aventurasdeunatortuga

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Mexico 2025 Week 7?

The past week has been spent in Mexico City with my mom. I lived in Mexico City from 2015-2016 but this was my mom's first time visiting. This week involved a lot of nostalgia visiting old places and seeing how much they have changed (and not changed) and realizing just how different Mexico City is from Guanajuato.

We visited all the main touristy spots. The hotel we're staying at in Coyoacán is really nice, Casa Moctezuma, and the staff has been really kind. We explored Coyoacán and got our nails done the first evening after I picked my mom up at the airport on Tuesday. Wednesday we visited Chapultepec Park, the Museo de Antropología, and went and saw Ballet Folclórico at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Thursday we explored the Centro Histórico and saw the Zócalo, Templo Mayor, the Museo de Arte Popular, and the Diego Rivera murals at the SEP (Department of Education) building. On Thursday we also had lunch at this really fancy restaurant my mom wanted to visit called Pujol. It's one of those restaurants where all the dishes are like high art and are another level of fancy. I think it was the fanciest place I have eaten at in my life. The food was really good, and they even gave me a little cake because my mom kept telling the staff that I had just finished my first year of grad school, which was sweet.

On Friday we visited the Casa Azul (Frida Kahlo's house), and Xochimilco. Apparently while we were in Xochimilco which is south of the city there was a huge storm that caused flooding and hail damage in the rest of the city which we didn't even notice until it had already ended when we came back. On Saturday we stumbled across an Indigenous Languages Fair in Coyoacán which I was really excited about and got a lot of kids books in Indigenous languages. Then we went and had lunch at the Porrúa bookstore overlooking the Templo Mayor in the downtown and we visited the Museo de Tolerancia. It was pouring down rain again afterwards but we hid out in La Casa de Toño (a pozole restaurant).

Saturday evening my mom had wanted to see a musical that she had heard about called La Malinche. I've learned about La Malinche in classes before, she is a very controversial and deeply misunderstood historical figure. She was a Nahua woman from the Gulf Coast of Mexico who was sold into slavery to the Maya people as a child in the 1500s. When Cortés arrived to Mexico, she was given to the Spaniards and due to the fact that she was fluent in several Indigenous languages, became Cortés' translator. She is often viewed as a traitor to her people, as she was instrumental in the Spanish conquest of Tenochitlan and of the Aztec empire. However, it is often overlooked that she did not have much if any power in her circumstances and that she had been treated badly by the Aztecs as well. What did she owe them? It's also often overlooked that while the Spanish did contribute to the fall of Tenochtitlan and were responsible for the ensuing genocide of the Indigenous peoples, their conquest would not have been possible without the support of many other groups of Indigenous peoples previously conquered by the Aztecs who were unhappy with Aztec rule, not just the Malinche.

She's an interesting historical figure I'd like to learn more about. But the musical we saw was absolutely terrible. It was mainly about Cortes rather than La Malinche, and it romanticized Cortes and his killing of hundreds of thousands of people and honestly I was in shock with how the characters and storyline were handled. The show's main point was that Mexico should be "grateful" that Spain "saved them" from the Aztecs and brought Christianity, and at one point compared Cortes to Jesus? It was appalling. Later we found out it was produced and directed by Spaniards who had attempted to show the musical in Spain first but had been driven out due to protestors. I am shocked they thought it would be appropriate to show in Mexico.

After that....experience...on Sunday we went and visited Teotihuacán and thus began a series of unfortunate events.

One of my friends told me earlier this summer that is sounded like Guanajuato was trying to kill me. Mexico City certainly made some valiant attempts this week as well.

On our way back from Teotihuacán, which is about 45 minutes from Mexico City, apparently a motorcycle hid a bus and caused the bus to catch fire. This resulted in the highway being closed for almost 4 hours, and we were stuck in a bus waiting for it to reopen. We saw cars attempting to turn around on the median and one almost tipped over.

When we got back to the city, we visited the Basilica of Guadalupe, and then a huge rainstorm hit so we started heading back to Coyoacan. The rain and lightning and hail was so intense, I've never seen anything like it. We saw a metro station that had caught fire due to lightning, and we saw on the news later that the streets and metro and the airport had flooded.

The following morning, Monday, we were supposed to start heading to the airport to go home. I had reinjured my ankle from walking so much the past few weeks ( I injured in back in 2017 and it never healed properly) so I decided to take advantage of the accessibility of Mexican healthcare and had made a last minute appointment with a physical therapist to get it looked at. When I came back from the appointment to go to the airport I realized my mom was really sick with what we think was food poisoning. There was no way we could get to the airport with her that sick, so I brought her to the clinic. I can't say enough good things about Mexican healthcare. We showed up at the clinic with no appointment or insurance and were seen within 15 minutes and paid about $3 total to be seen; and $20 to pay for a total of 5 different prescription medications. My mom was feeling better within the hour.

Then we headed to the airport, we got there 2 hours before our flight but we didn't realize how badly the storm last night had impacted the airport. I have never seen an airport that crowded and chaotic before. Parts of the airport had flooded and over 120 flights had been cancelled the night before. When we got there there were thousands of passengers who had been waiting all night to try to reschedule their flights. Our flight hadn't been impacted but there was no cell service in the airport and the airline's website was down and since we had to check a bag we had to talk to someone. We spent 90 minutes talking to a total of 8 different representatives across 2 different airlines just to get our boarding passes and check a bag. That left us 30 minutes to get through security and find our gate.

At security I was selected for random additional screening, which resulted in us having only 3 minutes to get from security to our gate before it closed. We ran across the airport and got there only to have it be announced that the flight no longer had a pilot and would be delayed. I went to try to get a bottle of water and they wouldn't sell it to me without my passport and boarding pass and I lost my patience with the employee and was rude. I finally managed to get some water and we got on our flight and made it home.

While it seems like we had a lot of bad luck, I honestly feel like given the circumstances we had a lot of good luck. There were terrible storms and accidents but we were fine. We were sick and injured, but we got treatment quickly. The airport was chaotic but we made our flight.

