¡Viva México!

Last weekend, Mexico celebrated it 200th birthday! Apparently they had been planning it for a long time (as in years) and it was, needless to say, a pretty big deal. The logo on the right here can be seen all over the place. It is pretty insane how it worked out, really, with the 2 and the 1 in 2010 and the Bicenternario Independencia and the Centenario Revolución. How did they plan that so well? Hidalgo must have timed his bell ringing specifically for this...and my parents for having me when they did and knowing of all the years to be in Mexico, this would be the one. They even set up a "Ruta 2010" that takes people to historic sites of the Independence and the Revolution all over Mexico.
Speaking of Hidalgo, a brief note of history. The Independence is celebrated on the 16th of September. On the eve of the Independence is what is called  "el Grito de Dolores." "El Grito" was the the battle cry for Independence made by Hildalgo back in 1890. He shouted in front of his congregation a series of battle cries to begin the Independence. Now, every year the municipal governor or other such head of government stands in front of the people of the town doing "el Grito" and receiving responses of "¡Viva!" from their citizens. It ends with three shouts of ¡Viva México! and then they ring the bell, just like Hidalgo did to rally the people. In Mexico City, the President  is the one who does it, and I heard it was really cool to watch on TV, but I would not have given up our experience of "el Grito."

Mama Mary, me, and Aimee in the Zócalo

The holiday break was spent with our host families and the day of the 15th we kept hearing that no one was going to the zócalo, or town square, for the Grito that night. It was too crowded and potentially dangerous. I went earlier with my family and with some other students and the atmosphere was incredible. There was a massive market set up in the streets and thousands of people were walking around in the national colors or even in traditional dress. People were selling "bigotes" (mustaches) everywhere in the spirit of Hidalgo. All of this awesome made it impossible for us to leave. We shyly told our mothers we would like to stay and they said they would wait with us until some male escorts arrived.
Once they did, the mothers left and we walked around the market. I bought a bigote to add to my collection at home, one of the best cemitas I have had (explanation to follow in a future MW...for now, it's a sandwhich...even though it's so much more), and a large piece of flan. Viva México. Every minute, more and more people arrived at the zócalo and it was nearing impossible to make significant advancements in location. We finally made it back to the zócalo and waited in the crowd for about 20 minutes until it all began. I caught it on film to give you, dear readers, a small taste of what it was like. The video does not give you even close to an idea the amount of people there, but the whole center and the streets adjacent were packed shoulder to shoulder.

After "el Grito" there were lots of fireworks being shot off from the Cathedral and often at the Cathedral. Hopefully there was not too much damage done to it. Getting back was a bit of a doozy. The amount of people and the lack of designated directional lanes on the paths through the zócalo caused a roughly ten minute standstill. I could not move and inch and all I could do was smile at the man I was smashed against. I literally could have lifted my feet up and would have been suspended by the pressure coming on all sides. In the spirit of my dad, I made some sheep sounds and eventually was able to move. After some fence climbing and sweat wiping, we made it out of the zócalo, into a cab, and safely back to our beds. It was, overall, an incredible experience being in the center of the town surrounded by extremely proud and spirited Mexican people. As I watched the fireworks, I was thinking about how honored I felt to be there with them and how much I admired them for their loyalty to their country.

Just eatin' up the Karaoke. Mama Mary sure can sing!

For the Independence the next day, the host families put on a huge party in order to celebrate with us! There was tons of food, desserts, dancing, and especially karaoke. Apparently karaoke is pretty big around here, and the host mothers sure did enjoy it. It was a blast being with them and they were so happy to share their culture with us. We got to share a little of ours too when the macarena came on. Otherwise, they were some of the most fun dance party people I've been with. We did all of these group dances that they lead and it was fantastic!

