Time to put a little update of my time here in Mexico during the recent month. I only have time to tell about the first week properly, I'll add some more stories about my life here in Mexico later on when my exams are over.
We went to celebrate el Servantino in Guanajuato during the first weekend.
Week 43 - 25-31.10.
The schoolweek consisted again of the normal stuff: Sports, school and spending good times with friends at the Campus and in the city. The famous mexican tradition - Dia de los Muertos "the Day of the Dead" - was approaching on the next monday.
Celebrating death in a positive manner
The tradition consists of getting together with your family and honouring the people of the family that have already passed out by celebrating in various manners. I found the event really impressive and different from our culture back in Europe, because instead of remembering the people close to you in a sad and serious manner, it was all about celebrating the soul of the dead people and the positive memories that they left behind. The tradition is the strongest in the cemetaries, which is practically transformed into a sea of flowers, where it's impossible to see any grave without decorations. I think Dia de los Muertos with all the effort really shows the importance of the family here in Mexico. I really liked the whole positive theme of the tradition would like that similar culture would also expand to Finland!
Typical graveyard image during the time of the day of the dead
The tradition involves also a bread that is only eaten during these weeks. It's name is Pan de Muertos "the bread of the dead" and it's like a sweet bread with a taste of orange. It's really delicious, especially when eaten by the traditional way with hot chocolate! I even checked the recipe of it, you can find it here.
TEC had an event for it already on Thursday and it included built-up graves of famous Mexican people, dance performances, food stalls from every state of Mexico with typical foods from that state, and of course Pan de Muerto con Chokomilk!
Built-up grave at TEC
Some people were really making an effort!
Then came the weekend..
We (me, paulina, saana, geert, viri, palina) we're planning to go visit the really famous party in Guanajuato for the weekend and continue to visit Morelia, a city in the state of Michoagan, which is the most famous city in Mexico during Dia de los Muertos. Eventually we didn't make it to Morelia, but more of that in the next chapters..
The trip to Guanajuato was about 300 km, which we decided to drive with two cars, another one being my beautiful bocho. We finally got to leave the city at about 6pm instead of the scheduled 4pm, so lot's of driving in the dark included, yeye! It all went good until the last quarter of the trip, where my car suddenly started to slow speed even though i was pressing the gas pedal all the way down to the bottom, as normal.. So the car stopped in the side of a 110 km/h freeway, which actually resembled the German Autobahn and people basically drove as fast as they dared. It was night and we were standing in the side of the dark road watching a bit scared when 20 meters long trucks were passing us with a speed of 130 km/h.
Of course there weren't any gas station in sight for the next 10-15 kilometerers. Luckily we had the other car with us with Viri's parents on the road with us, which stopped and after some time REVERSED to our car to see what's the problem. At first we thought it was the oil, but the car was in a downhill and the oil level was eventually fine. Then we thought that the battery went out (which seems a bit awkard when driving in a freeway..) and we tried to ignite the motor with the help of cables. Well.. this episode ended in a way that the OTHER car also lost its battery so instead of just one broken car, we had two cars standing in the middle of nowhere at 23 pm.
We had called for some help at around 9pm and got a bit frustrated after waiting for three hours in the cold night.. Well eventually at 12.30 am some car came and after some serious pushing, wondering and cableworks we decided to tow my car to the next gas station which was 15 kilometers away. The clock at that time was about 2.30 am. We finally arrived to Viri's parents house at around 3.30 am and it was time for a good night sleep (which in my case meant under 5 hours).
I spent the next day reparing my car with Viri's dad who was a reaaally great help during the whole episode and I owe him a lot. We got the car fixed in a local mechanic place and the problem seemed to be the accumulator, which, according to my superb car knowledge, transfers the electric energy to mechanic energy and makes the motor to run.. The others spent the day in Irapuato, a city close by Guanajuato where the house that we were sleeping the first night was.
The second night we finally wnet to Guanajuato to see the Servantino. And oh boy, how cool it was. The streets were literally packed already from the afternoon and it got even more impressive in the night with numerous different fiestas and just a really good atmosphere. We slept in Karla's (a friend of Viri) place, whose family were really generous in permitting us to sleep in their house.
The next day consisted of walking in the narrow alleys of Guanajuato and visiting different tourist places. Here's a few pic of the city:
Celebrating death in a positive mannerThe tradition consists of getting together with your family and honouring the people of the family that have already passed out by celebrating in various manners. I found the event really impressive and different from our culture back in Europe, because instead of remembering the people close to you in a sad and serious manner, it was all about celebrating the soul of the dead people and the positive memories that they left behind. The tradition is the strongest in the cemetaries, which is practically transformed into a sea of flowers, where it's impossible to see any grave without decorations. I think Dia de los Muertos with all the effort really shows the importance of the family here in Mexico. I really liked the whole positive theme of the tradition would like that similar culture would also expand to Finland!
Typical graveyard image during the time of the day of the deadThe tradition involves also a bread that is only eaten during these weeks. It's name is Pan de Muertos "the bread of the dead" and it's like a sweet bread with a taste of orange. It's really delicious, especially when eaten by the traditional way with hot chocolate! I even checked the recipe of it, you can find it here.
TEC had an event for it already on Thursday and it included built-up graves of famous Mexican people, dance performances, food stalls from every state of Mexico with typical foods from that state, and of course Pan de Muerto con Chokomilk!