I've been back home a week now and have been missing Mexico a lot. It's always hard to adjust after coming back from a trip. But more than anything I really miss the sense of community in Mexico. Of being able to walk down the street and see people and sit in a café or go to the park and see people living their lives and spending time together. You can step outside the front door and be in a community. Here, it's just cars and highways and empty apartments. It's a big shift.

I'm glad I'll be back next summer,

Until then,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Mexico 2025 week 6

I think with this post I am caught up. 

This was my last week in Guanajuato. It has been a very busy week with final projects and goodbyes. Even though it’s been a short 6 weeks, I’ve really grown to like my little life here. Mexico is such a healthy place to live. You can really see the value of community and taking care of each other and enjoying life that is present in every single thing people do. 

I will also miss the sheer randomness and hilarity of each day. Just this week we had: a horse run down the road we were walking on in the middle of the city center, fireworks go off every 15 minutes during one of our classes because of a saints day festival, a dog wander in off the street and take a nap in the middle of the classroom, someone decided to play k-pop as loud as humanly possible for the entire town to hear while I watched a fire dancer on a rooftop from my window. I couldn’t make this up if I tried, and listening to the nightly soundtrack of the city of dogs, fireworks, callejoneadas, and music and dancing from my window never gets old. 

On Friday we had our last day of classes and 3 students graduated from the program. One of them had gotten 45 members of her family ( a university record) to attend the little graduation ceremony we had in the courtyard. Friday we also said goodbye to our host family, Loyda had gotten wind that I liked Korean food and made us bibimbap for our last meal which was so sweet. I’m going to miss her. 

I’ve learned a lot from this program that I’m excited to take back to my classroom; but I am more grateful for the experiences and people I’ve met along the way. I am very lucky. 

On Saturday early in the morning we said goodbye to Adriana, and then later that morning I got on a bus to Mexico City, where I’ll be spending a few days with my mom before heading home. 

There was a whole slew of mishaps on my way to the city. First we found out the place we’re staying at in Mexico City turned out to be a scam, they had taken our money and then deleted all their accounts. We managed to get a refund from the company we booked the place with and found a new hotel. Then in the uber on the way to the hotel I had a mishap where I guess my suitcase had scratched the car while I was getting it out of the trunk. The uber driver was very angry with me and was yelling at me on the street. I paid her for the damage but I still felt terrible. Then I was sitting on the curb crying because I was so stressed out and then I realized all the staff of the hotel were watching me via the security camera and came out to ask if I was okay and who I was. They ended up being really nice, I was just very embarrassed  by my dramatic entrance. 

It’s been a long time, nearly a decade, since I’ve lived in Mexico City if you can believe it. This city is very difficult to get used to, I think it took me 3 months to start being comfortable here when I first got here, and I think I forgot how steep that learning curve is. I just kind of assumed it would be easy since I’d lived here before, but Mexico City is a bit of a beast and has changed a lot in the past decade. It has some of the very worst of Mexico but also some of the very best of it, and takes some time to get used to. 

That being said, I spent today re-familiarizing myself with my old neighborhood and recovering from all the stress from yesterday; and I’ve been remembering some of the reasons why I love it here. 

I’ll try to post again before I head back home, 

Until then, 

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Mexico 2025 week 5

Still catching up on the past few weeks. 

I don’t know why but this week was kind of rough. I was feeling really down for whatever reason and didn’t feel like eating or getting out of bed, which was part of why I got so behind on posting. But I went to class and everything, and my roommate noticed I wasn’t myself and went out of her way to spend a lot of time with me and keep me busy, which helped a lot. 

Here are some pictures from this week. The theme this week has been ‘ponte las pishis pilas’ which roughly translates to ‘put your f—ing batteries in’, it’s a phrase used to encourage people to keep going when things get hard. 

We visited a lot of different cafes to do homework in. I am surprised by how creative these are. We found a witch cafe, a French cafe, and even a cat cafe (which was my favorite). For art class we visited more museums and one of our assignments was to do a walking architecture tour of Guanajuato, with each of us in charge of being the tour guide of different sites. I also got to do homework about Frida Kahlo which was amazing. 

On Saturday we organized a callejoneada, which is a unique tradition to Guanajuato. Callejón means alleyway, and estudiantinas (basically troubadours dressed in 1500s style clothing) give tours of the alleyways of Guanajuato while singing. The tradition started in the 1950s when the University of Guanajuato started the International Cervantino Festival (Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, was essentially the Spanish version of Shakespeare) and as part of the festival university students would lead these musical tours around town. I’d been hearing them every single night from my window, but we got to go on one in person which was a lot of fun. Even one of our professors joined. There was also randomly a big red carpet event for Guanajuato’s International Film Festival. 

On Sunday my host family did a carne asada, basically a barbecue, which was really fun (and delicious). 

Until next time, 

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Mexico 2025, week who knows

I'm like 3 weeks behind on posting, so I'm gonna catch up one week at a time.

This week our second sessions started, we do two 3 week sessions each summer, each session we earn about 8 credits and it's the equivalent of about 3 semester long courses. This session I'm taking an art history class and a pedagogy class. For our art history class we got to visit a couple different museums during the week which has been fun. I'm learning a lot about art Latin American art and history which is super interesting. My schedule this session is also nice, I have an 8-10am class, a 12-2pm class, and a 4-6pm class which means I get to do some exploring of the city in between classes. Adriana and I have been discovering some great cafes.

Also as of Tuesday I am now finished with antibiotics and am free from the intestinal parasite (thank goodness). I can finally eat normally now.

Over the weekend, Adriana, my host family, and I went on a road trip to the nearby state of Michoacán in southwest Mexico. I'd never been to Michoacán before, so I was excited to go. My host family also invited along a member of their congregation who was from Texas and had just moved to Guanajuato, Linda. We left early Saturday morning and got back Sunday evening.

My host family, Javier and Loyda, have such interesting stories. They traveled all around Mexico and Central America in an old jeep in the 80's and 90's, and were missionaries in Honduras for a long time. They told us stories about how they had a pet monkey for a long time, or about how they would drive across rivers and through war-zones. Javier drives like he is in the Fast and the Furious, it was a wild ride. At one point we needed to take an exit and we were four lanes over and he managed to somehow make it while Adriana yelled “¡Vamos! ¡Usa las alas del carro! ¡Sin miedo al éxito! (Come on! Use the wings on the car! Don’t be afraid of success!) 

