Dia del Muertos

This is deserving of it's own post. Honestly one of the most awesome things I've experienced so far this year. Before actually witnessing this holiday firsthand, I'd briefly heard of it and just assumed it was a Mexican version of Halloween. As in, get dressed up in scary costumes, and go bumming candy off your friendly neighbours in nearby communities. I couldn't have been more wrong! 'Day of the Dead' is a huge Mexican holiday that honours the dead. Family and friends get together and remember their  family, by celebrating at their graves on the day of (November 1 to  2)  and by building altars. Some families camp out at the graves, while others come and visit for a few hours, bringing food and drink, even a mariachi band! These altars are specialized for the honoured person by including their favourite food, clothes and interests, along with photos. There are always a few staple items that are present on each altar, such as special Dia del Muertos bread,  cempazuchil (marigolds), and sugar skulls.  In schools, they've turned it into a competition where each class builds an altar, which is then judged. I got to experience two different school's altar building competitions, and as a result got to see an amazing diversity of altars. They're beautiful, and I think it's a fantastic way to not only remember your loved ones but celebrate their qualities and interests as well. The altars seemed to take over 5 hours to build, and the end results were extraordinary. Hopefully the photos can give you an idea!

This altar was dedicated to someone's little brother, who died at age 4. It was a really amazing altar,  but it goes without saying how tragic it was seeing the dates on the ground (2006-2010)

I watched this class build the entrance- it took hours.
 It's composed of marigolds and another type of flower woven around a wire frame- looks fabulous! 

One of the altars built at school. Check out the elaborate sand/salt formation.
It looked even better at night illuminated with candles

The celebrations started on the Thursday and went until Saturday. On Thursday, I ended up being the katrina (skeleton doll) for the altar of my class during my school's presentation night. It's a bit of a funny story how this happened- a total misunderstanding on my part. Exchange students are not known for their attentiveness in class, and I'm no exception. Lets go back about a week. On this particular day,  I might have been studying the recuperative benefits of resting (that is, full out sleeping in my desk). Suddenly, I woke up to half my class chanting my name while the class president stood up in the front taking a vote for something. Someone briefly explained to me what I was being so enthusiastically nominated for. I understood that there was this altar building competition for Dia del Muertos, and they wanted me to paint a doll's face and dress her her up so they could put her on their altar. I didn't fully understand why they would put a doll on an altar (or even really what building an altar entailed), but putting the exchanger motto "Just Say Yes" to good use, I shrugged and agreed. In case they were expecting me to be some sort of Picasso, I tacked on that they shouldn't expect any artistic demonstration- I didn't have any special skills of that sort. I got some weird looks at that (which I understand now because my comment didn't make much sense. You don't need any skills to stand in place.) However, I'm used to getting weird looks when I speak by now, so I thought nothing of it. I fell back asleep and completely forgot about it. Now returning to Thursday, during the day. The class was finalizing who would bring what for the altar (clothes, food, flowers, etc.). Then they asked me if I had my clothes ready for the night. Or what I was thinking of wearing. I was all 'Ummm, of course I don't have clothes for a doll, I've an extremely limited wardrobe, being an exchange student and all'.  Then they asked me if I had any paint for my face. I started getting extremely confused, realizing that perhaps I hadn't quite understood my job requirements. Fast forward a few very confused minutes, and finally I realized there would be no decorating dolls to put on altars. I was the doll.  I still didn't really know what this job included, but my classmates assured me all I had to do was stand still while they were presenting the altar. However, I would be dressed in scary black clothes, with my face painted like a skeleton's. I didn't want to look like a total idiot and considered backing out, but I'm so glad I didn't. It was AWESOME.

My lovely mum and I with the altar in the background. Bit of a height difference, eh?

