I'm here!~Estoy aquí!

Well…I’ve officially been here for about a week. This is my first chance to stop and write. It has been a whirlwind, especially the living-out-of-suitcase for a week part. Not too fun. But, I’m still smiling.

My flight into DF was absolutely beautiful and amazing. I have never seen mountains like those surrounding Mexico City. They are truly incredible. I kind of felt like I was flying over a miniature railroad village. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures because I had a “middle” seat.
Once I arrived to DF’s airport, I safely passed through immigration with my visa. Phew! I was sweating that for some reason. I kept having these thoughts that I was going to arrive in Mexico, and they were going to send me back because something was wrong with my visa.
Anyway, my next order of business was the taxi to the hotel. At $23 US dollars, I certainly paid a pretty penny. Yes…taxi drivers in Mexico City will rip you off. FACT. But in any event, I arrived safely at the hotel and Felipe the driver was pretty conversational, which was nice.

Hotel Geneve was indeed grand. When the bellhop gives you a moist towelette to wipe your hands and then some hand sanitizer 2 minutes after stepping through the hotel doors, you know you are at a pretty ritzy hotel. By the way, Victor, the bellhop happened to be awesome, too.
On Tuesday night, I met the 70 other Fulbrighters at a meet-and-greet. I must say, their projects are pretty interesting and extremely scholarly (sometimes over my head). Our little group of 8 ETAs is awesome though!!!

On Wednesday, we had to go SEP (Secretaría de Educación Pública) for many meetings. We had a very delicious lunch and then more meetings. We headed back to the hotel late in the afternoon. We quickly dressed in our formal attire and then went to the Biblioteca Benjamín Franklin for a dinner hour with employees at the US Embassy.

On Thursday, we ventured to Teotihuacán, the very famous pyramids outside of Mexico City. I got to climb both the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, and I certainly worked up an appetite for our amazing lunch in this restaurant called La Gruta.

Las grutas are caves and the pictures don’t do it justice. I should really try to find words to describe it, but alas I am a little sleepy.

On Friday, we went on a walking tour through the Centro Histórico of DF. It was so exciting to see all of the Independence Day decorations on the government buildings. Just in case you were wondering, Independence Day is on September 16th and Mexico will be celebrating its 199th year of freedom (1810-2009). On Friday evening, we (the ETAs) said goodbye to the rest of the Fulbrighters who headed off in all directions to do their research. Myself and 5 other ETAs had to move other millions of suitcases from the Hotel Geneve to the Casa Gonzalez. Because we had an ETA orientation on Monday we had to stay the weekend in DF on our own expense:-(

The Casa Gonzalez was quite beautiful and rustic. We got two rooms…one with 4 beds for the girls and one with 2 beds for the boys. A continental breakfast was included.

Saturday we conquered the Metro, which is the greatest form of transportation ever!!! Seriously, you can’t beat a 2 peso ($0.15) ride to anywhere in Mexico City. We went to Coyoacán to visit the house of Frida Kahlo (sometimes it’s called El Museo Frida Kahlo and sometimes the Casa Azul). Unfortunately it rained, and we didn’t really get to explore the outside very much. We went to this awesome restaurant for lunch (comida). CULTURAL NOTE: Lunch is the big meal of the day. Most people leave work around 2 and come back around 4. Anyway, I ordered 2 huaraches for lunch. Big mistake…whatever you do, don’t ever order 2 huaraches. It is a serious amount of food. We ended up saving it for dinner that night. After lunch, we hit up the most amazing panadería (bakery/bread store) called Le Caroz. Be prepared to drool when you see the pictures!! On Saturday night, we went out to this cool restaurant that had a live band and a dance floor. It was called La Flor del Son (Son is a type of dance). We had to the greatest time dancing the night away to some awesome Mexican music.

On Sunday, we walked to the Centro Histórico and looked around. There are a lot of Sunday markets and open air food stands. One of the things that I love about Mexico, is that there is always something going on. We saw a fantastic break dance performance, some folkloric dancers in traditional dress, and a lot of little side shows. I also ordered my first street food, elote—roasted corn with lime and chile.

On Monday morning we moved all of our luggage from the Casa Gonzalez to COMEXUS where we had the ETA meeting. We were smart and shoved every possible item into one taxi so as to avoid the astronomical taxi fare. Our meeting was somewhat helpful, however my “tutor” or mentor teacher from the university didn’t show up until afterward. She was stuck in traffic between Cuernavaca and DF. After the meeting, I said goodbye to all of my wonderful ETA friends and headed out for Cuernavaca or so I thought. We had to make a stop at the big UNAM university before going to Cuernavaca. The side trip turned into a 2.5 hour ordeal. Blah. We did finally make it to Cuernavaca. Just a note…Mexicans are insane drivers. I saw my life flashing before my eyes quite a few times yesterday.

Today, was my first official day of class. But, seeing as I’m boring myself and probably all of you. I will save that for later. Sorry for the crazy recap. So much has happened in a week. It’s really hard to believe. My next order of business is getting a Mexican cell phone. I will try to have more updates now that I have internet. Thanks for “tuning in” to my rambling. I love you all back home!!!! By the way, Mexicans love the Steelers. GO STEELERS!

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