Back in the States

Well, here I am, back at my parents house. I'm glad to be home and see my family, but I still feel like I'd prefer to be in Mexico. Not that I didn't miss my family here in the states, but I just wasn't ready to come home yet. But it's cool, I'm sure I'll get used to it again. I spent my last 2 days of the trip in Mexico City with my family. I'd say that was the highlight of my entire trip. I can't believe I hardly knew this part of my family before cuz we're so close in relation, and I clicked with them right away! They like to joke and have a good time and are all very close. I admire that and I hope that we'll keep in touch often. I hope this next year goes by fast, because I am anxious to get back to Mexico. Here are a couple pictures of my family...yes, I know...our family breeds good lookers :-)


(Fernando, me, Ana Maria, Ana, Cesar, Alfonzito)


("The Handsome" & me)

Final Weekend in Queretaro

(Queretaro)


(The Aqueducts that run across the entire center of Queretaro)

Well, the ultimo days are here. I have my final exam tomorrow, then gonna go buy my bus ticket to Mexico City. I'm going to spend Tuesday night with my family in Mexico City, then they're taking me to the airport on Wednesday. I'm really looking forward to it because I didn't get to spend much time with 'em since I'd been here.
As for the last few days...Friday, I had an absolute blast! Despite coming home much later than I expected, and having a helacious hang-over Saturday morning before San Miguel de Allende...I have to admit, it was all worth it. Misty, Mariela, Steph, and I went downtown around 10:00 Friday night and found this really cool bar on the second story of a historical building, with an amazing few of the plaza and gorgeous fountain in the vecinity. Good music, good beer, tasty pina colada, and a shot of some green apple stuff started off the night. After about 30 min., Misty & Steph's local friend, Josue (Joshua in english), met up with us at the bar.


(Josue)

He is an absolute sweetheart and great company. He just returned to Queretaro from living in Canada for 6 months, learning english, studying, and working. We went to his house, where his sister and some of his friends were having a small party. Who woulda thought that I'd learn the line-dance for "Akey Brakey Heart" in Mexico!? *LOL* It was fun :-). I met some cool people there. It was nice to chat with people who had patience for my lack of speech. All in all, the people I met were absolutely worth the hangover the next day.


(I look entirely too happy in the pic, LOL)

Today, Jess and I went downtown to do a little walking around and shopping. We had a decent breakfast and some yummy coffee (well, chai tea for me). It was nice, we were back at the dorms by 2:30 and hit the books. We studied most of the day until we finally were so burnt out that we had to put it off for tomorrow. Anyhow, those are my "final days in Queretaro" thus far. See you guys soon!
Love,
Sara

Last week of classes

Well, it's finally almost here...I'm heading home in 6 days...no offense to everyone, of course I miss you guys...but I don't know that I'm really all that excited about returning home. I'm excited to see my family, friends, and excited about my trip w/ Kat to Phoenix & Prescott, AZ...but I guess I'm just not ready to leave Mexico yet. I haven't accomplished all that I hoped while being here and I love Queretaro. It's a beautiful city. Funny, how when I left NM to come here in May, I wasn't sure what I'd gotten myself into and was completely opposite of being excited about the experience. However, now I'm extremely appreciative of it, and have fallen in love with the place. If I had the money, the time from school, and was more familiar with class options here...I would [without a doubt] stay here until December.

So about my week...been ok, kinda flying by. On Tuesday Mariela, me, Erin, and Jess went downtown to do some shopping...little did we know 95% of the merchants actually do not work on Tuesdays, haha! Did I mention it was pouring rain the entire time?? *LOL* We had fun splashing through puddles and watching the streets get flooded....all to come back to our rooms (where we'd left our windows open) to find puddles on our floors and a welcoming 'moldy smell'.





Yesterday we attempted Al Centro again, and the weather was great! We got some cool shopping done; lots of little knick-knacks and jewelry, tshirts, etc. However, the best part of yesterday was class...we had a piñata contest with the other exchange-classes. It was interesting, LOL. It was cool, because the intent of the exercise was for us to make these piñatas for charity...they are all delivered to local less-fortunate children, which I think is amazingly cool. Also, we learned some breif history on piñatas...did you know they actually originated in CHINA? Anyhow, we made Alebrijes, which are a mixture of animals in one body....for example: our alebrije was a rainbow colored seahorse w/ turkey feathers, a monkey face, and elephant ears :-). His name was Arcoiris = "rainbow". We actually won 3rd place in the competition and our prizes were these pretty, little hand-made mexican bags. I really like mine :-).




(Ours is the rainbow colored "thing" with big green ears and turkey feathers; next to the frog/ turtle looking thing)



As for today...just class, then went to Soriana with Jess to get bread....funny, we came back with everything else in the store BUT bread, hehe.
Welp, I guess that's it for my excited week...love you, miss you, see you next week.
~Sara