I borrowed black clothes and heels from various classmates, and my awesome mum tracked down this veiled monstrosity of a hat from a friend. I arrived at school later that night and some lovely girls did a great job painting my face. I then got to go experience being a celebrity for a different reason than the usual foreign kid excuse. People really enjoyed getting pictures with a towering 'blonde' skeleton- bit of a change from the usual dolls I suppose! I just stood and stared at the camera- the face paint did a good job with the menacing part. (I actually smiled for a few pictures at first before realizing it changed my look from scary to absolutely demonic. I made a child start bawling when her parents wanted to get a picture with me.) There were other students dressed up as dolls for the other altars, in equally awesome costumes. It was such a fun night! It ended with me getting to sample various types of the special Day of the Dead bread and drinking atole, which was delicious. Just another great example of how saying yes to something (even without knowing the full details) permits you to experience a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity on your year abroad! Luckily, I have a lot of photo proof because my mum proudly took hundreds of photos of me and the altars.

MMMM pan de muertos....me gusta mucho. Que rico!
(Is what I said basically the entire drive home as I devoured various types)

The next day, all the exchange students had a Rotex activity at another preparatoria school. This time, I got to participate in the actual altar building. While ours definitely wasn't the most artistic or creative, considering it was a bunch of foreigners directed by only a few Rotex who actually knew what they were doing, we did very well! We started off by piling crates into a pyramidal shape, and then covering this formation in sheets. Sounds easy, but it was very finicky getting the shape just right. Then we put the food, skulls, photos and Rotary objects on the levels. We were honouring the first Mexican Rotary International president Dr. Carlos Canseco. Other than taking a brief lunch break, we were hard at work under the blistering sun the entire day. It was a very satisfying, busy day. Before we presented our altar, we took a tour through the nearby panteon (graveyard) with our Spanish teacher checking out all the ancient graves (some had been there since 1810, amazing!).  Upon returning, each of us explained a bit about our altar (hopefully our audience understood our strong accents in Spanish). Then we took a tour through the other altars. Especially because it was now dark and the completed altars were lit up with candles, the overall effect was really amazing!

(PS the photo cred for the photos with Rotex Tepic on them goes to Roberto, one of the Rotex. They were so beautiful I figured they did a better job showing the process than mine did)

The look of supreme concentration. 

A messy work site- true sign of hard work

Setting up the awesome tissue paper cutout pictures (another apparent staple material in building altars)

Andrea (Rotex) and then some happy exchangers

Outside the graveyard

In front of an ancient tomb

Ome massive family tomb from the early 1800's!

Mariana and Wendy, half of Tepic's Brazilian dream team

All of us with the school's principal

Touring around the other altars

My turn to get a picture with the scary skeleton doll!

Completed altar. It may not have been the most detailed,
but in my opinion it had some excellent personality,!

The team! (Plus a couple frightening katrinas we stole from the altar next to us) 

On Saturday my family and I went to Guadalajara, where we arrived in the early afternoon and went straight to the graveyard where my host mum's mother is buried. My mum's father and sister were already there. We set up a picnic, and left some of the food on the gravestone besides a bouquet of marigolds.  I took a tour around the huge graveyard (it took over an hour), and viewed the various gravestones. Like I mentioned earlier, some of the families had set up a lively party with a feast and a mariachi band, where others had decorated the grave with flowers or a mini altar and were quietly sharing some private time with their loved ones. It was kind of like viewing an enormous picnic, which I suppose it was, with the added element of including the dead as participants! I will definitely never forget these celebrations, they are just one more element to the rich and unique Mexican culture. Who would think that remembering the dead could be a lively event?

Creeper shot of this beautiful arrangement of flowers. This lady was onto me, and gave me a pretty weirded out look

A Mariachi band serenading a not so lively audience member

Your average Saturday afternoon picnic... with a twist!

Thanks for reading!

