A Day in the Life

     Today was another beautiful day in Puebla.  I got up at 6am, as I do every weekday, in order to catch the bus to UDLAP.  When I arrived, I savored a cup of the world renowned Mexican coffee: Nescafe.  Why anyone would drink that horrible, horrible coffee in Mexico, the world's 8th largest coffee producer, I have yet to find out.  After I cleansed my palate of Nescafe, it was time for class.  We spent the entirety of my first class learning about the Huichole people, proud and religious (literally) users of peyote.  When a fellow student asked if a typical Huichole drink mentioned in a video we were watching contains alcohol, the professor responded with "Well, yes, a bit. But the Huicholes are of the mindset:  why get drunk when you have peyote?" 
  

Classic Huichole Art - I think the peyote may come into play on the Huichole art scene.

After my second class of the day, I had four hours between classes to go exploring in Cholula.  Sam and I decided to walk up past the pyramid, about a 30 minute walk, to try eating at a place she had heard was good.  I arrived to find two older women with a grill and a cooler offering gorditas and quesadillas in several flavors.  Sam and I could scarcely understand the various fillings so, as all good Americans would, we jumped on the item with chicken in its name.  We were surprised to find that, whatever the name of this quesadilla actually was, it basically meant a chicken parm quesadilla.  Nonetheless, we cheerily enjoyed our chicken parm quesadillas with a bit of salsa verde which automatically ordained our meal as a typical Mexican dish.  Once we finished up there, Sam insisted that we visit her "favorite" candy shop to get some candied peanuts.  I maintain that it is impossible to have a favorite anything within three weeks of living in a city, especially if that is the only candy shop you have ever actually entered.  I must admit, the candy was delicious.  

On our way back to school we stopped into a bunch of local artisans' shops just to take a look around and get an idea of what we might like to bring back to the States with us. Most of the shops have the same generic touristy items, but the Talavera (a local style of pottery) is always beautiful.  

To top of my charming day in Cholula, I made it back to class only to find that it would be cut an hour short due to a scheduling conflict for the professor.  So, I listened to him rant about the fact that everything I know about Native American culture is contrived nonsense created by government anthropologists in the 19th century for the sake of categorizing indians and stealing their land for an hour less than I usually have to.  "For gods sake, the Native Americans don't even know anything about their culture before 1500!"  If I manage one day like this per week for the rest of my semester, I'm not sure I'll be able to leave.