Adventures in Cholula

Now that I have gotten settled into my classes and schedule, I have taken some time to do some exploring of the funky town we live in: Cholula.  Remember when Jake talked about Hernan Cortez coming to Mexico and building churches everywhere? Well, since the indigenous people and the Spanish didn't like mixing (no wonder, they built churches on top of all of their pyramids and killed a good number of them), Cholula became the indigenous town, and Puebla the Spanish town.  Cholula is a really cool and very easy to navigate, because the streets are laid out in a grid pattern, with the two zocalos (central plazas--one in San Andres Cholula and one in San Pedro Cholula) acting as the (0,0) coordinate.  The intersections act like points on the graph.  1st quadrant intersections are (Calle # Oriente, Avenida # Norte), 2nd quadrant is (Calle # Poniente, Avenida # Norte) , 3rd quadrant is (Calle # Poniente, Avenida # Sur), and the 4th quadrant is (Calle # Oriente, Avenida # Sur).

Yeah I just used math.  Pretty proud.

So anyway, with the easy to navigate roads and my trusty steed "Carcancha" (slang for a crappy, rusty car) I have been exploring my new home with many adventures included.

My Carchancha

I have no classes on Fridays, so I took advantage of my free time and biked to the Jardin Etnobotanico of Cholula (Etno-botanic Garden) where I will be doing some volunteer work.  The garden is really gorgeous, with lots of native plants and useful herbs and other plants.  I haven't quite figured out what I will be doing usually, but yesterday I helped the designer put together some things for the shop. This included upcycling old cereal boxes into gift boxes, folding pamphlets, and cutting out instruction booklets.  I can't wait to get to know the people there more and to familiarize myself with the garden.  It seems like a really awesome place.

From there, I went out to lunch for my first "cemita": a giant sandwitch the size of my head that usually has pork, cheese, onions, avocado, peppers, and beans on it.  I will discuss them more in detail when I get around to writing a post strictly about all the amazing food I have been eating.

Explorin' 

To work off my giant food baby, I walked/biked around Cholula some more.  I strolled around the market, eyed the crafts for potential presents, and then met a really nice woman who makes jewelry and sells it outside a store.  I also make jewelry, so I chatted with her for a while about it.  She invited me back to work with her whenever I want and use her tools and supplies!  Like many other locals I have met, she was incredibly friendly and kind.  I fully plan on taking her up on her offer.  More on that later!