Wendy

Welcome Back to the Land of Blogging

First off, hello all- long time no see! I have been too busy having adventures (or too busy being a lazy bum recovering from these adventures) to update, and now as a result I have over a month's worth of things to talk about! Oh dear. It's going to be a few extreme posts, apologies in advance. This one I'm going to focus on various random experiences I've had in the past months with brief explanations! If you don't want to read my rambling comments, just check out the pictures. It's a bit sad that a large amount are food photos, or photos during a meal. I swear I do actually do more than just eat! Well, here goes the massive hodgepodge of stories :)

At the start of November, we went to school on Sunday. I was a little peeved at first over the loss of my weekend, but it was a really good time! All of Colegio Cristobal Colon was at this event, from the tiny elementary kids to all of the kids in high school. The event kicked off with the elementary kids randomly going into the center of the gym and all releasing a balloon into the sky, which looked really cool. I don't really know why they did this, and the hippy in me was thinking OH MY GOODNESS this is terrible for the environment! However, it was an interesting sight, I suppose. Then, each grade in Preparatoria presented a skit. Three obras (skits) with a simple storyline, each about half an hour long. Most of the kids in each grade were present in some part of the play, they were huge productions! I didn't get most of the spoofs of Mexican pop culture, but each play had a basic story line the kids had come up with, which was then interspersed with some awesome choreographed dances. No joke, at one point in the senior's obra almost the entire graduating class was doing a lively ballroom dance while some rocked out to plastic guitars! I never could have imagined this taking place anywhere but High School Musical- it was fantastic! Afterwards, there were team-building activities with each class. This included running around with a soaking sponge, racing each other in wheelbarrows... and much more! It was a really fun day, great way to know my classmates better.

We've done some cool things in school lately, like practicing suture stitches on tires in Health Science. And also, this awesome lab! I don't remember the chemicals used, but it started off as a simple titration lab, ending up with 7 glasses of clear liquid. 8 minutes later, the clear liquid in all of the glasses turned this nasty swamp-green shade. Then, we added different indicator chemicals to each glass, turning each sample a beautiful colour. As a lab group of 6 girls, we all gave the classic 'Oooooh pretty!' type reaction.

Huzzah for lab selfies, looking all adorable in our lab coats

Fantastic colours :)

My host brother Eliu's birthday party. Due to bis obsession with Minions from Despicable Me, there was a pretty prominent theme to the party (even with the piñata)!

The Girls Night that segued into a 24-hour adventure session:

Sara, Mariana, Caro and I decided we needed a girl's night in, and so after much anticipation it finally happened! It basically turned into a movie night combined with "let's make as many wonderful, delicious treats as possible". Certainly wasn't super beneficial for keeping off the exchange 15 (or exchange 50, who knows). However, sometimes you've just got to have one of those nights. Our menu consisted of oreo yogurt cheesecake popsicles, Mars bars Rice Krispie squares, and a grotesquely artistic soft pretzel octopus. I pulled out some of the recipes I'd been wanting to try for a long time- good choice on my part! Everything was delicious, and a pleasure to pig out on as we watched scary movies.

How artistic!

Bother. the transference onto the baking pan caused a bit of deformation...still just as delicious!

The following morning we made chocolate coconut pancakes (also awesome for watching the figure, right?).  And then, deciding we were enjoying each other's company just too darn much, we decided to prolong our girl's night and go to a pool in a community outside of Tepic. All of the houses in this community were still being constructed or uninhabited, so we had literally the entire community to ourselves. It was very peaceful!

A few hours later, we were feeling a bit peckish (obviously having worked off the pancakes by that time with our strenuous  sunbathing), so we went for sushi! Side note- I've eaten more sushi in the past four months than I have in the past 4 years! Benefit of having easy access to seafood I suppose! It's amazing, because I LOVE seafood in all shapes and forms and I don't get to have it that much in landlocked Alberta due to the lack of selection and cost. And let's face it, seafood that's been in the freezer and through at least 13 hours of travel time can't hold a candle to fresh, catch-of-the-day seafood. YUMM. I can already tell how much I'm going to miss eating the marine life here.