The host mothers and Lisette 

 When I finally left with my family, I went almost immediately to the hospital shelter with Mama Mary, where she is a pretty much full-time volunteer. There is a shelter next to the hospital where families of patients can stay and eat. One of the families who had stayed in the shelter had a son who had died of cancer three days before. They called Mary to help hand out a massive amount of pan dulces to patients, nurses, doctors, and other families in the hospital. The father of the boy owns a panaderia and they wanted to show their gratitude for the support the people of the hospital showed them during their son's battle. Three days after their son died! I was very moved by them and how in the wake of tradgedy they stepped outside of their grief and wanted to give back to the community that had shown them so much love. So I got to help hand out some bread but mostly followed Mary around, watching her be awesome. She is so giving and has a huge capacity to love. I was really glad that I got to spend some time doing this with her, especially on this holiday.

Lisette gave us goodie bags with puppets in them!

The rest of the weekend was relaxing. I got to sleep a lot in a bed oh so much more comfortable than my spring board at UDLA. I also got to have some great conversations with my host dad about religion, leadership,  life, and love. He likes to draw diagrams, so I got sent home with some of those.


"200 años de ser orgullosamente mexicanos" is on billboards all over the place. It means "200 years of proudly being Mexican." I was so glad we got to experience so much of that pride this weekend. ¡Viva México!





Mexpandable Waistlines

Well, this edition of M.W. has a little bit less to do with...well...Mexpandable Waistlines. What I am getting at is that I doubt my consumption of this particular culinary treat contributed much to the belt area, but I hope it does not disappoint.
During our first trip into Cholula back in the beginning of August we saw several street vendors with buckets or bags of this clearly popular snack food. When we asked one of our amigos what they were, they responded "chapulines" and proceeded to inform us that in fact, they were grasshoppers. Yup. The term "chapulines" is specific to Mexico, where they are commonly eaten, and stems from the Nahuatal language of the Aztecs. Clearly, at this time, the vow to try one before leaving Mexico was made...
Some brief notes on preparation: The grasshoppers are collected from May until autumn, thoroughly washed, and toasted on a comal (clay cooking surface) with garlic, lemon juice and salt containing extract of agave worms. Tasty. They must be thoroughly cooked because if they are not, little nematode worms can infect a human host. So, keep that in mind next time you shop for grasshopper treats. I actually did not know this before I just popped one in my mouth this past weekend...for the sake of the blog, maybe that was for the best.

So, the experience. I was walking through the Independence Day market with my host mother, Mama Mary, my host sister, and Libby. Spirits were high, we had just bought some sweet masks, and by golly it was the Bicentennial of Mexican Independence!... conditions were prime. Libby and I saw a man sitting with his bucket of chapulines and knew it was the moment. The man gladly gave us a sample.


Trying not to think too much about it, I popped it in my mouth. CRUNCH. Oh yep, that was the head...oh man got a leg stuck in my teeth...alright let's try to get this all down and done with. And swallow. All in all, it didn't taste terrible. It was really salty and limey but the aftertaste was not the greatest. I'm sure it was high in protein though! I just hope I didn't offend the man with  the slightly disturbed face I had while I declined his offer to buy a whole bag.

 Do I recommend it? Well, no not really. It's kind of cool to have eaten a grasshopper, but other than that, I would stick to pretzels or crackers for your salty snack.
Thankfully, Mama Mary treated us to some nieve after that got the taste out of my mouth. Mango with chili chamoy. ¡Viva México!

Down to Sea Level

A view from the lobby overlooking the separate bungalows
and villas of our hotel complex.
Yes, and that is the ocean directly behind.

Last weekend, we took our first beach vacation! The whole crew jumped in the party van and headed off to Veracruz, a pretty touristy area on the Gulf Coast of Mexico. It was roughly a 7,000 ft. change in elevation down to sea level, which my lungs enjoyed, but my yet-to-be-healed sinuses did not. Our hotel was in Boca del Rio, just down the road from the center of the port of Veracruz and right on the beach. Between the fourteen of us, we got two hotel rooms, so as you can imagine, it was a bit squishy. My room, Villa 53, had seven girls, one boy, and one bathroom. Within minutes the place was a complete desmadre but it served its beach and cheap purpose.