Our first stop was in Uriangato, Guanjuato. This town is famous for clothes, it is where a lot of stores throughout Mexico will get their merchandise. Clothes of all kinds are sold at a very cheap price.

Next we drove through the town of Cuitzeo, Michoacán, which is a very idyllic town painted all white. Then we stopped for lunch in Morelia, the capital of Michoacán. We saw some kids dancing the viejito dance (the little old man dance) which was hilarious.

From there we went to the town of Patzcuaro, which is nearby Lake Janitzio. It was such a beautiful town, apparently the Day of the Dead celebration there is legendary, and it was where the backgrounds for the movie Coco were inspired from. We drove through the rain and found a hotel room. Then Adriana and I wandered around town for a long time exploring the artesania shops and markets. We ended up in a bar on the main plaza that played Mexican alternative rock where we had sweet potatoes with marshmallows, corundas (similar to a tamale but square), and margaritas. It was a lot of fun.

On Sunday we had breakfast of Purépecha Chilaquiles at a place called Doña Paca's, which may be the best food I've had in Mexico to date. Then we explored a building called Los Siete Patios, which is an old building with 7 different courtyards, each one surrounded by small little artisan shops. There were weavers, metalworkers, painters, carpenters, everything you can think of. It was very cool to see. Then we drove quite literally 100mph back to Guanajuato. We stopped at a viewpoint of Lake Janitzio on the back. There is apparently an island in the middle of the lake where the Indigenous Purépecha people have a thriving community. I'd really like to come back to Michoacán someday, it is such a cool place. The climate is almost identical to Oregon somehow.

I had a lot of fun, I'm very lucky to have the host family and roommate that I do. A lot of host families just offer a room to sleep in and meals, and they have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome and include us in everything. I really appreciate it.

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Guanajuato, Week 3

This week marks the end of our first session. This program essentially has us take 3 semester long courses crammed into the space of 3 weeks; called sessions, and there are 2 sessions every summer. It's been a lot of work, but we made it through! We did our final presentations on Friday.

On Tuesday I went to the clinic because it had at that point been a full 10 days since my stomach was giving me issues. The doctor determined that I likely had an intestinal parasite (ew); and I've been on some very strong antibiotics and probiotics and a restricted diet all week. No meat (except fish or chicken), no dairy, no condiments, no artificial flavorings, and no seasoning; which makes eating here a bit of a creative challenge. My host family has been very gracious and accommodating and I've been so appreciative of how caring they have been. I'm supposed to be done with the treatment on Tuesday, so we'll see if things are better by then. Now I'm having trouble discerning what is me being sick vs. side effects from the antibiotics.

I've traveled a lot and never gotten sick like this before; and I don't even have any idea what could have caused it; I haven't eaten anything out of the ordinary lately.

Also I went to the bathroom at 1 o'clock in the morning and a scorpion ran past my feet.

My friend told me she thinks Guanajuato may be trying to kill me.

Despite these 'attempts on my life', I made it through the week.

On Saturday our cohort went to visit a few towns along La Ruta de Independencia in the state of Guanajuato.

In 1810, a priest named Miguel de Hidalgo was working at a parish in the city of Dolores, Guanajuato. At the time there was a race based caste system in Mexico with Indigenous and Black people at the bottom of the system forced to do slave labor. Then the Mestizos who were mixed race, then the criollos who were of Spanish lineage but were born and raised in Mexico, and at the top were the Penisulares, who were born in Spain. The lower castes were tasked with providing labor, goods, and services as tribute for the Penisulares in Mexico and in Spain, to the point where Indigenous peoples were forbidden from farming for fear that their crops would compete with crops imported from Spain.

Miguel de Hidalgo was a criollo. He joined with a number of people who were unhappy with Spanish colonial rule, namely the Indigenous and Mestizo populations. He gave what is known as El Grito de la Independencia (The Cry of Independence) yelling Viva Mexico! on the night of September 15, 1810 and rang the bells at his church; and went to the prison in town and freed 80 Indigenous prisoners. This is considered the night that Mexico was born, and the town was renamed Dolores Hidalgo. Hidalgo's supporters joined with criollo military led by Ignacio Allende and grew to nearly 100,000. They led a march to Guanajuato where his forces took control of the city, and then marched along what is today known as La Ruta de Independencia (The Road of Independence) towards Mexico City.

Unfortunately despite having stronger numbers, the Spanish army was better trained and armed and defeated Hidalgo's forces in 1811. Hidalgo and other Independence leaders were tortured and decapitated, with their heads being displayed in cages on the four corners of the military fortress in Guanajuato for 10 years. In 1821 Mexico finally won the war of Independence. The Independence leaders' heads were taken down and reburied underneath the Independence Monument in Mexico City, and the bell from Hidalgo's church was taken to the Presidential Palace where it is rung again each year on the night of September 15 to celebrate Mexican Independence.

We went and visited the town of Dolores Hidalgo and Hidalgo's church and the prison he liberated prisoners from. Strangely the town is also known for unique ice cream flavors. We went to a stand that had avocado, corn, shrimp, and octopus flavored ice cream.

We then visited another small town along the Ruta de Independencia, Atotonilco, which is known for its massive church with incredibly detailed murals on the ceiling. It took 43 years to paint and is known as "The Sistine Chapel of Mexico".

After that we went to the town of San Miguel de Allende, the hometown of Ignacio Allende, another independence leader. This town is much bigger and much more touristy. I'd been here before in 2016 for a weekend trip and it has changed a lot since then. Back then it was still touristy but much more focused on art and cafés, now it is just purely American and Canadian tourism everywhere. French and Italian and American restaurants everywhere and so many homeless people.

Mexico is experiencing a huge problem with gentrification. There was a recent study that reported that 70% of the 1.2 million foreigners living full time in Mexico are from the United States. Many of them are remote workers or retirees. They stay in long term airbnbs paid for in US dollars to property owners who live in the US, and many do not pay taxes or have made any attempt to attain residency/visas.

