On Valentine's day, we went to Guanajuato with Joanne and Silvia (other students in our program). We got up absurdly early on Saturday to meet up at 5:30 and catch a taxi. When we walked into the dining room, Silvia (host mom) had left us bowls, cereal, and bananas all laid out very sweetly to make sure we ate before leaving! We're kind of spoiled here...
We walked towards the center to meet our travel partners, caught a taxi, and headed off to the bus station where we purchased tickets with ETN, the fancy-schmanzy bus that has headphones (so that you don't HAVE to listen to the movie), huge comfortable seats, and onboard WiFi.... Though I'm pretty sure we all just slept the whole way there.
Upon arriving in lovely Guanajuato around 10:30, we wandered around in search of breakfast and lodging before exploring the alleys, plazas, and general beauty of Guanajuato. The self-titled "Capital of the Kiss" was a great place to be on Valentine's Day, although apparently (and quite ironically) the government of the city is seeking to outlaw PDA (specifically, kissing in the street)... but that law is still in progress, so no jail for the couples on "el día del amor y amistad".
We went to the Callejón del Beso (Alley of the Kiss), where the alley is so narrow that people on the second floor balconies on either side are close enough to kiss. According to local legend, this is where the young lovers Ana (some stories say her name was Carmen) and Carlos met. Ana was the daughter of a Spaniard, and Carlos was a local, relatively poor miner. Ana lived in the house on one side of the alley and, to be with her, Carlos moved into the house on the other side. At night they would meet each other on their balconies and talk all night. One night, Ana's father (who intended for her to marry a wealthy friend in Spain) caught them and warned them never to see each other again, as he would not accept their relationship. Ignoring his warning, the two continued to see each other secretly from their balconies until Ana's father caught them and, furious, stabbed Ana in the heart with a dagger. Carlos, helpless to do anything, kissed Ana's hand as she died.
In memory and recognition of the tragedy, the Callejón del Beso is a place frequented by partners. According to local superstition, if you go there with your partner and kiss on the steps, you will have good luck in love and happiness for 7 years (at which point I suppose you have to go back to renew). If you go with a partner and don't kiss on the stairs, you will have bad luck for 7 years. If you go without a partner, you aren't affected either way. ...We got in line with all the rest :-)
Afterwards, we all went to a lovely French restaurant near the University. They had a set menu of cream of mushroom soup or salad, pasta with salmon, and chocolate fondant or fruit and ice cream. When we walked in and admitted that no, we didn't have reservations, they explained that all the tables were reserved, but we could have the VIP room instead for no extra charge. Um... okay! The room was beautiful, with photos on the wall from various places in Paris, and 3 mini-tables with individual table settings perfectly decorated with little candy hearts for the occasion. It was lovely, the food was delicious, the wine was great, and we had it all to ourselves for evening. Nice!
When we finished dinner, we wandered towards the hotel and stumbled upon a live salsa (and bachata and cha cha) band playing in the plaza. We watched couples dancing (at first a few die-hard dancers, then more joined in) and danced for a few songs, and finally called it a night. The next day we woke up mid-morning to head off to San Miguel de Allende.
Although the architecture was beautiful, San Miguel de Allende has far more foreigners living there than it does Mexicans, and we were rather overwhelmed by it. After lunch, Silvia and Joanne headed off to shop and we took a few photos (see below), ate some ice cream, and hid in an internet cafe until it was time to meet up and head home.
In our defense, (1) we DID take photos first, (2) it was really hot to be outside, (3) seriously, tons of Americans and Canadians, and (4) I had to study my Italian.
...Speaking of which, Jay wants me to share my online-language-addiction with you, and I've already organized it all nicely for a couple e-mails, so here you are. All sites are free or at least the services that I'm commenting on are free.
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Courses
http://www.livemocha.com/ : Lessons structured for multiple languages, with text and audio submissions evaluated by native speakers. Language exchange available. progress tracked ... *best feedback for focused writing and speaking, structured lesson plans*, offers courses in Icelandic, Russian, Hindi, Mandarin, Japanese, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian.
http://lang-8.com/ : Write a blog or online journal or note in a language you want to practice, native speakers correct your mistakes. (French, Russian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Japanese, Chinese) *best opportunity for free feedback of creative writing*
http://lingq.com : Lessons based off of conversations, songs, and articles of varying levels. Includes native speaker's reading (downloadable), and words highlighted as unknown are translated and saved as flashcards (they are automatically removed if you correctly identify them twice in a row). Time with a tutor is available for points (money or contribution). Better after you have a bit of exposure to the language (at least beginning words). GREAT for advanced work on vocab and accent. Allows you to download mp3s of article/story/song/conversation for free. *best resource for reading/audio materials for new vocab and on-the-go audio practice*
http://www.mangolanguages.com/ : (French, Spanish, Dutch, Braz. Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, Greek, German, Italian). VERY similar to Pimsleur, with repetition and explanation, plus written form of what you're learning, at your pace.Slideshow format, with audio and textual explanations, breaking down phrases, and other tools to build vocabulary naturally. Downloadable to mp3 format. *best grammar explanations, best on-the-go lessons*
http://en.babbel.com (only spanish,, german, french, italian) uses word, image and sound, memory devices leading up to writing entries that are then uploaded for correction/feedback. Collects vocabulary that you're working on in one section (takes a couple minutesto refresh?), language exchange. You can pick your lesson by theme, no cronological order. Many possible images for each word (you can force it to show you another one). built in dictionary and special characters at top of page. Emphasis on vocabulary. *best vocab builder*
Dictionaries
http://www.wordreference.com/ : Multilingual dictionary
Vocab builders
http://www.internetpolyglot.com/mainMenu.html?locale=en : (English, Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Portuguese, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, Hindi, Polish, Swedish, Romanian, Turkish, Czech, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Amharic, Norwegian, Estonian, Bulgarian) Learn with written word, image, and sound clips. Has games and memory tests, and an ability to manage your own lessons. vocabulary builder
http://www.ingolingo.com/ : (German, Dutch, Spanish, French, Chinese, ) goal is to learn 3000 words per month. Images and text and repetition, but no audio, may be slow or may be just this computer... vocabulary builder
Language exchange, user-designed courses
http://www.italki.com : Has wiki-style lessons in all languages (text explanations), language exchange, Q&A...
http://www.palabea.net/ : videolectures (stories, movies, lectures), language exchange, online study resources
http://www.wordchamp.com/ : flashcards, audio recordings of native speakers, webreader (read foreign site, with pop-up translations as needed), vocab and grammar drills, language partners
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I'm currently eating through the Livemocha Italian 101 lessons, but Lingq is pretty amazing for vocabulary building, listening and reading practice...
That's it for now. I'm going to go work on my languages and we need to try to figure out how to ship a guitar to the States without losing our minds, since we just have one week left!
And here are our photos. We're all caught up now! (Until tomorrow, when we go back to Guadalajara...) Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
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| Guadalajara, Mexico |
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| Tlaquepaque, Mexico |
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| Guanajuato, Mexico |
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| San Miguel de Allende |
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