El Mercado y niños.

I'm trying to upload the pictures so that they're bigger, but I don't know if it's working. It should be that you can click on the pictures and the full size appears, but that doesn't always happen. I'm sorry!

Anyway, these pictures are actually from my second day here. One of the Mexican students took me on a walking tour, and we went to the outdoor market, and the university.

I dunno what this is, but the kids were cute:

The outdoor market was really cool! I mostly took pictures of the birds...for obvious reasons. I miss you Henry and Eliza! Don't lay too many eggs for Emily and Alan!

Many zebras in one cage... :(

And really expensive finches for 300 pesos! (less than 30 dollars)

Here's a picture looking in to the market...It's super cluttered but really fun to look around! It was impossible to take pictures once inside, but i'll probably attempt that some other time. ;)

But this is just a shot of the clothes/crap section. The meat/fruit section is both disgusting and cool! I'll try to get pictures!

fútbol

So...I went to a soccer game. I don't like soccer games in the US, but I figured I'm in mexico and should go to one. Since soccer doesn't really interest me, I didn't take too many pictures of the game. I did, however, take pictures of the security there! We got patted down and everything!

Here is Rebecca having her knife taken away....

And then la policía came out in their full gear, and stood around the entire field for the whole game!!

...But most of them turned around and watched, haha.

People don't have very much money in Mexico, so the upper area had people STANDING, while the bottom area wasn't very full.

Oh yeah, I did take a picture of the game. It wasn't too exciting, but the home team, Los Gallos (roosters) won!

Then I got creepy and took pictures of little boys.

Aqueducts

So...I guess there's aqueducts in Querétaro that were built to bring clean water to the city? There's a silly story that everyone tells that says a man with a long name was in love with a woman, and he built the aqueducts under the assumption that she would pay him...? But then she didn't, so now if a woman wants something from a man, she has to pay him first. So far there doesn't seem to be any truth to that. :D

So here's a close-up - the streets were built around it

And here's a view from atop a hill...

And here's a shitty picture of me just to prove I was there. Nobody really talks to me or wants to take a picture of me, so this is all there is.

Woo. It was an amazing view though!!

Las Plazas

Alright, I feel really sick and my host mom is testing my patience, but I'm going to make a few posts because Emily will otherwise hate me. This thing will only let me post a couple pics at a time though...but I don't have very many pictures anyway so it's okay. Uhhh okay. First, plazas.

A bad picture of la Plaza de la Constitución taken from the tram:

Plaza de Armas (I think):

Plaza de los Fundadores where the Indigenous people sell things:

Jardín Guerrero, which is pretty much at the center of la ciudad:

DESAYUNA

Alright, I got some kinda cool pictures today since we went on a tram tour, but I'm going to go through those later, as we have another tour tomorrow.

For now, I'll just tell you that I HAD BEANS FOR BREAKFAST!! She made toasted bread and put beans and awesome cheese on it. And there was salsa. Very hot salsa. It's better than it looks.

The juice is literally blended up fruit. It's kinda good, but she keeps giving it to me whenever I ask for water...I ended up buying a waterbottle for 6.5 pesos (less than 65 cents?!)

NO HABLO ESPANOL

Today wasn't too eventful. Basically, I spent most of the day in the airports, got off at Queretaro, blinked stupidly at the spanish-speakers while going through customs, and got really stressed out when my taxi driver couldn't find my homestay. There may have been some tears.

I did get a nice picture of the sky, and of Tyler sleeping.

Homestay info!

I've had this for a while now, but I was too busy trying to survive the intensive TESOL summer program, so I'll just post this now.

HERE IS WHERE I WILL BE LIVING from July 28 to September 16:

Privada Madero No. 10
Col. Centro, C.P. 76000
Querétaro, Qro., México

My homestay mom is Martha Basaldua Pastrana. She lives alone, and has a grown daughter. She is supposed to cook me 3 meals a day, so i'm sure she has taco-making skills that will put me to shame.

I leave in 3 days? AHHH!