Becoming a local...

After two weeks here in Guanajuato, I have become fairly familiar with daily life here. It took me about this long to get my body acostomed to the daily schedule. My first week I would wake-up like I do at home....EARLY, and kill time until the rest of the world woke up here. In reality there is NO reason to be waking up early here, as there is NOTHING to do...so I have adopted the "local" schedule: wake-up at 8 AM, breakfast at 8:30, class 9-1, go for a run or head to the gym, lunch at 3, study/hangout, evening classes 7-8, dinner/snack, homework/study, go to bed 12-1 AM. Getting back on a "hospital" schedule is going to be a real reality shock!!!

This past wkend was uneventful, yet very busy. Friday I did my laundry. Like most things here, it was a production, and very different than at home. You have to take your laundry to the "lavanderia" or laundry mat. You are charged by the kg...which gets VERY expensive!!! Some of the other students in my school have had problems with their clothes being shrunk away to nothing (because the dryers are SO HOT), so I decided to ask for my clothes to be only washed. I then lugged them home and hung them up on the roof on the clothesline to dry. This actually worked pretty well!!!

On Saturday I went for an hour long run in the city and enjoyed the sunshine and warmer weather. It has been quite hot the last few days, and I've actually had to use some of the sunscreen I brought along...it's VERY easy to get burnt given the strength of the sun and the altitude here. I spent Saturday night with Carolina watching movies at our house...it was relaxing to have a lazy night and get some rest.

I spent most of the day Sunday exploring different parts of the city. I walked to the world-famous Mummy Museum (Museo de los Mumias). It was a very interesting and DIFFERENT museum. Below is a brief history:

"With almost 150 years of history, the Mummies of Guanajuato have become a part of our culture and traditions as a people settled on the slopes of a large ravine that has generously produced the riches of its innards since the age of Spanish viceroyalty.
In 1865 the first mummified body that lay in the Santa Paula Pantheon was extracted, and as the years go by, other bodies are discovered in the same condition due to the characteristics of the soil in which they rested. At present more than one hundred mummies make up the inventory of the museum created in their honor."

I also walked to most of the markets in town and bought fruit, candy (jelly beans of course), and some sunglasses. The markets are HUGE here and you can buy just about anything you could ever want for next to nothing. I also discovered this wkend that there are shoe stores EVERYWHERE, and shoes are less tha $8 USD. I am definately going to buy a few pairs before I leave!!!

Sunday evening I taught my host family how to make "American" cookies. Carolina and I took a long walk to one of only two supermarkets in town and actually found brown sugar and chocolate chips, the only ingredients the Alvarez's didn't already have at home. We made a double batch, which was probably more than 60 cookies. Everyone went NUTS for the cookies. Pepe, who is 14, ate at least a dozen when they were fresh and hot. When I woke up this morning, all but 4 cookies (that Gloria had hidden for Carolina and I) were GONE. The kids are already asking when I will make my next creation...maybe brownies next time:)