« My host family, the toilet, and other cultural issues... | Main | Some sights from Merida and Uxmal »
January 09, 2007
Uxmal & Classes...
I´m sitting in an internet cafe after a week and I think I´ve got the city pretty down pat by now... things have been going great and I´´ve been getting more accustomed to the climate, the food, etc.
Over the weekend, we went to Uxmal, the old Mayan city in the Yucatan. It was really interesting and a great experience although a little bit disappointing to be honest. Most of the sites in Uxmal are either reconstructions or restored and there was barely anything that was in its original form. We climbed the pyramids, saw the juego de pelota court and the palace... It was certainly an experience.
Also on Saturday, we saw an old henquen plant that was used in the up until 1900 for trade with Europe, the US and Cuba. It was really interesting... Our tour guide also told us that majority of the slaves were either Mayan or... Korean! I had no idea, but in truth, a lot of Koreans still exist in Merida today as descendents of the slaves...
On Sunday, we went to ¨Merida en Domingo¨, the Sunday flea market. It spread all throughout the center of town and was great... And, one of the ice cream places was celebrating its 100th birthday, so we went for some ice cream....
Yesterday, I started classes at the University with my Relaciones Internacionales class. It was great, especially because there are students from all over in the class--USA, Europe and Latinoamerica. I´m interested in hearing the perspective from students all around the world about international relations and the state of global economy today...
Getting to the university was another story, however... I had to take 4 buses to get there, because nobody in the entire town knew the route... It was a disaster and I never made it to my first class...
Today, I took Literature Latinoamericana which I have to take for Michigan and the class seemed okay. The class was full of students...There were also a lot of students in the class from Butler University and they all seem really nice... in the first few days of class, it´s important to understand whats expected of us, so we´re sort of banding together, just to make sure we´re not left behind...
Other than that, there is really not much more that I have to say... over the weekend, we´re going to Chicen Itza, the other Mayan site... I´ll let you know how it is...
Adios...more to come later
Posted by jlsumich at January 9, 2007 01:26 PM