The biggest issue is the fact that they drive up the prices of everything from housing to food, meaning that regular people can no longer afford to live there. Big chain companies come in and push out local businesses, and locals are left with nothing. Many locals, having lost their livelihoods immigrate to the US, where if you have been following the news in the slightest you know how badly they are treated there.

Just as an example, in non touristy areas of Mexico you can expect to pay between 20-50 pesos for a meal ($1-$2.50 USD). In gentrified areas that jumps up to 250-300 pesos for a meal ($15-$20 USD). The average Mexican salary is 30,000 pesos a month (about $1,250 USD); so when prices jump up like that it is impossible to live.

There have been a lot of protests in Mexico City about this phenomenon recently. It's an issue that is not unique to Mexico, but is an especially cruel irony considering how Mexican Americans are treated in the US. As the US becomes more and more unliveable, more and more Americans are moving abroad and perpetuating the same harmful practices and mindsets that have made the US unliveable in the first place, and companies like airbnb and governments with lax laws are more than eager to profit off it.

I'll get off my soap box now. But I've been thinking a lot about my place in all this and have been trying to be more mindful about the way I spend money and the kinds of things I may be perpetuating by virtue of being who I am where I am.

We came back to Guanajuato after spending some time in San Miguel de Allende.

Today was spent getting ready for our next session which starts Monday. All new classes, new professors and classmates, new schedule, new everything. Many students and professors only come for one session, so it really is like starting all over again. We had a welcome lunch for the new arrivals today and I got caught in a thunderstorm on my way over there, the rain is truly something else here and I was soaked.

I'll post again next week, for now I am already drowning in homework that is due before the first day of class.

Until then,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Guanajuato 2025, Week 2

I feel like its been a thousand years but it's only been two weeks.

Not much to report this week. Schoolwork has been really intense. I haven't been a student in a long time and I had forgotten how hard it is to constantly be graded and come up short. The course content is very intense and we're expected to be operating at a very high level that I just don't think I'm at. So many scholarly articles and lectures and presentations and group projects and academic jargon and theories are all combining into one big mush in my head and I can't seem to make sense of any of it. It doesn't help that everything is in a mix of English and Spanish, since most of the scholarly articles we have to read are in really high level academic English but our class lectures and homework is all due in really high level academic Spanish. I don't think I have any space left in my head for anything. I feel like it's all I can do to keep up with completing the assignments but I don't have a good enough understanding of anything to do a decent job on the assignments. I'm just trying to keep my head above water at this point.

I got some form of stomach illness earlier this week too which hasn't been helping the overall state of things. I'm not used to everyone knowing so much about how I'm doing either. I mentioned on Tuesday that I was feeling sick to my roommate and now somehow my entire host family and everyone in my classes are asking me every few hours how I'm feeling. I want to say I'm feeling better but I'm really still not feeling great. They told us at the start of the program that we are not allowed to get sick, and that unless we were hospitalized, each absence would result in 10% being docked off our grades. So, just gotta tough it out I guess.

I still haven't gotten used to the daily climb up the stairs either. I was talking to a classmate and we both felt like each day was like running a marathon of trying to keep up with the classes and homework and then having to climb up literal mountains at times to get anywhere. I'd thought it would be easier after 2 weeks but it's still a lot.

Each day we're waking up early, hiking across town to class, spend 4 hours straight in lectures, hike back to the house for lunch, then hike back to the school for another 2 hours of lectures, then 6+ hours of homework to get ready for the next day. Then we have projects and presentations to do in addition to the daily homework. Any time in between that is spent laying face down on the bed, getting devoured by mosquitos, or coming across absolutely cartoonish scenes while walking the crazy streets of Guanajuato.

The estudiantinas are a phenomenon unique to Guanajuato, they are basically troubadours and dress up in 15th century outfits complete with gigantic flowing black capes and carry around giant instruments and walk through the streets singing for tourists. Around every corner when you least expect it there will be at least one if not several with giant instruments running to their next stop, cape flowing in the breeze, or doing an impromptu serenade for tourists. I cannot possibly overstate how many dozens and dozens there are and the size of the crowds they attract. The other day my roommate got trapped in an alleyway for 45 minutes by one because the crowd was so big and they wouldn't let her through. The ridiculousness of it is too funny.

It's been nice to know though that I'm not the only one feeling, as my roommate put it, pummeled. On Friday my cohort went to a rooftop bar for drinks and it was nice to socialize and have fun. On Saturday I slept for the entire day and my entire body felt like it had been run over by a truck.

Today (Sunday) was spent getting ready for next week. We have finals this coming week; essentially we had an entire semester's worth of work crammed into 3 weeks and our last day of this term is on Friday. Then, we have a weekend trip to San Miguel de Allende, and then the next session with all new classes starts Monday. I received the syllabi for my upcoming classes and literally I have research projects that are due and supposed to be presented on the first day of class. I don't know when I'm supposed to do all that.

I am very lucky to be here in spite of how much it's all been, and it is a very beautiful place to be. Here are some photos of my daily hikes around town, and a thunderstorm as witnessed from my bedroom window.

Until next week,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Guanajuato Week 1

It's been a long week. It feels more like it has been a month. Moving forward I will try to regularly post on Sundays to maintain some consistency. I'll give a brief overview of the past week.

1.Graduate school is no joke. The work load has been very difficult to get used to. I'm spending upwards of 6 hours a day on homework, and it is hard to keep up. Three days a week I am in class from 10am to 6pm, the other two days are just 10am-2pm. My school is beautiful though. Photos 2-4 show what my school looks like.

2. I'm getting used to spending time around people. Adriana and I have been doing most things together this week. I thought I would struggle being around people so much, but it hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. It helps that she is very extroverted and does most of the talking but also is receptive to what I want and don't want to do. We've done a lot of exploring this week after classes.

