the climb

finished my first week of classes, the most noteworthy one being dance, which is a 2 hour class 2 nights a week. this week we started salsa, marengue, and cumbia. it's fast paced, so it's cool to imagine how much we'll have learned by the end of the semester.

this is the view from outside a classroom:

my host mom's daughter Faviola drove me to one of the university's more modern style buildings. I forgot that the campus is spread throughout the city:

Faviola's friend Cristián was my tour guide. she lives with us and recently graduated from the university and is spending a couple of more weeks in the city before reutrning to Guadalajara

I went to the Plaza de la Paz to meet up with some international students. all I knew was that we were walking somewhere

we started making our way up the city

we got to this point called the Pípila, which offers a panoramic view of the city

which is why you can find hundreds of other pictures that look exactly like this

as we kept trekking upward, we passed a number dogs, most of which run around freely. this one was an exception

I felt compelled to take a photo of every building we passed

I knew we were headed to some point called la bufa. I asked where it was and someone pointed to the mountain in the right-hand corner. I thought they were joking

I noticed this thing hop by. it looks like a toad and cricket mix

we had to take a number of breaks. I felt a bit tortured at this point, due to being out of shape and the altitude

you can barely see the city behind us. I still don't understand how we look so far away from it. the walk wasn't that long. anyway, at some points I was literally climbing the mountain, using both my hands and feet, and I thought, hm, this is kind of dangerous

people thought that my wearing boots was a bad idea. sure, they don't have traction, but they're probably the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. even after this trip, my feet felt fine, as if I hadn't hiked and climbed a mountain

here's the top of la bufa. one of the guys in our group had slept here overnight

we made it back 3 or 4 hours later

the other night, as Mira and I walked to an outdoor book fair, we passed what appeared to be a medieval show. we should've watched it. instead, I went and bought 1984 in Spanish for a couple of bucks. we also passed by a French restaurant with crepes (Michael, why aren't you here?).

as I walked through the city, I felt glad for not changing my decision to study in Guanajuato. I did come close, though, thinking that I should go to Salamanca instead, that it would be more beautiful and cultured. but being here makes it hard for me to imagine that I could've chosen a better place to study Spanish.