Trusty shopping cart and excited crew

The first thing we did when we arrived was head out for food. The closest thing we could find without taking a taxi was a mall with a food court which featured a restaurant with comida tipica de Puebla. How exciting and new! After we had our fill from various places, including McDonalds, we decided to stock up at the grocery store for the rest of the weekend. This adventure concluded with the entire Villa 53 crew pushing the shopping cart across a 6ish lane (there aren’t really “lanes” per se in Mexico) highway bridge and all the way up to the door of our humble abode. We got some looks and some laughs, but hey, it beat carrying all of our supermarket bags.

That night was almost entirely spent swimming in the sea. It was wonderful. We ran along the sand and sprinted into the waves to see how far we could get. Well, when I say waves I mean two-foot baby surges in water. Both the air and the water was warm  and we just floated, talked, and played Duck Duck Goose. Duck Duck Ninja is actually what it is technically called. The main difference is that you can pick anything you want to act as while you chase your prey around the circle. The game didn’t last too long, but I’d like to give it another shot sometime. I digress….

Front to back: Alexxis, Malia, and I
rocking our books and our shades

Saturday we made love to the sun. Maybe that’s a bit strong, but really, the day was spent laying on a beach chair, taking occasional dips in the ocean or the pool, and reading some JPII goodness.  All of this, along with the overload of vitamin D, was good for the soul. Also, I drank a Piña Colada and got caught in the rain. Don't worry, the rain came later. 

That night we went to the Zócalo of Veracruz, ate, shopped around, and ate. The area was decorated with beautiful lights and there was a group of dancers and a band displaying their skills.  I was amazed by the dancers. They were all older couples dressed in traditional Mexican clothing. When I watched their faces and their eyes, it seemed as though the dance had just been engrained into their being from when they were young and first fell in love with each other. Pardon my cheesiness, but I really just thought they were all beautiful. 

Sunday we went to an aquarium!!! Really though, I don't think it deserved three exclamation points. It was cool, but let's keep in mind that I grew up relatively close to Monterey Bay Aquarium that has over 200 award-winning exhibits so it was a bit difficult for Aquario de Veracruz to compare. Still though, a good time was had by all, until a manatee ate the kid with the beard (who is now beardless by the way). 

Actually the manatees seemed very nice.  This picture was just before the manatee on the right planted a huge kiss on the other one. Manatee love. And of course I started singing Veggietale's Barbara Manatee. 

For any of you Amazon Trail players out there, I got super excited to capture a shot of the rare macaw. Major points for that one! Ok, it wasn't that hard, and in reality, the bird in the game is the Scarlet Macaw, but I pretended anyway. 

The ride back was a bit of a doozy. We had a fourteen passenger van for sixteen of us. I either served as a pillow for three people or part of a spooning train the entire way back. I always heard you get close to the people you study abroad with, and this was a very literal experience of that. We also watched Harry Potter 6 which is just chock full of awkward and sexually tense pre-teen moments. So, besides my dear sinuses adjusting back to the mountainous elevation, it was a good ride. All and all, another Mexico trip for the win. 

Mexpandable Waistlines

The night we spent in the Zócalo we went out to dinner at a restaurant that was clearly used to tourists. First, we were approached by roughly 37 street vendors trying to sell their goods. Dinner consisted of the routine:

1. Put a bite in mouth

2. Say, "no, gracias"

3. And, repeat

Second, they handed us english versions of the menu. We didn't really want to use them, but it turns out, without the crosslisting ability of both menus, I would not have been able to order baby shark empanadas! Hmmm now that I think about it, that's kind of sad that I ate a baby shark. Or at least part of it. However, it was pretty tasty, and I did it for the sake of the blog, of course. For the most part, it tasted like a cross between fish and chicken. Empanadas are basically stuffed and fried pouches of goodness, so mine was stuffed with the shark. 

Libby ordered shark too so we attempted a shark face.
Who says your ever too old to play with, or in our case act like, your food?