On Tuesday we went and visited the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, which is a history museum and the site of a number of important events in the Mexican War of Independence. Guanajuato was one of the most important cities under Spanish Rule due to the vast amounts of silver discovered here. Mining routes were quickly established and a lot of the key leaders of New Spain as it was then called were based in Guanajuato. The building used to be a granary storage area during the Spanish Rule and then eventually a military base. In 1810 the priest Miguel Hidalgo, who was based in the nearby town of Dolores Hidalgo, gave the famous cry of independence at the church there and began a march to Guanajuato along with other independence fighters. The day of that cry of independence is known as Mexico's Independence Day. The independence fighters (called The Insurgents) along with support from local Indigenous people in Guanajuato, managed to capture the Alhóndigas and began marching towards Mexico City. Unfortunately, the leaders were captured before reaching Mexico City and the Alhóndigas was retaken. Miguel Hidalgo along with several other independence leaders were publicly beheaded and their heads displayed in small cages on the corners of the large Alhóndigas building. Nowadays on the building you can see the metal poles that the cages hung from along with a plaque of whose head was hung there. You can also see large bullet holes in the walls that were made by the Insurgents army. It was then converted into a prison until I think the 1950s and then a museum. The whole inside of the enormous building was full of historical artifacts and some pretty terrifying murals about the Spanish rule and the war for Independence.

We also explored the Monument to Pípila which is an enormous statue on the hilltop overlooking the city. Pípila was an Indigenous man forced to work in the mines of Guanajuato who fought alongside the Insurgents to capture the Alhóndigas. Legend has it that he carried an enormous door on his back to protect him from musket-fire and walked up the steps to the Alhóndigas with a torch and set the place on fire, allowing the Insurgents to capture it.

3. Guanajuato is very loud and very pretty and very steep. Each night there is a chorus of dogs, fireworks, club music, and estudiantina music playing clear until midnight on weeknights and 3am on weekends. I am slowly getting used to the winding, steep alleyways and more or less know my way around downtown now.

4. My host family has been very kind. I had a wacky incident on Tuesday with my glasses. I was brushing my teeth and the lenses spontaneously popped out and my host family helped superglue them back together. I was able to get new glasses pretty quickly though!

Until next week,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Mexico 2025, Days 2-4

It's only been 3 days since my last post but it feels like much longer.

On Friday afternoon I arrived to the city of Guanajuato, which is about 5 hours northwest of Mexico City. Guanajuato is a very old Spanish colonial city; it was built in the 1500s by the Spanish in order to establish silver mines. It very much looks like Spain to this day. Lots of very old buildings, narrow winding alleyways, and cobblestone streets. Very different to the majority of Mexico.

When I arrived I met my host family, they are a couple named Javier and Loyda. Javier and I took a taxi as far as we could into the city; the taxi driver was an older gentleman who told us all about the history of the city. I guess up until 1970 there were only 4 roads in the city that were wide enough for carts to pass through and then in 1970 they added in more roads for cars surrounding the city and in underground tunnels. There is a whole system of underground tunnels here, some of which go over an underground river, some are for cars, and some used to be used to transport prisoners of the Spanish from the prisons to the silver mines.

Javier managed to get my giant suitcase up the narrow winding alleys and cobblestone staircases up to the top of the hillside to the house I will be staying at. It is a jaw-dropping view, I am flabbergasted every time I look out my window. The big white building in the pictures is the university I'll be taking classes at.

I learned more about Javier and Loyda, they've lived in Guanajuato now for 30 years and prior to that were missionaries in Honduras and Nicaragua for many years all throughout the violence and civil wars of the 90s. Now Javier is a preacher. They've hosted exchange students for more than 25 years from all over the world. They are very interesting people!

Guanajuato is a very touristic city, and as such can be very crowded and loud especially on the weekends. As I was getting settled there were random explosions from fireworks and church bells and people singing all happening at once. Late into the night each night you can hear the estudiantianas (kind of like mariachis) singing to tourist groups interspersed with church bells and nightclub music clear until 3 in the morning. A big contrast to my almost silent with the exception of cars going by neighborhood in Oregon; this city is so alive.

On Saturday it was pouring rain for almost the entire day. Summer is rainy season in Mexico, and it rains hard here. The alleyways were like small rivers and waterfalls. I went out once to go to the bank and it was very precarious.

On Sunday I got to know the other student who is staying here, as she arrived late the night before. Her name is Adriana and she is Mexican but moved to California a few years ago.

We went out to visit the school campus today as well and had a potluck lunch with all of the students and host families. Our classes start tomorrow,

I'm doing a graduate program in Spanish language instruction. There are only 11 first year students in the program, and about 40 students and 5 professors total. It is an accelerated graduate program meaning they condense a semester's worth of work into about 3 weeks, and we do two of these sessions each year over the course of 3 years. (6 "semesters" or sessions total, and 3 courses per session). The program is almost 100% in Spanish with the exception of one class.

The students not in their first year went around and gave advice to the new students and I was pretty overwhelmed by the fact that almost every single one of them said something along the lines of "don't forget to sleep!" or "don't forget to leave your room once in a while!" It's going to be a very intense program. Just to prepare for my first day of class tomorrow I had to do about 6 hours worth of reading this weekend.

We also got warned repeatedly not to leave the house alone. Apparently one of the professors was mugged last year. I feel very confident in my solo navigating / travel skills, and I mean I don't think this city is any more dangerous than other cities and certainly much less dangerous than Mexico City. But I've spent so much time living and traveling alone it is going to take some getting used to spending so much time around people. Adriana and my host family have insisted that I not go out alone and to let them know whenever I want to leave so someone will go with me. I've already gone out a few times on my own and its not like they won't let me, but one of the goals I had for coming here was to make friends with people and get more used to being around other people.

I was around people all day today and it was so exhausting. Everyone was very kind and friendly but it is hard to be around people for so long.

I almost feel more helpless being around others than on my own because I feel like I have less control and spend all my mental energy interacting with other people. I need alone time to process, and feel like I can't even think around other people. Adriana told me she is almost constantly around other people at home between her family and friends and she is very unaccustomed to doing things on her own; and this is true for a lot of people in Mexico, but I am the exact opposite. It's going to be an adjustment for sure and I feel like it'll take up almost as much mental energy as the academic work. But it's also something I want to work on and not just shut myself off from everyone.

Tomorrow I start classes, we'll see when I have energy to update again

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Mexico 2025 Day 1

I’m back!

This summer I will be in Mexico as part of a graduate program in Spanish language instruction. It’s a 3 year program, so I’ll be coming back here for the next 2 summers as well.

