Australia Day! And classes.

Plus we had a pinata!

So, this is more than a week late, but better late than never, right? Last Saturday was so much fun that it deserves its own blog post.  About 6 of the 70 study abroad students are from Australia, so some of them decided to have an Australia Day celebration.  I'm still not really sure what Australia Day is, but I think it marks the day the English took over Australia (January 26), and is usually celebrated by drinking lots of beer, having a barbecue, and playing with kangaroos (I might have made the last one up).

7 in the photo, 1 taking the picture, 1 driving. This is legal in Mexico, I swear.

 In traditional Mexican style, us Americans met up at the time we were told, then waited around for over an hour for all the locals to arrive.  Maybe one day I will relax my rigid punctuality, but until then I will be at least 5 minutes early, goshdarnit.  Anyway, one of the Amigos Internacionales knew of a park where we could have this shindig, so, with the help of Rafael, who owns a truck and happens to know one of the Australians, a bunch of us (9 to be precise) squeezed into the seats, floor, and trunk of a car, drove 15 minutes, and found ourselves in a lovely park, complete with soccer field, tent, and grill.

On the way over, Rafael attempted to teach us the Mexican national anthem.  All I remember is "Mexicanos al grito de guerra" which means "Mexicans at the cry of war". I assume they do something at the cry of war, but you will have to look that up for yourself. 

Fairy bread: who knew bread with butter and sprinkles was so
delicious? Apparently the Australians.

So anyway, the park really was perfect, the day was warm, the beer was cold.  What could be better? We played with a boomerang, threw the frisbee around a bit, soaked in the sun, chatted around the barbie, and ate lots of sausages and snacks, some of which were Australian.  Even though I still had a giant food belly, we played soccer as the sun went down.  On one side, we had a beautiful view of the volcanoes and Puebla at night, and on the other side we had a view of the desert-y landscape of Mexico with a huge moon lighting up the sky.  Overall, a pretty awesome day. 

I realize I haven't really talked at all about my classes.  The reason is, I do not have any pretty pictures of my classes, so I am not inspired to write about them.  I will suck it up because I am here to learn things, not just drink beer with Australians.  Siggghhhh. So, here is a brief overview of what we discussed last week in some of my classes.  My Mexico Actual and Cultura Mexicana classes are both pretty easy, as they are made for students learning Spanish.  This week, we talked about the Huicholes (as Jake already discussed) and Dia de los Muertos, which I am sad I will not be here to celebrate because it seems like Halloween, but with more purpose to celebrate besides free candy and skimpy costumes.  In my Spanish grammar class, which is much too hard for me, I struggled to understand boring things in grammar that I do not understand in English, let alone in Spanish.  

La Catrina: the modern representation of the Dead. Love that hat.

My Art History and Contemporary History classes are my favorites.  I really have to pay close attention to these classes because they are in Spanish for Spanish speakers.  In my Art History class, we are learning about Ancient Greece and Rome.  My professor talked mostly about the evolution of sculpture from 700 BC to 300 BC, and I am proud to say that I took pretty thorough, fairly accurate notes, including pictures.  Here is the gist: first, statues of people were blocky, men were naked and muscular, women were clothed and rich looking.  Then, during Classical Greece, Polykleitos wrote The Canon, which theorized the perfect proportions of men and encouraged sculptors to be a little more fabulous.  My sketch in my notebook looks like Will Smith.

 It's actually pretty accurate.In my history class, we have finished talking about World War I and have moved on to World War II.  I wish I could say it's because of the language barrier, but I really don't know much of this information.  I guess I haven't maintained much of what I learned in high school.  But I am starting to understand more of what my professor is saying! Pretty much everything actually, although my transcriptions of things I don't know how to spell are pretty amusing; for instance, the Treaty of Neuilly in my notes is spelled Ne..?  I am even confident enough to answer questions, as I did the other day! I got the answer wrong, but still. Pretty happy with myself.Stay tuned for more exciting things about our trip to Mexico City and all the amazing FOOD we are eating!