You would never know they were stuffed with baby shark...

Stay tuned for the Independence Day post! I was going to do that first, but it just really would have bothered me to go out of order. 

Gracias a ti, Señor

One of the girls here often asks "how is your heart?" We often laugh together at it, but it's a "how are you... but how are you really" question, and quite good. So briefly, here is my response:

I woke up today, walked outside, and just stood for a moment relishing the cool, sunny, and quiet morning. I was unexplainably filled with a sense of freshness and joy. Finally, I said my first prayer for time not to speed up and thanked God that I am here. I'm ready for the experiences, challenges, discomfort, joys, and relationships that He has in store for me here this semester. One might say I'm a little late or "geeeez it's about time" but I guess better late than never!

Dear reader, I hope you have a very wonderful day.

Stay tuned for news on pretty great Veracruz adventure, maybe a backtrack entry to a trip a few weeks ago, and a description of a celebration like never seen before that is happening this week!

Who let the gods out...

This past weekend, my childhood dreams came true. Well, that is, I assume that in 7th grade when learning about ancient civilizations in Mr. Robertson's class I spent some time daydreaming about our oh so fascinating class material. In all seriousness, I really enjoyed that class. We learned about the ancient Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs and their customs, gods, and cities. I distinctly remember learning about Teotihuacan, the Aztec city of the gods, and looking at pictures of their pyramids in my geography book. However, this weekend, I got to climb those pyramids, walk along their Avenue of the Dead, and touch the ancient stones that once were covered with the blood of their human sacrifices. Yea.

We woke up bright and early to embark on yet another day adventure for the entire crew. Besides the rain which slightly dampened our mood (haha dampened...) everyone was excited for the day and therefore promptly fell asleep on the bus. Actually, there may have even been some disappointment that what we thought would be a three-hour drive was actually only an hour and half and we were woken up before we were able to get a solid nap in.

To our dismay, the rain did not let up, but we proceeded with a "ain't nobody gunna break my stride" attitude into this fascinating city. First we walked through a small museum that showed some ancient writing and artifacts. The picture at the right shows somewhat of what an Aztec home layout would be like. Upon seeing this display, I pose a question to the girls I'm with: "Don't you ever wish you could live back in this time, live off the earth, and go back to a bit more simplicity?!" Prompt response: "Nope." I guess they have a good point about human sacrifices and that it probably wasn't really that easy to live, especially as a woman...but still.

View from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun looking out on
Teotihuacan, the Avenue of the Dead, and The Pyramid of the
Moon on the right.

Anyways, a little background. Teotihuacan is an enormous ancient city probably built around 200 BC and lasted until its fall in the 7th or 8th century AD. The site layout is so aligned that the angle of the sun on a certain day during each summer helped them calibrate their senses of time, mark their crop planting, or perform certain rituals. The two main pyramids along the Avenue of the Dead are the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun, the latter of which is the second largest pyramid (or third, I have mixed sources) in the world, of which the first is the pyramid in Cholula that we went to Mass on the first week! Who knew!?

I would say the most epic moment of the day was climbing to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun and eating sandwiches. We'd just grab a sandwich and put it in our mouths. Oh, that's the only way to have sandwiches. While we were at the top the day's five minutes of torrential downpour decided to occur. So there we were, trapped on top of the second tallest pyramid in the world, just soaking it all it (haha soaking...). It was epic.

Us eating sandwiches. Mine was Nutella and strawberry jam, or jelly. Or preserves. Whatever it is, it tasted like chocolate covered strawberries and I got into it in a big way.

After this beautiful moment, we climbed down to walk along the Avenue of the Dead. Praise God for sparing us from falling down the treacherous and wet pyramid steps or we would have become our own human sacrifices. Speaking of sacrifices...Of course we couldn't leave this wonderful city without doing one of our own.

The one being sacrificed is the one and only non-med student. The one with the beard. The Pyramid of the Moon watches pleased, in the background. So did a lot of tourists.