I arrived in Mexico City yesterday on very little sleep and stayed the night in a teeny tiny room. The employee told me “well either you or the suitcase will fit in the room, but probably not both” Somehow we managed to fit both me and the suitcase in the room but it was a tight fit.

It’s been 7 years since I’ve been back to Mexico City. I lived here from 2015-2016 while I was doing my Fulbright grant and got to know the city fairly well. The last time I was here was in 2018 on vacation. A lot has happened in the past 7 years, a pandemic, massive deterioration in US Mexico relations, and the election of Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum. The city has grown and changed but a lot is still just like I remember it. Arriving here felt a lot like coming home.

I went and had pozole for dinner at Casa de Toño, a well known Mexican chain. It may have been the 22 hours of no sleep talking but the food was so good it may have been the best pozole I’ve ever had.

After dinner I walked down the Paseo de la Reforma, a long busy road in the city center known for its political monuments. I walked part of the stretch between the Monumento de la Revolución (monument to the Mexican Revolution in 1917 against a dictator) and the Ángel de la Independencia (a monument to Mexican Independence from Spain in 1821). All along the park in between the two monuments were markets and so many people. It felt so alive. There were smaller monuments every few feet dedicated to leaders in the Revolution, every single one of them had the base of the statue covered in the same graffiti “Ni una más” and “Las queremos vivas” (not one more, we want them alive) protesting the wave of femicides and gender based violence that have been steadily increasing in recent years. Since 2019 in particular there have been massive protests about this. There were also huge monuments all down the road with large red numbers, each number represented the amount of people that had gone missing or been killed due to state sponsored violence, corruption, or violence towards immigrants. These things have all been problems in Mexico for a very long time, 10 years ago when I was living here these monuments were also here, but there were many more now. Despite the grim realities, it was heartening to see how loudly and clearly people are speaking up publicly and fighting back.

At the base of the Ángel de la Independencia, the whole statue had been covered in graffiti, the most prominent ones said “Palestina Libre” (Free Palestine) and “Chinga tu migra Trump” (fuck your ICE, Trump).

Yet another reason to love this city.

This morning I got on a bus and am currently traveling to Guanajuato, where I’ll be studying for the next few months and living with a family. I’ve been to Guanajuato before but it was a long time ago and only for a weekend trip, I’m excited to go back, it’s a very beautiful city. Definitely a lot smaller than Mexico City, but I am excited to get to know it better.

Until tomorrow,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Monday, July 22nd

Last post of this trip, I’m writing this from the plane.

The last two times I’ve been to Seoul I very nearly missed my flight home. Like, both times I ran onto the plane as the final boarding call was being announced and they had to call my name on the speakers. I thought I was prepared and would make it on time today, but no such luck.

I overslept and didn’t wake up until 8am. I got a cab to the train and then got on the train to the airport, as the airport is actually an hour away in the city of Incheon. I got to the airport at 10:15, final boarding at 10:40. My feet were still hurting so much I had a hard time walking, but I ran across the airport yet again to slide onto the plane last minute. I’m somehow leaving at 11am and arriving back home at 10am the same day.

It’s been a great trip and I feel very lucky to have spent this time here, Korea is definitely one of my all time favorite places.

Until next time,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Sunday, July 21st

Last full day of this trip.

I managed to actually very easily change my train tickets back to Seoul for this morning and booked a last minute hotel. The train journey was very quick and seamless.

I had wanted to go back to my original hotel in Seoul but it was all booked up, so I found one sort of nearby but didn’t realize until after I booked it that it was a capsule hotel, where you basically get an 8x4 wooden box with a little door on the end, the box sits on a shelf with 8 other boxes per room. The hotel itself was honestly one of the worst I’ve ever been to, not the worst, but definitely up there in the top 5. At least there was proper ventilation and air conditioning is all I can say. Bathroom was definitely very scary.

After putting my things in my weird little wooden box on a shelf I went out to _____ market to go try to find a suitcase. I have bought way too much stuff here, more than I’ve ever bought on any other trip before, so I got a whole separate suitcase.

Then I went over to Myeongdong and though I’d been to that neighborhood plenty of times I somehow didn’t realize there is a big shopping street there that I ended up on. I went there to go get my haircut.

I hate getting haircuts so I almost never get them and then my hair gets really long and damaged. Korea does beauty and hair salons like no one else, so I told the stylist to give me whatever style she thought was best. She told me she was going to cut it short and I said I was okay with that but was still shocked when without even looking she lopped off a good 5-6 inches of hair.

She did a fantastic job and it turned out really well. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy with a haircut.

After that I got some dinner. I love Korean Barbecue but they serve such huge portions it’s usually best to not go alone, a lot of barbecue restaurants here will actually turn you away if you’re eating alone. My first night here I found a place that served small portions, and I was able to get barbecue again with a girl I met on a group tour another day, but today I was all by myself and they served huge portions. I was surprised they didn’t turn me away, I was fully expecting them to. The staff were laughing after I ordered. I was very determined though and managed to eat it all.

The last thing I did was go up to Namsan Tower, it’s a huge tower on a hill on the outskirts of town that has the best view of Seoul. They had a little outdoor elevator / escalator that took you up to the bottom of the second hill, from there you take a cablecar up to the top. It was gorgeous. They light it up different colors depending on the air quality that day, red/orange/yellow for poor, green for average, blue for good, and purple if BTS is doing a concert 😂

I took the cablecar/elevator back down to the ground but even though it was only about 1km back to the metro and my hotel it took me nearly an hour and a half. I don’t know why but today my feet just started hurting so badly. It was also still really hot despite being nighttime so I might’ve been experiencing a bit of heat stroke as well. When I finally got back to my little drawer hotel my feet were literally bleeding from blisters.

Until tomorrow,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Saturday, July 20th

Today the weather is supposed to be nicer so I will listen to the subliminal messaging of the bridge last night and stay one more day, but decided I am going back to Seoul after today, it’s only a day early, but I want to end the trip on a high note and it will also make getting to the airport on Monday a little easier.

