Puerto Escondido

Playa del Amor, Zipolite, the view out of our hotel room

Surfer's paradise, no other words possible

Puerto Escondido, Zicatela

Ready for the "Bicentenario"!

Playa de Zicatela

Hola gente, qué tal? Ya me extañan mucho?

It's blogging time again, I just got a sms with the news, I receive it every day, and the most interesting was that Mexico is the nr 1 country of obesity (OCDE). Well, no wonder! Soda is cheaper than water, everything is twice as sweet as in Europe (even natural yoghurt with "no sugar") and the food is just too delicious and too cheap! I don't have a scale, but a surely should be careful on my weight, if not in December the plain won't be able to take off!!!

Well, I'm gonna tell u about my "puente del Bicentenario" - long weekend of the independence anniversary.

As I said before, I went to Puerto Escondido, a surfer's paradise on the southwest coast of Mexico. We went in a van with a group of 20 ITAM students, only 4 were mexicans. The trip took in total 14 hours, but as we travelled at night it was ok and it is definitely worth it! The first three days and nights we stayed at Playa de Zicatela, Puerto Escondido's main beach with HUGE waves! The waves seemed really good but nobody was surfing because they were just too big and there was a strong current. We spend the independence party there and we had a surf lesson. To surf we went to another beach, perfect waves, warm water, beautiful nature, yes, I was in paradise. The surf instructors lend me a short board so I could go and surf on my own, I loved it. The mexican surfers were very nice, not like in Portugal were they are worried you "steel" their waves! It was a good time and to get some extra energy, nothing better than a fresh coconut :) Puerto Escondido is amazing, I've never seen so many "hot", but really "hot", surf dudes and no chicks! :p

The other 2 days we spend at Playa del Amor, Zipolite, which was like in the middle of nowhere, a little less touristic and our hotel was right on the beach. I'm so in love with that beach, probably that's why it's called like that because I did not see much "amor" hahaha A stunning very quite beach with a lot of hammocks and (almost falling a part) beach huts for rent. It was the place to eat seafood and fresh fish mmm we went on a boat tour to see turtles, which are very common there, but the sea was very wavy and we only saw 4 and some dolphins, but it was a great adventure! Basically what we did those days was beach and eating ahahah I only went out one night, a very cool alternative bar next to our hotel, it was fun because it was the bday of a mexican friend, Nayeli.

We arrived back in Mexico City on monday 2am, so I stayed the night at Karen's (she lives 5min walking from ITAM) as I had classes at 8.30am. This week was quite tough, as I don't study and work for uni during the weekends, everything needs to be done during the week. And I also (finally) got some problems with my intestines that did not like the fish tacos as much as my mouth did... But I'm already feeling better now. Though the doctor gave me antibiotics, they do that for all little pains here... Next week I've got one presentation and one quizz and the week after another test and a delivery of a 5page essay, so yes, I got quite some thing to do. But...

Tomorrow I'm going to Taxco, Mexico's silver city, it's about 3 hours from Mexico City. I'm going with a group of 8 exchange students and maybe my roomies are coming too. We're gonna stay only one night so on sunday I'll have a study day. This country is way too beautiful and interesting to spend my time studying! It's so tempting to go traveling also because it's so cheap. Tomorrow the hotel will cost 7 euros for one night! But next weekend I'm definitely staying in the City.

Mmm amo México, the only problem is that's a little far away from you guys... Come and visit me!

Bueno, I'm going to try the imitation of my tuna pasta recipe my roomy made, let's see!

Bye bye

Valle de Bravo

The jacuzzi

Valle de Bravo town

Breakfast

The view from our room

Outside lounge

Buenas! Cómo están?