There was an attempt at building a human pyramid that actually proved to be a huge fail and thankfully I don't have the pictures of that one. You can imagine that the random bystander we grabbed to capture that moment was amused at our attempt. We also decided to play a little bit of King of the Pyramid before moving on. Regan won.

  

View from the Pyramid of the Moon looking out down the Avenue of the Dead and the Pyramid of the Sun on the left.

Libby, me and Malia on the Pyramid of the Moon!

Overall, very successful trip. On the way out, I even bartered with some market vendors and refused to pay their prices for a set of earrings with the Aztec calendar on them. Trifty-ness to the rescue. 

Everyone took off their soaked shoes when we got back in the bus. While waiting for the rest of the crew, we were jamming to some music while our driver was talking to someone outside. A girl, who shall remain nameless, stood on her seat and was shaking her groove thang in the window until I called to her attention that she was giving our driver and his friend quite the show. And they were enjoying it a little too much. We arrived back at UDLA half a Footloose movie later. I was still wet, tired, and hungry, but pumped that I had visited a place I had only ever hoped of seeing pictures of in the confines of a classroom. 

Mexpandable Waistlines

All I heard coming down here was "oooo you better not drink the water..." But here, the word "water" doesn't even necessarily mean water. At restaurants, "water" usually means Horchata or Jamaica juices. Horchata is made by soaking rice in water, straining it with something like cheese cloth, and adding cinnamon. Absolutely delicious. Jamaica drink is made out of flowers! It has a different taste to it, but I like it too. If water is available at restaurants, it is in a bottle and often sparkling. 

In addition to these two delicious "waters" there are wonderful and sweet juices that are very often fresh squeezed. Mango is one of my favorites, but I've had papaya, orange, and carrot. Yes, carrot. Ah, and here, just plain coconut. From a coconut. Not as delicious as I might have thought. What we all know as coconut flavor is quite different and must just include a ton of sugar. 

Well, that's it for this edition which has been more of just a fun fact than a "this is what I'm stuffing my face with" entry. But, as we all know, the drink accompaniment to each meal is crucial to the experience as a whole. So there you go. 

