Primera Vacacion! (c/o Courtney)

Just a giant mural on the wall. These were everywhere.

This weekend was our first vacation! As a starter we just did a little weekend trip to Puebla (the capital city of the state of Puebla, which is the one I live in) and it was soooo fun! We left on Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m., spent Saturday and Sunday in Puebla, and then came back around 8 p.m. last night. It's only two hours away from Tehuacan by bus so we had plenty of time in the city.

Upon getting there, the first thing we did was look around at some little stands and stuff. Actually, that's a lie. The first thing we did was find a bathroom in a movie theater because we didn't realize there was one on the bus until we were getting off. Anyway, so we went to this movie theater and they charged us five pesos to use the bathroom! Well they called it a donation because supposedly it went to curing cancer but it felt like a charge. At least until I had relieved my bladder, and then I felt all right about it :)

Anyway, so first we looked around!

This was just one of the streets in Puebla covered in vendors. Here in Mexico, you see about a billion of these everywhere you go.

We took a tour of the city! It was BEAUTIFUL. Plus we got to sit on the back of this tour bus thing and listen to this guy tell us all about the history of the sites in Spanish (because it cost half as much as the English tour). It was pretty fun.

One of the many, many cathedrals in Puebla.

Inside the cathedral. It was huge and GORGEOUS.

Tour bus!

Mexican flag at the site of a big battle against the French... Which is now celebrated on Cinco de Mayo!

Here died hundreds of patriots on May 5, 1862 defending the (something) of no intervention. Yup.

The next morning, we got up and went to Cholula! Which is some ruins just outside of Puebla.

These are them!

Cholula!

Apparently this particular city was abandoned at some point and the pyramids got all covered up. Later a cathedral was built on top of what seemed a nice hill but was really a pyramid! So they're excavating a lot of it, but they can't really dig under the cathedral. So just imagine a big pyramid under that giant mound of dirt. It was way cool though. I love to imagine all the people walking around just like us in their city!

The cathedral on top.

Inside. It was Sunday so they were having mass!

The view. Absolutely breathtaking. And me. Looking sunburned.

So I tried about fifteen times to get a picture that did the view justice, but I just couldn't get it! It was beautiful, though, and you could see so many cathedrals! I swear there are more cathedrals in Puebla than Mormon churches in Utah Valley :)

After seeing the ruins and the cathedral we went back down and did some shopping at all of the vendors.  They were constantly yelling, "Gueritas, gueritas, que quieren comprar?!" (White girls, white girls, what do you want to buy!) Ummmm, nada, gracias! Haha. But I did buy a popsicle and... this:

 Looks like a popsicle too, right? Wrong! It's a jicaleta, or jicama on a stick. What is jicama, you ask? Well I'm not sure, but we eat it all the time. It sort of has the texture of a potato, but it tastes like a snap pea. And I really like it! So here's a bit piece of it covered in some chamoy and chile. Yummmmmm.

Very fun. If you ever get a chance to go to Puebla, take it!