Taxco: Nun of Us Wanted to Leave

On Saturday we took a short little bus ride over to Taxco from Cuernavaca to spend the rest of our four day vacation. Taxco is a colonial style city, so you won't find any buildings painted in teal, orange, yellow or pink. It reminded me of a quaint little European town, almost like the Mexican version of Greece, it was really neat and white. The town was built up into the mountainsides, and stretched pretty far across, making the roads windy and skinny and bumpy. We had a lot of fun hanging out in a more touristy town.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the city, enjoying the centro and the people. We went into the cathedral in the Zocalo, which was more beautiful on the outside, then on the inside...I didn't bother taking a picture, trust me you aren't missing anything.

Taxco has a very big silver mine, and so the silver there is very cheap. We shopped around a lot and maybe if you are that one cool person, you will get something for your Birthday. But like I said, I only bought silver for one person. haha. It was pretty cheap, but I am tighter than two coats of paint, so I didn't buy much.

The best part of our day, and the most anticipated was our stay at the convent with the nuns, or 'monjas' is spanish. There is a convent in Taxco, about fifteen minutes outside of town, that will let people stay for free and they also feed you, only asking for a donation when you leave. Obviously we wanted to sleep with the nuns! Our rooms were really clean, and they were so helpful and nice to us.

Oh yeah..Did I mention there was also a snake staying with the nuns? Bonnie was seriously afraid of this little thing, but look its nunthing but a harmless mexican garden snake.

For dinner, we weren't exactly sure what to expect, but we were wishing for Pizza. hahaha. Unfortunately, we were served mole in tortillas topped with lettuce and cheese and some pinto beans and hot milk (ewww). Not Mole like the small rodent, but a big mixture of chiles and chocolate and lots of other mysterious things. Mole is very famous in Puebla, where I live, but so far I have not been able to eat much of it, because it is SO SO gross. All my Mexican friends like it though....I just don't get it. Yuck.

Luckily, there was some pan (bread) so we scarfed that down, and then pretended to eat the mole by pushing it around our plates, and hiding it under the beans and such. Basically a lot of nunsense we learned when we were six years old. We should have just told them it was too spicy, because that would have been believable. But instead Courtney volunteered to eat most of the plate. Thanks girl for making a sacrifice for the rest of us!! Do NOT be fooled by our smiles, we were not enjoying this meal.

We went to sleep mostly hungry or like Courtney with a belly ache. It sure did feel nice to have a clean bed and a warm shower! Can't wait for Breakfast with the Nuns!...or can we?

-Sara Jacqueline

TGIF: I Never Saw A Single Cow in Cuernavaca.

Today was the beginning of our second four day vacation. We had no school today, so we woke up super early to catch a bus to Puebla, and then to Cuernavaca to spend the day. Cuernavaca is actually a pretty big city, and it would be fun to spend more time here, if we had it. Today we spent most of our day walking around the city and enjoying the centro.

First we bought these awesome fruit cups for our lunch. These were not typical fruit cups either. I filled mine with apple, banana, mango and guayanaba (Super delicious fruit) and then topped it with lechera, coconut and granola. The whole cup was only 12 pesos, which is exactly 1 dollar. Seriously, when I come home I am going to put lechera on absolutely everything.

We spent the afternoon at this huge park which was actually pretty neat. We saw a parrot show, and walked around and then sat by a pond for a while and did some paddle boating. We also tried to get a ride on this cute little train, but the driver told us it wasn't in operation today...Well we just gave him a few sad faces, and he let us on for a short free ride!!!! If only life was all that easy. We definitely enjoyed ourselves, and afterwards headed back to the centro. Here is me, Bonnie and Jen:

For the rest of the time in Cuernavaca, we hung out in the centro and enjoyed all the crazy night life. One thing I love about Mexico, is that in every city, there is a Zocalo or a main square, and there is always action going on there. It's like the best place for everyone to come hang out. We saw a ton of street dancers, and then listened to some sweet tunes from these cool guys!

We actually had McDonalds Flurries for dinner..hahah..how embarrassing, but they were delicious and worth it. Don't worry, afterwards we ate some street tacos too, so we evened it all out and those were just as yummy.

For only 58 pesos a person, less than five bucks, we slept in a super sketchy hotel..haha....I will tell you about that another day..in person...so you can see my facial expressions to go with it all. Can't wait until we get to Taxco for the rest of our adventure!!

-Sara Jacqueline

Wooohoo Wednesday!!

Basically the Mail Man loves me this week because I got another package!!! Eeeek! I was stinkin' excited, because I was surprised to see it was from....drum roll please..my boyfriend!!! Elder Justen Turley sent me some sweet pictures of people from his ward and his friends and companions, two postcards, a little note, a spanish scrabble game and some candy. He is too too funny.

Clearly, I am over the top excited to hear from him. XOXO

-Sara Jacqueline

Happy Fake Birthday Mandy!!