Today I rode the blue line train out to Cheongsapo again because I liked that little town. I walked around the coast for a while and had lunch, then I walked on a pedestrian path the 2.5km back to Busan from there. It was interesting to see the sky capsules from below, they’re so weird.

The clouds and rain came back while I was walking, but the wind from the ocean ended up making it really refreshing. I tried to get close to the water at one point but there was a scary amount of centipedes under the rocks so that was a no go.

I ended up all the way back at Gwangalli Beach. Every year they plant sunflowers in planter boxes in a big section of the beach, making it seem like a big sunflower field so that was kind of cool.

As I was walking around there a busker started playing a song I always remember my grandma liking. She passed away in November, and was the one who taught me how to travel, so it hit me hard out of nowhere. I stood in the water for a long time watching the waves.

I ended up sitting on the beach until well past sunset, they did a random drone light show which was cool and there was a spectacular full moon. On the way back I had a dinner of instant ramen outside of a convenience store while watching dramas on my phone, which I feel like while not exactly traditional, is a very Korean dinner experience.

I’m headed back to Seoul in the morning, I had a really nice day today actually. I think it takes a while to get used to a new city, and I think in another season I wouldn’t mind coming back to Busan.

Until tomorrow,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Friday, July 19th

I’m behind yet again on posting, I’m writing this from the plane headed home actually, but I’ll try and get caught up.

Today it was raining again, I spent the morning in a coffeeshop, and then I ended up back at the jjimjilbang. Except this time I went to a much bigger one at one of the gigantic malls here, called Centum City. Within the mall is Spaland, a gigantic jjimjilbang. If you want to know what that experience is like, Conan O’Brian did a very funny video about Korean Spas that sums it up pretty well.

The facilities were incredible. I paid $10 for a 4hr pass that came with a wristband, to buy things in addition to that while in the jjimjilbang you scan your bracelet. They had dozens of different baths and saunas and different kinds of relaxation rooms. They also had rooms where people just laid on giant pillows on the floor, rooms where tv shows were playing, video game rooms, and sleeping rooms. They also had a restaurant, coffeeshop, bingsu shop, and instant ramen cafe. I ended up spending like 6 hours there, it was really relaxing.

I don’t know why but weirdly there was an enormous group of Korean middle school students there that all seemed to know each other. I don’t know if it was like a school trip or they all just decided to hang out for the day, but it sure made it interesting. Despite there being a high social expectation of being quiet in public here, middle schoolers are gonna be middle schoolers no matter where you go 😂

In the afternoon the sun came out a bit and I went over to the modern art museum and the cinema center just to look at the buildings, because they are really interesting buildings. I guess they have a big international film festival or something here in Busan. I went into the modern art museum and was reminded why I try to stay away from modern art museums. They had an exhibit about AI that was actually really interesting and well done but was also absolutely terrifying.

In the evening I went to a different beach called Gwangalli Beach to watch the sunset. There is a huge bridge going across the bay here and every night they light it up and have fireworks, which was cool. The bridge was sending me subliminal messages to stay here, flashing the message “Busan is good” for a full 10 minutes.

I had dinner at a tiny little Korean restaurant where I was the only person there and two ahjummas sat and watched me the entire time I ate my bibimbap, which was strangely sweet.

Until tomorrow,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Thursday, July 18th

Quiet day today, been a bit overwhelmed by all the people. I know its not like this in all of Korea but at least in the touristy areas of the big cities it is really materialistic and superficial, shopping is a really big deal and that is kind of the main thing people do and everyone seems very caught up in all the shopping. If its not the shopping its the countless photo ops every 3 feet, everything has to be instagrammable all the time and honestly that sort of stuff is fun at first but it very quickly becomes so exhausting, especially when there are so many people and it is so hot. There’s also a much higher ratio here of tourists to locals than there was in Seoul, mainly tourists from China, the US, and Russia. Not to generalize entire groups of people because that is neither accurate nor fair, but tourists from these three countries tend to at least in my experience be a lot rowdier.

For Chinese tourists at least I know it’s not out of trying to be disrespectful. In Korea there is a high value on personal space and maintaining tranquility of environment, meaning people are generally speaking very quiet in public and keep to themselves; but culturally in China there isn’t really a concept of personal space, I remember that being really hard to get used to traveling in China last summer, it’s not personal and it’s not out of trying to be disrespectful, but it can be jarring to go very quickly from an environment that values personal space to one that doesn’t. It’s the same thing with noise level for US tourists especially, in general people just aren’t aware of how loud they’re being because culturally in the US being quiet in public isn’t something that is really taken into account or valued, but it is very jarring to be in a very quiet environment and suddenly have a group of very loud people come in. I don’t think it’s out of being disrespectful, and certainly not everyone acts that way, it’s just a cultural difference.

I don’t know where I was going with that, and I know I’m guilty of not being culturally aware as well, but it was a bit of a culture shock to go from the huge city of Seoul that despite being so huge never felt overwhelming or crowded or loud; to going to a smaller city with lots of tourists who don’t have always the same values of being quiet and maintaining personal space in public.

I spent most of the day in bed recovering from yesterday, I tried to go out in a different neighborhood that wasn’t the one I was staying in at Haeundae Beach because its so touristy there, but I just ended up wandering around lost in a business/ residential district called Choryang for a long time, I didn’t know what to do so I just took a cab to a nearby mall, not even one of the big malls here, but let’s face in malls in Asia don’t joke around. This tiny mall had 8 floors worth of so much going on.

I ended up going to the Shake Shack in the mall and watching TV on my phone to tune out the crowds.

It took me forever to get back from the mall to the beach where I’m staying, the crowds of people, music, neon lights, and suffocating heat even at night got very overwhelming. So I just walked all the way out to the ocean and laid in the sand for a while. After a while it started raining and it was actually so refreshing.

I’m considering leaving Busan early and going back to Seoul. I just haven’t been having a very good time here in Busan. No offense to Busan. The weather being simultaneously boiling hot and rainy/dark/ cloudy combined with the constant neon lights and loud music and tourists probably has a lot to do with it. I’m sure if the weather was nicer or I wasn’t in such a touristy area this city would be lovely.