Then, to reward ourselves for making it through the tiring day we went and got ice cream. I liked their serving style- they stuck a wafer cookie on the side, filled up the cup with ice cream using the cookie as support, and then they gave us a choice of two toppings. It was a splendid, decadent end to a splendid and decadent day. Best (and longest) 'girl's night' I've had in a long time!

Exchange students hanging out at Tepic's biggest park- La Loma

Ceviche de camaron! Essentially shrimp salad with onions, tomatoes and avocados in a spicy sauce.  I forgot to request cooked shrimp and so got to try out raw shrimp- interesting! Needless to say, it was scrumptious

Went out for lunch with some girls in my school- these two ordered this awesome seafood/cheese dish in a pineapple, and I went all touristy and had to take a picture of it!

Yet another fantastic meal with my wonderful family!

MMMMM delicious pescado a la parilla (and then the orange meat below is marlin (which is also delicious in tacos)

I've discovered my favourite Mexican version of a Slushie. It;s called a raspado. A ton of crushed ice gets scooped into a cup, and then the sauce of your choosing (I'm a fan of strawberry pecan, personally) gets generously poured over! As it melts it turns into a giant delicious refreshing soup. Also, it looks really cool. They have all these exotic fruit flavours like guayaba that I'm dying to try out. Caro and I discovered this place on our way back from running of Cerro de la Cruz, and decided after all that hard work we needed a refreshment. Wise choice indeed. I aim to make my way through all the flavours throughout this year.

I went to go see No Se Aceptan los Devoluciones (a fantastic movie, by the way) with some friends. It was a great movie and I understood all of it! Although it's a Mexican movie it was made for American film festivals (and most of it is situated in America), so the Spanish was really clear and easy to understand. Either that or I'm suddenly awesome at Spanish comprehension. (Unfortunately I think it's the former.)

Stopped in at the pet store and Mariana was melting over an adorable ball of fur in one of the kennels (Okay, I was too)

The luxurious salon Platino (Comfy armchairs, blanket service, better quality popcorn). It's a tough life

I went to a birthday lunch for one of the girls in my class. We went to a Japanese cuisine and sushi bar, and all had this yummy rice bowl called Kulichi, with chicken, shrimp and avocado mixed in. It was then followed by Snickers cake. My goodness. I was ridiculously full afterwards.  Even better, on the way home about six of us had to squeeze into this tiny backseat, and I have to tell you, it's not super comfy having someone sitting on your stomach after a meal like that! 

I was walking to a friend's one morning and I saw this view walking through my  community. It was so gorgeous I just had to talk a picture. 

Roadside tacos. Refueling on the way to Guadalajara. Need I say it, Del-to the -icious

Massive graveyard in Guadalajara, temporarily converted to a gigantic picnic spot for Dia del Muertos (more info in the next post)

Authentic Mexican brunch in Guadalajara with the family. A good time filled with yummy enchiladas and spicy eggs accompanied by the best atole I've ever drank! Like vanilla pudding in a cup :)

A delicious taco stand situated directly outside of the house of Hector's sister. We visited with her family for a few hours and by the time we left the house this stand had popped up. Naturally, we had to sample the goods. I, for one,  was impressed.

I haven't really taken any photos to explain how different the school is here- it's all outside with the exception of the classrooms and library! It's really beautiful. It was raining the day I took these, but just imagine a bluebird day and that's basically what my days at school normally look like! 

Caro and I were feeling the need for some good old traditional comfort food, so we went to her house and made cheese & mac ( I say it in this order because there was significantly more cheese than macaroni noodles, oops). We then were feeling adventurous and decided to try our hand at making caramel apples in the spirit of autumn (despite it being nonexistent here).  I have to say, we did an AWESOME job. Not only were they delicious, but they looked professionally done. Not bad for  two rookies! Then we didn't know what to do with 12 enormous carmel apples, so we handed them out amongst eager friends after sampling a few. 

The pictures don't  do the apples justice. They were gorgeous. 