Built-up grave at TEC
Some people were really making an effort!Then came the weekend..
We (me, paulina, saana, geert, viri, palina) we're planning to go visit the really famous party in Guanajuato for the weekend and continue to visit Morelia, a city in the state of Michoagan, which is the most famous city in Mexico during Dia de los Muertos. Eventually we didn't make it to Morelia, but more of that in the next chapters..
The trip to Guanajuato was about 300 km, which we decided to drive with two cars, another one being my beautiful bocho. We finally got to leave the city at about 6pm instead of the scheduled 4pm, so lot's of driving in the dark included, yeye! It all went good until the last quarter of the trip, where my car suddenly started to slow speed even though i was pressing the gas pedal all the way down to the bottom, as normal.. So the car stopped in the side of a 110 km/h freeway, which actually resembled the German Autobahn and people basically drove as fast as they dared. It was night and we were standing in the side of the dark road watching a bit scared when 20 meters long trucks were passing us with a speed of 130 km/h.
Of course there weren't any gas station in sight for the next 10-15 kilometerers. Luckily we had the other car with us with Viri's parents on the road with us, which stopped and after some time REVERSED to our car to see what's the problem. At first we thought it was the oil, but the car was in a downhill and the oil level was eventually fine. Then we thought that the battery went out (which seems a bit awkard when driving in a freeway..) and we tried to ignite the motor with the help of cables. Well.. this episode ended in a way that the OTHER car also lost its battery so instead of just one broken car, we had two cars standing in the middle of nowhere at 23 pm.
We had called for some help at around 9pm and got a bit frustrated after waiting for three hours in the cold night.. Well eventually at 12.30 am some car came and after some serious pushing, wondering and cableworks we decided to tow my car to the next gas station which was 15 kilometers away. The clock at that time was about 2.30 am. We finally arrived to Viri's parents house at around 3.30 am and it was time for a good night sleep (which in my case meant under 5 hours).
I spent the next day reparing my car with Viri's dad who was a reaaally great help during the whole episode and I owe him a lot. We got the car fixed in a local mechanic place and the problem seemed to be the accumulator, which, according to my superb car knowledge, transfers the electric energy to mechanic energy and makes the motor to run.. The others spent the day in Irapuato, a city close by Guanajuato where the house that we were sleeping the first night was.
The second night we finally wnet to Guanajuato to see the Servantino. And oh boy, how cool it was. The streets were literally packed already from the afternoon and it got even more impressive in the night with numerous different fiestas and just a really good atmosphere. We slept in Karla's (a friend of Viri) place, whose family were really generous in permitting us to sleep in their house.
The next day consisted of walking in the narrow alleys of Guanajuato and visiting different tourist places. Here's a few pic of the city:
Guanajuato during the day
Memories from the revolution. The revolutionarists' heads were put in sticks to show that don't mess up with the (Spanish) government!
Valley of the kiss. Famous street where a girl and a boy where in love but could only meet on the balcony. The story ended to the death of the boy from the angry father
Another street pic from Gto
Guanajuato at sunsetAfter the great day in Guanajuato we decided ultimately to head back already to Guadalajara, because we didn't quite trust my car at that moment and wanted to drive with the other car close to us.. Well that ended up to be a good idea. Everything went really good until the first gas stop and we had a great time playing the radio max volume (could hardly still hear it from the noise) and using the extra lights for the first time. The joy continued 20-30 minutes more, up to the point that I noticed that my wallet was missing from my pocket.. We stopped the cars and tried to find it, but without results. I used the wallet to pay for the gas in the gas station, so after some delays we headed back there just to realize that the guys that were working at that time were already at home and no wallet in sight. Besides that, I forgot the radio and lights on for 10 minutes when we stopped the car, resulting in an empty battery. Here we go again..
It's pretty hard to describe my feelings again at 01 am in the night with a broken battery and a lost wallet, but I've had a few better moments here in Mexico I have to admit.. Well, eventually we reserved a Motel nearby the gas station just to wait for the workers to come to work again, hopefully carrying my wallet with them. After a good night sleep with two girls in one bed, we woke up at 6am and drove to the gas station (after a successful ignition, wuhuu!) and one guy had actually brought the wallet with him! YEEHAAAA, I knew this was my week! After that episode everything went good and we drove back to Guadalajara and even saw another city which was named San Juan de dos Lagos. The only setback was my precious car that started to keep a funny noise in the end of the trip. Mechanic time!
Note to yourself: Don't drive the car out of the city. Sell the car?
Bumb. That was the first week since my last update. I'll just put a brief text of the next weeks and add some more stories hopefully really soon!!
The next two weeks consisted again of some projects, hanging out at pool, doing sports and going out with friends. On the weekend of 12.-15.11 we headed to Sayulita to finally do some serious surfing action and actually had a really pleasant, although a really tiresome time there! After that weekend was again back to normal routine in Guadalajara, which has lasted up to this day. Today I'm heading to Veracruz with my capoeira group to a convention. I'm really looking forward to the trip, there is going to be many teachers from Brazil and it will last for the whole weekend. I will come back on Tuesday the 30th of November midnight, really prepared for my Spanish final that will be the next day at 08.30 in the morning. It's only school!
¡Hasta luego!
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