First Day on the Job

Well, I suppose it's not technically a job. With my eating habits though, I could use one down here (Just kidding Mom and Dad, I'm doing fine on money), but it's just an internship. A huge draw to this program is this medical internship. Out of the 17 people we have here, 16 are pre-med, and 1 is...well...he has a beard. We have rotations at four different hospitals during the semester, with three weeks at each. So two mornings a week, I will make some sort of trek with my good friend, neighbor and hospital partner, Kelsey to a local public hospital in Puebla or Cholula.
Our first three weeks will be spent at Hospital Salubridad  in Cholula. It is a two bus journey there and two bus journey back and surprisingly, I think we may already have it down. Actually, that's a lie. The first day, on the way back, we took the first bus, got off a little early, continued to walk along the route, missed three passing buses, ended up deciding to walk the rest of the way, tried to cross some three lane highways, got some coffee, and finally made it back (this adventure being during physics). The second day, we took a taxi back to get in some last minute studying for a physics test. So...2-2 going there, 0-2 going back. We'll get the hang of it.
Anyways, the hospital. It is a public hospital that is connected to a clinic and it is always crowded. There are lines of people out on the street waiting to get into the clinic, but we have just been in the hospital so far. It is only one story and relatively small, but when we arrived, I felt like I had entered a maze and I was just plain nervous enough already. Immediately, I was paired with an intern in obstetrics  because I had expressed interest in that specialty. Kelsey was brought to Urgencias. My intern, Oscar, immediately starts showing me how to fill out patient forms and charts. I panicked a little, knowing that I would not be able to do that in English, let alone Spanish, but that's not really my role anyway, so I'm safe. I think. I followed him around a bit and then joined the other interns for breakfast. This was not necessarily how I wanted to spend my time, but they were very nice and the cafeteria had fruit and pan dulce, so there you go. Finally though, someone came in a notified us that a surgery was starting. C-section! Kelsey and I had a bit of a hard time finding where we could borrow surgical scrubs and let me tell you, the whole cap, booties, and mask thing was a little harder than I expected. We definitely had some nurses laughing at us, but they were very helpful.
The surgery was pretty incredible. We just stood near the feet of the woman and watched. It was so incredible watching the beginning of life. I don't know if I would ever get tired of that. The first breaths of the baby, all the beautifully nasty substances all over the place, and even the crying, are all just fantastic. Kelsey said the baby looked like Voldemort, and I suppose she had a point, but beautiful nonetheless, especially when it got cleaned up and dried off. The second best part about the moment was the fact that the operating room was filled with sounds of Bohemian Rapsody, Ke$ha's Your Love is my Drug, and many other classics. In fact, now that I think about it, there is just music in the background all over the hospital. By the sound of it, I think it is 91.3 which plays some great music from back home.
The doctors at the hospital are all very sweet and hilarious. They love talking to us and mostly joking with each other. It's pretty humorous to watch. One doctor was talking to us and pointed behind us saying, Dr. House es allí. Kelsey got halfway down the hall before we could call her back. They are all just very jolly, but actually are quite perplexed by our schooling system. Medical students down here enter Med school right after high school. Part of our explanation for why we do four years "in university" first is that we are exploring what we want to do. At this remark, one doctor pointed to a group of interns who were twenty years old and in their third year of medical school and was appalled that we were twenty and didn't know what we wanted to do. Ohhh man. If he only knew....
The second day was very similar. EXCEPT. Instead of watching a c-section of one baby, we watched one of twins! ¡Cesárea de gemelos! One boy and one girl. That was very cool. Two main differences: 1. The incision was horizontal instead of vertical which I thought was interesting. 2. Dido's White Flag was playing at the moment of birth. I suppose it was appropriate since this woman, once she woke up, was about to completely surrender her life to two little ones. Also, I was thinking to myself, I hope someone tells her what song was playing while her kids were born. I would definitely want to know.  I'm not too hopeful for that for her though.
So where do these experiences leave me? Well, marveling at life and God's creation.
Any new inspiration to be a doctor though? Give me a break, it's only been a week and...I'm only 20.

The first ND football game is today! We are all gearing up to watch it at a local casino, but it's definitely times like these I wish I could be a Notre Dame. Nevertheless, I plan to cheer my hardest, though, I have somehow lost my voice already and I don't know where it is. So we'll see how that pans out. Go Irish!


Mexpandable Waistlines

Fun fact for ya': The word "salsa" really just means sauce.  When we say "salsa" in the United States, we have something very specific in mind, but here, every sauce is salsa. In the grocery store, the sauce section is populated with bottles that say such things as "Salsa de Soy", "Salsa de Barbacoa", "Salsa Worchestershire." One of the fun things about going to restaurants around here is the medley of salsas they bring out to the table. For example, at  Tacos Israel:

So many choices! The one in the top right corner is what seems to me closest to Pico de Gallo.  The first time we went to Tacos Israel, I loaded my taco with that hoping to get my daily serving of vegetables. Moving on clockwise, some delicious creamy green salsa that I believe is based on avocados. This one was actually pretty spicy, but generally it's been seeming like one of the milder ones as well as one of my favorites. The other salsa verde is pretty delicious and very mild. To the left of it is the interesting onion and mushroom mixture that is also very spicy. Of course, limes are included with everything, but not technically a salsa. And the red one at the top could be titled Diablo as far as I'm concerned. 

I can't leave this edition of MW without mentioning Salsa Crema. Oh my it's delicious. It's basically just cream that is almost always available to throw on top of everything. Que rico. Overall, the salsas always make for some interesting and colorful additions to food plates.

I'll say, it's a good thing I'm getting so many bug bites. One might have said there won't be any of me to come back home after all these little critters have their say, but I think this section demonstrates how I'm hopefully finding a nice balance and making up for the lost chunks of flesh and blood.