchiefs and Cowboy hats

Once the traditional dances ended, many people started to leave the dance floor and I was following suit when all of a sudden a man grabbed my arm and motioned to dance wit him.  I’m really happy to learn so I joined him, but he didn’t want to dance with me, he was actually getting me to dance with his nephew, Gabriel.  Gabriel speaks fluent English, thank goodness!  He was an excellent teacher and must have danced constantly for 2hrs.  I finally said I was tired and we walked over to a table and sat to talk.

Mrs. Irma approached us and said Rocky was ready to leave. Gabriel didn’t want me to go and asked Mrs. Irma to let me stay and said he would drive me home later…. Keep in mind they were talking quickly in Spanish and I was only understanding words here and there, so this is what I deducted from their conversation.  She agreed and gave us a 9pm curfew and I stayed at the Fiesta.  We ended up going into the pueblo and walked around.  We played Fuzbol and I won 3/4 games!  We didn’t end up getting back home to Oaxaca City until 10:30pm, but Mrs. Irma wasn’t mad, Gabriel is like her nephew, and only asked if we had fun.

I’m happy to report the food was much better and I hope every day is this much fun!,

Maria Katerina