Want some soy sauce with that?

We ended up having a party at the school after Taxco, which was pretty cool.  My teacher who’s only 23 was there along with some others and a few of the students.  We had so much fun listening to bachata music and talking about Mexico and such.  For the game I ended up just staying with the family because they had everyone come over – cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.  It made me so excited for my Cabo trip this Friday.  I’ve really missed everyone together and it doesn’t help that I missed the trip 2 years ago.  Although it originally was a vacation, it will help with my paper in comparison of the culture in Cuernavaca to the culture in a tourist-generated area. 

One thing I highly doubt they will have in Cabo is all of the chip stands.  One chip stand will have popcorn, potato chips, plantains, and more and then there’s a whole station of sauces and spices to put on it.  One thing that has surprised me is that everyone here thinks that all we eat is hamburgers and hot dogs, yet here they put way more on their hot dogs then I know my family does.  It’s the same with pizza.  The other night they had about 5 different kinds of pizzas, one was Mexican style with refried beans, a few different cheeses, and beef.  For the condiments they had about 3 different kinds of salsa/hot sauces, soy sauce, worstershire sauce, pico de gallo, and ketchup.  Now this isn’t just like let me dip this in some soy sauce, they drench their pizzas in condiments and it actually ended up tasting really good!  The hot dogs have pico and a bunch of different salsas as well as mustard and ketchup.  Also the beer and margaritas I mentioned before have chamoy sauce - which is like a candy with chile powder in it. In the beer is chamoy sauce and around the rim is chile powder with lime.  It's definitely an acquired taste ...  

On my last day Edson and I went to the museums around the city.  One of them is Robert Brady’s old house that was a collector of art pieces.  The entire house was incredibly colorful with masks and paintings and self-portraits literally on every wall.  It seems that every museum we went to was someone’s old house.  We went to Hernán Cortés’ old house, which is now a museum of the history of Cuernavaca and Mexico.  Another was the house of Maximillian, which is now a huge garden that apparently is used as a cheap date on Sundays since it’s free.  There’s a bunch of different tropical trees and a pond with boats and an auditorium like setting.  What’s been cool is that last semester I learned about all of these people in my Mexican history class and now I’m actually seeing all of the murals and the houses that I studied.  I’m not gonna lie, I absolutely hate history, especially if it’s about the United States, but studying another country and their culture is pretty exciting.  A big part of it is because I haven’t been taking the classes all my life but still.

 

What’s weird is how tired I’ve been here, especially towards the end of the week and I finally think I figured out why – the food.  Some people have said it could be the altitude too since we’re not used to it.  But if you think about it, when you go out to lunch or dinner at a Mexican restaurant you know you’re gonna want a nap afterwards because you’re just so exhausted and full.  Well I’ve been eating these kinds of meals all day and for every meal.  Breakfast yesterday was cereal and guacamole with tostada chips – basically flat hard shell tortilla chips.  The day before that was quesadillas with queso and pico de gallo and cereal.  Not gonna lie I’ve taken a few naps since I’ve been here. 

One big thing that I’ve always loved about Hispanic culture is the values they have.  In the United States, our lives revolve around education, jobs, and money.  In Latin countries it revolves around family and friends.  One way I noticed this was in the city.  In Atlanta everyone is moving and constantly headed in one direction, while in Mexico the city is full but of people hanging out rather than walking with a purpose.  But one thing my brother pointed out to me was that because of the value put on family, Mexicans are terrified of being alone – which I completely understand.  The amount of time families put into making their food for one big lunch with the family is actually really cool.  To have divorce or a falling out would put a big dent in their lives making them basically start all over – about the same as if someone lost their job in the United States.  That’s one big reason why divorce is so rare in these cultures.

Next I’ll be in Cabo on Friday to see how the culture of Cuernavaca – a modern day Mexican society, compares to Cabo San Lucas – a thriving tourist-generated site.