Last weekend I went to Valle de Bravo. In the beginning of the semester I met 2 mexican guys from ITAM, David and Fernando, and we became friends, also with some other exchange girls, and they invited us to come to Valle de Bravo for a weekend. It's a small village, located about 2hours from Mexico City with a huge lake, its a place where the "rich" of Mexico City own villas to spent the weekend and holidays. Sounded good to us, so yes, we went. The meeting point was at ITAM and we went with 2 cars, 4 mexican boys and 6 foreign girlies. We were gonna stay at a "rancho", sounded great. in fact, when we arrived, it appeared to be a 1500 hectare land with mountains, forests, lakes, but nicest were the 200 beautiful horses. It is a rancho owned by a big rich family from Mexico City. One of the members of this family, is "el Gordo", a friend of our friends, who we met there. We stayed at one of the villas on the land. It was the most beautiful house I've ever seen. A not too big (four bedrooms) typical rustic mexican "hacienda". It is orange, with a very cool style, a lot of wood and natural rocks, beautiful indoor garden, outdoor lounge with fireplace, jacuzzi, pool, stunning view and 3 permanent housewives who made us food whenever we wanted! Wow, I was in heaven!! The first night we had a delicious typical mexican dinner and drank some beers in the jacuzzi. The next morning unfortunately it was raining and I did not bring any appropriate clothes, so could not go horse riding... but we had a great breakfast (picture) and went to check out the cute village and enormous lake and went for a ride with the jeeps over the land, its endless and soooo beautiful with a very diverse nature.

I had a great weekend, and learned that there is in fact a (too) big difference between rich and poor here in Mexico. the middle class is relatively small and if you are rich, you are veeeeeery rich. Another incredible thing is that due to the macho culture here, gils, many times, cannot pay. And so, I we were not alowed to pay anything for this unforgettable weekend!

Now I gotta go, because at 23h Im going, bu bus, to Puerto Escondido, a surfer's paradise (a dream becoming true) at the south west coast of Mexico. It will be a 12hour drive, but we can sleep. I'm going with a group of about 20 exchange students and 2 organizing mexicans.

I'll be gone untill sunday night, but mnday I'll let ya guys know how it was!

Hasta luego!

Cuernavaca

A church in Cuernavaca, Mexican wedding

Kitchen in our house in Cuernavaca

Twister!

When I'm older I want this VW pickup!

Coyoacan, Mexico City's hippie place

Coyoacan with Timi from Hungary

Coyoacan

Last week's Mexican BBQ: meat, nopal (cactus) and quesadillas mmmmmm

Hola chicos, qué onda?

Back to reality again, my monday's feeling, after a short wekend holiday :)

But it's lovely getting home and have your house and room cleaned! mmmm

As I said, this time I went to Cuernavaca. We ended up going with a group of about 30, 50/50 exchange students and mexicans. We satyes at a huga villa and believe it or not, but there were beds for everybody! The boys who organized it had been grocery shopping before, so we all just pay a bit and had enough food and drinks for about 2 weeks! Not just one wekend!! There were about 20 bottles of tequila and a lot of other drinks like vodka, jagermeister, absint (!!!), malibu, etc. So, we ended up partying at drinking at home for 2 night, chilling by the pool and eating (hamburgers, hotdogs and quesadillas, and for breakfast kilos of fruit :)). We only left to go and check out the city centre, which was very nice and cozy with a fabulous architecture. Though it was raining madly, so we just ran into a cafe. On sunday we had to wake up early (11am), to go to the parachute place. 10 of us were going to jump, not me! It was very nice to see, and eventually I'll also do it once, I did not do it on that day anyway because it was raining and i think it must be much nicer when it's sunny... Everything went fine and they really enjoyed it. I rellay enjoyed the part that at the mini airport they were playing Armin van Buren!! (dutch pride)

It's amazing how it can rain here! At the moment there's a sort of storm/huricane going on i guatemala and we can feel it here in Mexico as well. In the south of the country there are many floods and here in Mexico City it also rained a lot. Though, in the raining months, June, July, August and September, it usually rains here every afternoon, at about 19h but then stops again...

