Hola,

Now onto the events of this week. Classes were as good as they can be, but of course busy. And on Thursday, we got a tour of the local candy shop as part of our culture class. It was really interesting because a lot of the packages don’t really have descriptions of what kind of candy is inside, so it was nice to have the employees explain the candies to us and we got to try a lot of them. One of my friends got something that resembled peanut bark except it was mostly peanuts and other nuts and was just held together by the sweet part. I got amaranto with chocolate, which reminded me a lot of sesame seeds, but I think they are more like a very tiny hazelnut. It was all very delicious, but I thought it was interesting that most of the stuff in the store was made of either fruit or nuts.

On Friday, we went to Leon, which is known for its leather. They told us there would be a lot of leather, but I had no idea how much they meant until I saw it.  Where we went was six square blocks of leather stores selling shoes, jackets, bags, and belts. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many boots in my life. They had a million types of cowboy boots in a million different colors. Some from ostrich, some from stingray, and others of just normal leather. I ended up buying a pair of sandals, which are very cute and were made in M�xico, but I don’t believe they have any leather on them at all.

When we came back, my mom here asked if I wanted to go downtown to meet up with Alondra’s (her daughter’s) friends. Well I ended up walking around the mall with a group of 14 year olds for 4 hours. It was fun but weird, and really interesting.  We hung out in the parking lot for a while, and some of them took turns singing along with popular American songs that they had on their phones, like hush hush.   I was very surprised first because of how much they knew about pop culture in America, and second because when they were singing I could hear almost no accent. Another interesting thing was that they described every thing as sexi. I should have counted, but I think I heard “Que sexi” at least 200 times that night.

A few times, we went to the elevator where they had fun screaming and taking panic pictures. Then we hung out in the arcade and played deal or no deal and the fast and the furious racing game. It must be a culture difference because my sister is the same age, but I don’t think she would do any of the things we did at the mall. Not that this is a rare occurrence, but they all thought I was lying when I said I was 21. When I asked how old they thought I was, they said they thought I was their age, and then they had fun asking random people all over the mall how old they thought I was. Later they invited me over to sleepover and watch Zombieland with them, but I said no because I was exhausted.

Yesterday, I spent almost all day doing homework in a local caf�, which was really nice, but like almost everywhere else, the Internet connection was terrible. Then we all met up at our professors’ apartment to have dinner. We learned how to make salsa verde and pico de gallo, which were both delicious, and we also learned how to make agua de pi�a (pineapple juice) and agua de sand�a (watermelon juice). Then for dinner our professor made a traditional dish of chicken and rice with plantains from Ghana, which was also delicious. It was a very fun evening and a good chance to hang out as a group again and talk about our trip to Mexico City next week.

That’s it for now; hopefully I’ll have time to write again before we leave on Thursday for Mexico City.

Adios,

Lexi

Location: Guanajuato, Mexico