Welp, you guessed it. We made up another fake Birthday and celebrated tonight after school. Mandy wasn't really into celebrating her Birthday to much, and we are missing Ashley today cause she is a little sick from some tacos...but we still went to the centro to enjoy the people watching and some street food.

Some of us had cemitas (giant sandwiches) and some of us had tacos, and some of us..just had a cup of corn. haha. We trotted around the festival for a bit and Mandy managed to get herself a free balloon from this clown..

The International Festival of Tehuacán is still going on..if you remember, it is going to last for like two weeks-Mexicans really like to party- and so we went to see some folk dancers last night after class. We weren't sure what to expect, but it was actually pretty exciting. Me and Jen decided we saw three types of dancing, one that looked like Irish step dancing, square dancing, and another that looked like tap dance, but with wooden shoes. Pretty fun! Their costumes were also the COOOLEST.

Lastly, this morning I got MAIL!!!! I was SOO stinkin excited that I got the school secretary to do a dance with me..haha..she definitely thinks I am nuts. It's not that I am homesick or dying, but its really fun to get mail, especially sweet notes from your second grade best friend.

Thank you so much Corie! Everyone was jealous all day long, and your card had me crackin' up. I showed all my kids the picture of Justin Bieber, and then we sang his songs together. It was really quite hilarious. Mail just makes the whole day better cause you know someone is thinking about you :)

-Sara Jacqueline

It's a Clown Pop Kind of Day...

Lately, me and my group of crazy friends have been making goals for ourself..sort of. We have decided that March is the month of ...

• Sincerity: So we can stop being so sarcastic
• Honesty: So we will stop lying to ourselves about the amount of calories we are really consuming
• Positivity: Because when one is negative, we all become negative
• Impulsiveness: We keep telling each other the things we want to do here in Mexico, but we have started to realize we are running out of time..so the time is now.
• Health: Since we are going home in 6 weeks, we need to cut out the massive amounts of unhealthy Mexican food.

Since we have made these ridiculously silly goals for ourself, we decided to follow one and buy some clown pops. These clown pops are in every single store you come across, and they are in MASSIVE amounts.

Clown pops = Chocolate pacifier for little niños

Basically it is a marshmallow covered in chocolate with little gummies stuck into it, to look like a clown face. Not gross, but just simple cheap candy. It only cost us 3.5 pesos...which is like 25 cents...so not bad for impulsiveness. There is MUCH better Mexican candy out there.... More to come!!

-Sara Jacqueline

Hooray for Mexican Monday!

Top 5 Most Ridiculous/Cute Things My Missionary Said to Me:

1. "I'm just looking out for my Girl."
2. Talking about Mexicans always trying to speak in English to us: "All the girls in the street wanna practice their English with me too, but usually have different intentions...haha..yuck."
3. About his good looks: "Me and my companion were walking and an SUV full of girls pulled up laughing and waving at me and I waved back and they all started screaming like I was famous or something. It was funny." Ladies Man Much??
4. Speaking of my nasty hacking cough: "Just take the medicine from your (host) mom Sara. I know it looks sketchy, but it works. I can feel your stubbornness from here."
5. "Any creepy boys bothering you? I don't want to have to bring down the hammer."

It is official. Justen only has 9 more months on his mission. Yes that is it! Only nine more. So now all I gotta do is wait for Snookie to have her baby, and he will be back..haha. Lovely. Snookie will make a great countdown calendar.

-Sara Jacqueline

Fuimos a Teotihuacan!

Yesterday, we took a four hour bus ride to Mexico City to go to Teotihuacan, where there are some awesome ruins. To be honest, we weren't all that excited because we have been to A LOT of ruins and typically they have looked the same. Well, Teotihuacan is ridiculously huge!

The ruins are about 30 miles North of Mexico City, and stretch for over a mile. We walked through the Avenue of the Dead, which is basically like the big street lined with all of the ruins. There were two main pyramids to see, the Sun and the Moon. The Pyramid of the Sun is the largest building in Teotihuacán and one of the largest Pyramids in Mesoamerica. The name comes from the Aztecs, who visited the city of Teotihuacán centuries after it was abandoned. The pyramid was constructed in two phases. The first construction stage, around 100 AD brought the pyramid to nearly the size it is today. The second round of construction resulted in its completed size of 733 feet across and 246 feet high. It is believed that this is where the gods were born and created the universe...crazy right?

We spent the entire day walking through the ruins, and climbing up pyramids. I climbed the 7th largest pyramid in the world..Yep, take that!

To finish off the day, we had Tacos de Barbacoa! We have heard how delicious they are, so we had to try them. They are basically like a sweet meat, like barbeque pulled pork, in a taco..pretty good.

After all day walking around the pyramids, then the 8 hours of riding on a bus, we were all totally pooooooped. Wow, that wore us out for sure! I can't wait until our next adventure!!

-Sara Jacqueline