Brittni’s Blog

WooooooooooooHooooooo! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRENT!!!

For his B-day we went to a really nice mall here and saw the movie Hancock. It was in English with Spanish subtitles. What a funny movie! I recommend it to everyone. I also surprised him with two cakes - one was with fruit for breakfast and the other was chocolate for lunch and dinner. I also made two big banners which said “Feliz Cumpleanos, Brent!” -one was in the dinning room/living room of our house and the other was at the school in the big lawn area. Here are some pics:

We also went out to a few clubs and bars this week. We went to one club that had good Salsa, one that had popular electronic music, and a bar that was more relaxed, but also had good live music.

On Friday the school had a fun party for there 3 year anniversary. At the fiesta there was a lot of good Mexican food, dancing, socializing, and there was a little fun game they did were everyone voted for people on papers the day before and they handed out the awards at the fiesta. The awards were similar to the ones that are for high school year books: “most attractive” “most likely to succeed” “biggest party animal” etc. I didn’t win anything, but you’ll never guess what Brent got!…….Most timido!…Yes, that means timid! I know, how crazy is that!? Hahahaha.

This weekend we went to a futbol game (of course, futbol is soccer here). It was America versus Santos, both teams of big cities in Mexico. It was so much fun! We took a bus to Mexico City and then took the light rail to the game. We went with our friends Carl, Steve, and Laura, all students at Chac Mool and we all bought jerseys and matched. Then after we took the metro to a nice part of the city, walked around, and had dinner at this place that is like a Mexican Dennys.

Here’s a video from the game:

Cuernavaca-Week 5-America v Santos from Brittni Daley on Vimeo.

This is just a quick video of me playing with the zoom on my camera. It has really great zoom, but its really hard to hold it still. I had it balancing on me knee and it still looks bad. It would probably be better if I had my tripod.

Cuernavaca-Week 5-This camera has great zoom, but its darn hard to hold it still enough from Brittni Daley on Vimeo.

This week 6 new students moved in to the house we’re living at, so there are a total of 9 students now, along with the the 3 kids and 2 adults who live here permanently. Its a crowded house, but its a big house so its not to bad. The 6 new students are all teachers (middle school I think) from Alabama and there’s one other 16 year old girl from New Jersey who’s here by herself. Interestingly, it isn’t that uncommon for teenagers to come to Chac Mool without parents. Apparently its known in the US for having a great teen program and kinds program. There are also another brother & sister who are 15 & 17, respectively, and here w/out paretns. The teen program and kids program are run similar to the camps that Brent and I went to so much as kids (YMCA, Caz, etc). If I would have known about it, I would have came here instead of camp during summers!

School is going great. We both really like our classes and still feel that we are learning a lot every week.

Our excursion this weekend was to the historic buildings in Mexico City.

El Palacio de Gobierno (The Government Building) from Brittni Daley on Vimeo.

It was another great week in Cuernavaca. On Monday we went back to Las Monanitas (the Hotel) with the school. On Tuesday I did another cooking class. We made this really delicious dish. Its like a casserole with bell peppers, onion, mushroom, ham, bacon, beef, and oaxaco (pronounced wahaca) cheese. Then we put the casserole in tortillas to make tacos and added salsa and squeezed some lime juice in it. Omg…sooooo good! On Wednesday we took the bus to a city close to Cuernavaca called Tepoztlan. There’s another pyramid there which we started to climb, but since we went after class, the bus ride took about 40 minutes, it takes a few hours to climb up to, and it closes at 5pm, we didn’t make it to the top. So, we’re planning on going back on a Saturday or Sunday. Good thing we still have six more weeks!

Since people leave every week, every Friday the whole school gets together for a little party where the children perform skits in Spanish to show what they learned, then we all do something fun together like play a game or sing songs, then the director of the school, Julio, hands out diplomas (or certifications of completion), and lastly people give speeches (in Spanish of course) about how much they loved Chac Mool, how much they learned, how they’re going to miss all they’re friends here, etc. I always look forward to the little fiesta at the end of the day on Friday This week we all sung songs together. Here’s a video:

Cuernavaca-School Song from Brittni Daley on Vimeo.

On Saturday Brent and I went with the school to another ancient city called Teotihuacan. It was about 2 hours North of Mexico City, but we were in one of those nice charter buses and there were movies playing. There were several big pyramids and we climbed the biggest one which is the pyramid of the sun. What a workout! Here’s a movie form the top of the pyramid:

On top of the pyramid of the sun at Teotihuacan from Brittni Daley on Vimeo.

The school Brent and I are going to (Chac Mool) has a different activity every afternoon. On Mondays the activity is just a get together where everyone meets and talks. This week we went to a nice hotel near the school called Las Monanitas. The first 3 pictures are of Brent and I at Las Monanitas. On Tuesdays the activity is a cooking class at someones house. The second two pictures are of the cooking class as well as the video below. On Wednesdays the activity is arts and craft (3rd picture). On Thursdays the activity is salsa dancing, but Brent and I haven’t done that one yet. On Fridays the activities vary. The 7th picture is of kids at our school doing a skit, the 8th picture is of the family from Ventura that has been staying with us and the last picture is of Brent and I at the school.

Every weekend the school has a different excursion. This weekend we went to an ancient Aztec city called Xochicalco (so-chi-cal-co). I think the city is from around 700 AD. Its about a 40 minute ride south of Cuernavaca.

Here’s a video of the house that Brent and I took the cooking class at:

Cuernavaca-Cooking Class 1 from Brittni Daley on Vimeo.