Consider Yourself Llamar'd.

Hola!

The past 24 hours have been a whirlwind. I am staying in Cuernavaca, which is about 35 miles south of Mexico City. It is in the mountains and is absolutely gorgeous! The first thing I noticed about Mexico is that everything is colorful! Walls, cars, houses, street signs...todos. There is spanish tile everywhere, and flowers and fruit trees of every color line the streets. Wherever you go it feels like everybody is celebrating!

Our house is about 10 minutes walking distance from our school,
Cuauhanahuac Instituto (If it sounds like you have marshmallows in your mouth and you get the first and last "c" then you're probably saying it right!)

We are staying with a 60 year old retired elementary school teacher "Mama" Irene. She is absolutely wonderful and very hospitable. She refuses to let me help her with ANYTHING but it's such a blessing to be treated so well! I also have a roommate, Mary Lucy, and it's been so good getting to know her!

Today we had our orientation and exams......placement exams that is, and oral interviews. It was a HUGE written test, but the interview was fairly informal, they just want to know where we are.

Now upon going into the interview I do believe the professora and I spent a good 5 minutes trying to pronounce my name in Spanish. I am very seriously considering changing it to something comprhensible because they only really pronounce one letter in my entire name. So Heidi.....sounds like....... eeithey... If you have any suggestions let me know! haha

The school itself is beautiful and the professors are very helpful. They've created an atmosphere of learning that makes me so excited to learn!

Later on we saw a few of eachothers host families and then toured a bit of the Plaza. (main part of the city)

We saw the Palacio de Cortez....he actually did live there and there is a museum! Lots of swords...ha and a really beautiful cathedral.

Then we walked around the black market (SKETCH) and THEN IT STARTED TO RAIN.
We got on the bus and headed back...but our host home is about 15 minutes from the bus stop. So while we had the cover of some trees, our group decided to wait....unfortunately we picked the wrong spot to wait because part of the street was flooding and, no joke, a bus came by and threw a tidal wave of water on us. It was HILLARIOUS but that water was nasty. Then it happened again.

After a glorious shower we had cena (dinner) with la Senora. She made us PANCAKES! It felt like home :)

and now it is time for bed because classes start muy temprano (a las 8)

Buenas noches