This year is a very special year for the mexicans, they call it the "Bicentenario" because on September 15th it will be 200 years ago that Mexico gained its independence. Its a very inportant festival for the mexican people, they are already getting ready for it by decorating their houses with flags and other national symbols, also public buildings, schools and cars are decorated. On that dat we'll have a long weekend, as its a national holiday the 15th and they extend it to the 16th and 17th. So I'll have 5 days off and everybody is organizing trips and thing to do. I'm still not sure what to do... Iván, my roomie invited me, Marta and Timi to go to his hometown, San Miguel de Allende. But as that's quite nearby I might go there an other weekend and use this long one to go further away, to Oaxaca for instance. Several groups od exchange students of ITAM are going there, it's a region in the south and at the moment there's the storm over-there, thus we could not go to its famous beaches to swim and surf (Puerto Escondido, my dream beach has perfect waves!). And so, I'm still not sure where I'm going, we'll see.

I'm gonna stop writing useless stuff on the internet and focus on my presentation for next week about the Danish Economy. It's quite interesting actually :)

Hasta pronto, mis amores!

Saludos

1st month feedback

Hey everybody!

Here I am again. I just realized I've ben here for a month now! Have had 4 weeks of school.

Had a nice week, on monday I only have 1 class in the morning so after I went to Coyoacan with Timi, to have lunch and wander around. We got a little bit lost but of course the loving and helpful people in the street helped us out.

On tuesday I had salsa lesson at uni, it was great again, I'm getting better and better :) This time there were more guys than girls, could not believe it! After classes Timi and I wanted to go shopping, so we went to the "shopping centre" in front of my house and also had some dinner there.

Classes are going fine, I actually like going to uni and I really enjoy the courses I choose. But it's quite harsh, I've got tons of reading to do and presentations to prepair... The spanish course for foreigners is now finally divided in 2 different levels, I'm in the "Intensivo", the higher one and so it's quite hard. But at least I learn a lot, I had never learned other verb tenses than the "presente del indcativo", so when I have a conversation I just make up hahah but now Im actually learning them. I really note my Spanish getting quite good and have learned a lot of new vocab by just chatting spanish all day long. though, I've also noticed my portuguese is getting worse, as it's so similar to Spanish. I think my accent has changed and I say "una" instead of "uma" hahah

Yesterday night, after "pregaming" with a drinking game at one f the students houses, we wanted to go to a salsa club but we ended up in a electro club. One of my mexican friends was not feeling well and had to go to the hospital by ambulance. Me and my fiends followed him in his car to see what was wrong. At the hospital his dad was awaiting him, and so we wanted to go home as it was 5am. Though, we were too many to fit in one taxi and so the ambulance driver offered to bring us home! I cannot believe it, he even let us put the sirens on on showed us how everything worked! It was so funny, I think this is only possible in Mexico!

Today I spend my day resting a bit, I also spoke for about one hour with my parents, my dogs and cat in Portugal via skype :) I feel good and happy here in Mexico, and I think I'm too busy meeting new people, places, trying new things, getting to know this wonderful culture, so I do actually not really miss Portugal. Though, I would love you guys t be here so i could show you this amazing city and country, and you'll love the food, it's delicious and sooo cheap! Also the fruit here is amazing, I eat papaya and mango everyday, you can buy them ready to eat on the street as well, one mango, 1€. I also got to know fruit I did not know before, as carambola and tuna, yummie!

Well, I gotta go and get my stuff together, this weekend I'm going to Cuernavaca, a city 1h south from MC. They call it "ciudad de la eterna primavera" because the weather is very pleasant all year round. We're going in cars, in total about 15 students from ITAM and we're gonna stay in the house of one of them. Some people are gonna go skydiving on sunday, but not me. I rather go under the sealevel than above it. haha

Hasta luego y buen fin de semana!

PS. I fell in love with this pic, it's relative to the "Fiesta de los Muertos", mexican tradition.