More sushi! Not even sure what was in this, but it was good!

On one of our Friday adventures with Spanish class, we went to the ruins of an old textile mill from the early nineteenth century called Bellavista. Outside it was gorgeous, and inside it was creepy, musty and dark. I can't imagine working there! Really cool to see part of Tepic's history. 

A few of us climbed up these sketchy decaying stairs to the  bell tower. Awesome view, although I was terrified that the whole thing was going to suddenly collapse beneath us!

The tour guide explaining the photos taken of the textile mill in action, using Johannes as an unwilling prop 

Cool story about why it's awesome being noticeably foreign: A couple weeks ago, Sara and I went to the movies. Afterwards as we were waiting for a cab we got approached by a teacher from the english department of the university, who had noticed we were speaking english (and were obviously foreign). She was so excited to meet native english speakers (Sara, obviously is not but her english is flawless so might as well be). She invited us to help her out in her class' conversation session. This took place at a cafe, and we had some interesting conversations, prompting the students to practice their english. (All of whom were adults so it felt a bit odd correcting them.) It was really cool, and it inspired me to go look out a volunteering position with english classes- it might even help me out with improving my spanish!

Yummy cappuccino with Baileys :)

Cerro de la cruz followed by Raspados, take 2. I think this might turn into a tradition!

I'd heard a lot about this Italian pizza place Mi Lolos, so Sara, Caro, Mariana and I went after school one day to test it out. The pizza, while eating away a good chunk of my monthly allowance, was worth it- cheesy, spicy goodness! And I was so excited about the restaurant! I flipped the tourist switch and took way too many pictures of the food and the restaurant. The restaurant was like an outdoors garden covered with a tarp. The tables were placed around the trees already growing there, and then the trees were used  as pillars to hang up decorations.  Various old appliances had been converted into artsy things- like an old washing machine into a fountain, for example! 

Afterwards, we were driving along when suddenly we saw a sign along the road saying Dogs for Adoption. Caro (who'd lost her baby pug a month ago) was in the market for a new dog, so we stopped to check it out. We picked out this adorable puppy, Caro paid the man about $16, and then was the proud owner of a new puppy! (This would never happen in Canada, gotta love Mexico). We named him Luka and then took turns cooing over him.

Aww, what a sweetie

A couple weeks ago, I decided that I needed to go explore the city. Except for planned group activities, I've done a pretty poor job of exploring the random parts of Tepic. So without any plans except to eventually end up in the Center, I hopped on a bus (my very first time alone!) and set off. I spent a bit of time in a cute little cafe sipping coffee and trying to read Le petit prince in Spanish. Then I ended up in a sketchy area, quickly backtracked, and ended up in an awesome little market! In the town's main square there were stalls selling all this delicious Mexican food and spices, along with homemade crafts and artisanal items. This one alley was filled with stalls of Huichol beadwork. I spent no joke THREE hours poring over the selections trying to figure out what to get for my friends and family back home in Canada for Christmas. I am so terrible at making decisions! I haggled, compared prices, and examined multiple pieces of jewellery before finally leaving the alley very satisfied and considerably poorer than before. It was an awesome day and I'm kind of proud that I taught myself how to take public transit and didn't get robbed or anything. Here, you just stand on the side of the road and stick your arm out when you want to get on a passing bus. You tell the driver where to stop (each bus has a basic route they follow), pay your 3 pesos, and Voila! Definitely plan to go on as many random explorations as I can- you always have the most fun when things are spontaneous!

Well, if you've made it this far, thanks so much for reading! I definitely need to post more regularly to avoid excessively long posts such as this. There's still a lot that I've been up to - joining a soccer team, salsa classes at the university, for example- but now you have a few highlights! I guess writing this I'm now understanding why my pants are much tighter than when I arrived. It appears I do nothing but try Mexican cuisine. Or do something cool and then eat in celebration. Oh dear.... exchange student problems!

Saludos y abrazos

Wendy