This usually starts happening at the tail end of long trips, I start getting burnt out and easily overwhelmed. I think I need to just let it happen and rest. I’ll give Busan another chance to redeem itself tomorrow, but if not, I’ll head back to Seoul a little early.

Until tomorrow,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Wednesday, July 17th

As today was one of the few days with a decent weather forecast I signed up for a tour around Busan.

Busan is way more spread out than Seoul, so I’m glad I took a tour for this, otherwise it would have taken days to see all of this.

The first place we went to was a Buddhist temple called Haedong Yonggungsa along the coast. Korea is primarily Christian, pre-Joseon period Korea was mainly Buddhist but in the Joseon Dynasty in the late 1300s they changed the state religion to be Confucianism, and then Christian missionaries from France arrived in the late 19th century. This temple was first built pre Joseon Dynasty in the 1300s but, like most historic sites here, was destroyed during the Japanese Occupation and the Korean War and was later rebuilt after the war.

After visiting the temple we went to a small town named Cheonsapo about 2km outside of Busan. We saw the some pretty lighthouses and were able to watch some people diving. On Jeju Island there are women called haenyo, who for generations have practiced diving. They are able to hold their breath and free dive (without equipment) deeper than should actually be possible, no one really knows how they do it, but it is an art that has been practiced for generations by the women there. They mainly dive for abalone. During the Korean War this practice began dying out, and there are only a few haenyo left and most are in their 70s and 80s. A lot of people from Jeju immigrated to Busan during the Korean War, about 30% of the population in Cheongsapo comes from there, and there are a few haenyo who practice diving here as well.

We had a lunch of seafood and then got on board what is called the Sky Capsule, a teeny tiny train that can fit about 4 people inside and goes on an elevated track along the coast at about 5km per hour. It was very pretty. Underneath it runs the Blue Line Train, which was first constructed by the Japanese and is now a tourism train between all the tiny towns on the coast. You could actually see Japan from there, one of it’s islands is only 48km away, I didn’t realize how close it was.

Then we went and visited two villages referred to as “culture villages”, Huinnyeol and Gwancheon. Both of these villages were built by refugees from the Korean War looking for any place to establish themselves and were originally constructed from scraps and whatever people could find on land high in the hills outside the city; the houses are all very close together and unique looking, very similar to the moon villages in Seoul at Ilhwa-dong. Over time the land here accumulated in value and the residents are now mostly elderly and do not want to sell their land, but because many elders here were working in a time of turmoil there wasn’t the chance to save for retirement so they still need to generate income and the government hired artists to paint murals all around the villages to draw tourism, similar to the moon villages in Seoul, however what is different about the villages here is that the neighborhood seems like they have banded together to make something of a neighborhood watch committee to protect the residents from the impacts of overtourism. There were teams of residents in fluorescent vests patrolling the village to make sure that the tourists don’t leave trash or act rowdily and disrupt the residents. It also seemed like more of the businesses were locally owned, I thought this was really cool.

The first village was along the coast and was all white with colorful murals here and there, it seemed like something out of the Mediterranean, I had some mango bingsu (shaved ice with condensed milk) and walked around. Gamcheon village is more in the hills, and was definitely more touristy. They had a Little Prince theme to most of the art, with so many murals of that book with quotes everywhere. It was very pretty, but even with the neighborhood committee it was still extremely touristy and the crowds were a bit crazy.

In the evening I had dwaeji gukbap, pork soup, known as one of the signature dishes of Busan. For desert I had a local desert called Salt Bread, a really soft croissant filled with cream and topped with this special kind of salt they make here which I don’t know why but it tasted so good.

Until tomorrow,

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Tuesday, July 16th

Photo of my creepy hotel

It was really rainy today and I wasn’t feeling great, so the only thing I did today was go to the bathhouse; which turned out to be a whole experience in and of itself.

Bathhouses here are called jjimjilbang, and like many places around the world, originated because there wasn’t always consistent clean, hot water for baths in people’s homes. Nowadays they are more like a spa, there are bathing areas and several different soaking pools ranging from freezing cold to very very hot and you’re supposed to rotate between them to help you regulate your core temperature and help your immune system. There are also saunas. It was very relaxing once I got over the initial confusion, as I ended up going to one that mainly locals use (not the touristy one like I thought) so it was very confusing to figure out what to do at first.

[aventurasdeunatortuga]

Monday, July 15th

Today’s big feat was taking the train to Busan, Korea’s third largest city, located along the southern coast. My train there was late in the afternoon, so I was able to spend a leisurely morning.

My bags have multiplied from 2 bags to 5, so I think I may need a bigger suitcase at some point.

In the morning I took a cab to a themed cafe. There are so many cafes in Seoul (more than any other city in the world per capita) that in order to distinguish themselves a lot of cafes have themes. This one was themed off of one of my favorite movies, Kiki’s Delivery Service. It was a very cute cafe with drinks and pastries based off the movie. I had a weird encounter when I came in though, I was carrying an empty cup from a drink I had gotten earlier that morning. There was nothing in it, and given the social expectation that there are no public trashcans and you are supposed to carry your trash with you all day until you go home, I was just carrying it around. Normally I have a big bag I’m carrying around so I just put my trash in there but I had my small bag this morning because I had been packing. The server in the cafe said I wasn’t allowed to come in the cafe with outside food or drink, which is an understandable policy, but it was an empty cup.

We went back and forth with google translate for a while with me trying to explain that the cup was empty, asking if there was a trash can, asking if I could leave it outside, etc, she just kept saying no that is not allowed we have no trash cans and you cannot come in with it or leave it outside. So I left and wandered around the neighborhood for a while until I found a trashcan behind a building and threw it away there even though I definitely wasn’t supposed to.

It was a very strange encounter.

I got out of there and made it across town for my train, which was surprisingly seamless. 4 hours later I was in Busan.

It was very weird to arrive in a new city. Arriving to Seoul felt very familiar and comfortable, Busan so far has been disorienting. It is a much more spread out city, definitely not as walkable as Seoul. And the area I am staying in at Haeundae Beach is very touristy with lots of bars and music and neon lights and a huge market.

I walked around the market for a little while and got some 밀면 (ice noodles, served in a frozen broth).

Until tomorrow,