ahhh, so much!

Ooooh my goodness it's been ages. This might be long, might be short, depending on how much I shorten it/ remember. Ok, so i have to go over the last two weeks which will be hard. But some highlights from two weeks ago.
On thursday and friday, Sept. 25 and 26 or something like that, around 7,000 teachers from all around Oaxaca came to the capital to march, and vote for the new leader of their section. It was awesome! We got to see them marching, and then some of us also went down to the zócalo (central plaza) to see what exactly was going on. When we got their, it seriously appeared like a fair. A lot of stores took advantage of many people being there, and so set up all of their booths. There must have been a least a hundred of them, if not more. It was a lot of fun to walk around buy things. Including a shirt that supported la APPO, a big movement composed of 300 non-governmental organizations at least, and is what was brutally repressed a few years ago. And also a really cool head scarf. That was the start of my obsession with headscarves, and I now have 4 different ones, blue/purple, green, brown, and white. They are fantastic. It was so fascinating to be in a place where they have marches and gatherings like this.
On Friday, since it was the first US Presidential debates, nearly the whole group of around 20 people in the program met up in our little school room, and watched them on one of our computer's. Or well, tried to watch them. It was rather hard since the computer was only so big, and only so loud. So I probably actually heard about half of it, at most. But I remember some quotes. "We are winning in Iraq" (McCain). "Economy," "Iraq," and "experience, or lack there of." Even though we couldn't hear very well, it was a lot of fun.
That saturday, me, Megan, Kristin, and Emily went to a place called El Tule, where they have this HUGE tree, that's 2000 years old, at least. So that means it was around when Jesus walked the earth. Isn't that crazy!? And it's bigger than any redwoods or sequioas I've ever seen. It was gigantic!
Ok, and a cool anecdote. A few minutes after I walked in the gate and was starting to take pictures, I heard somebody say "Annie, Annie." I turned around and saw my advisor from Gettysburg, Alicia Rolón! She was there traveling around with a different group for intermediate Spanish in Mexico. Now that totally blew my mind! What a coincidence! After recovering from this excitement, we went around taking more pictures, and then went to a restaurant to eat empanadas, which are supposedly famous there. They were actually tortillas with chicken and mole and inside. That's what empanadas are here. Cultural experience!
The next day me, Katie, Rebecca and I think a few others. walked around town. That night I went to a beautiful church called Santo Domingo with my host mom to mass. Have the time i was just staring at the beautiful ceiling. It was amazing!
And Monday, we left for Mexico City!!! For the first three or so days, we stayed in a lovely neighborhood called Santo Domingo. And I stayed with the best host family ever! Flavio and María Luísa were my parents, and I had one sister, Tanya, of 14 years. The 2 older boys were either married, or living far away. I don't know, there was just something so warm and welcoming about them. We lived in a little apartment in a big building that were composed of the 8 brothers and sisters and their families of my host mom. And the community in general... I don't think I've ever been in such a place where I've felt such a sense of community. It was absolutely lovely! : ) Partially because of this, I am now thinking very hard of doing my independent project there.
Since Santo Domingo is right next to the big university of around 300,000 students, I also took the opportunity to go over there a couple times. It's a gorgeous campus, and absolutely humongous. Also, a lot of the buildings had murals on them. Soo cool! The second time I went there was especially cool, because I actually got to meet some students. Me, Sarah Farr, and Jennie went over there for an observation and interview project for one of our seminars. It was an adventure going on the little bus over there, and then we got off at a random spot, which happened to be by the othodontic department. We watched for awhile, then went and talked with a group of students. They were really nice, and I admit that is was refreshing to be in a college environment again, with more people our age. Kind of another reason why I want to do my project in Mexico City.
Another day, we went to Coyoacan. We went to the house of Frida Kaolo (and Diego Rivera), and then a museum about October 2nd. There was also the Trotsky house museum, but I didn't have time to get there. It was a really cute town, and a lot of fun to walk around. After that we went to this ecological park full of volcanic rock and plants. (Hannah, I thought of you when I heard about the volcanic rock : ) ). We saw this partially to understand more about Santo Domingo, which was actually built out of volcanic rock. Very impressive.
On Thursday, October 2nd, we left the lovely neighborhood, and headed to the center of Mexico city. This was just in time for the march of October 2nd, which was in remembrance of 1968 massacre of students in Tlateloco. This was when students were protesting the Olympics in Mexico that year, and the federal police totally surrounded them, and massacred nearly all of them, then towed the bodies away to make it look pretty for the olympics. If you ever want to see a really good movie about it, but really sad, watch Rojo Amanecer. For the actual march, around 30,000 people showed up. Me and some of my friends in the program watched the proceedings from a restaurant high above the Zocalo, but with a very good view. (We couldn't participate by law since we were foreigners. If we had, we would get deported.) It only got kinda violent at the end, but I don't think anything terribly bad happened. It was just amazing to actually see a march that huge. I often got shivers up and down my space it was so intense.
The days sort of ran together now, in trying to remember them. But a few other things we did. We went to the Temple Mayor, Aztec ruins right next to the Zocalo. And an absolutely HUGE cathedral, also in the center, that took 300 years to build. And to Tlateloco and La Plaza de las Tres Culturas, where the massacre happened. This was also where there were some other ruins of I think a different tribe other than the Aztecs. There were so many of them that I had no idea about, that I get kinda confused and can't remember all of them. Speaking of ruins, we then went to Tehuantepec, which was there before the Aztecs, but was actually very commercial and made of communities of many different indigenous people. It was kinda like any big city nowadays. I walked up to the top of the Temple to the Sun, and the Temple of the Moon. Very cool. And I got a cool whistle that sounds like an eagle when you blow it.
On the way to Tehauntepec, we stopped at the Basilica of the Virgen de Guadelupe. It was impressive. There were probably 10-15 churches/cathedrals, and then lots of other buildings, statues, fountains, and things that were all catholic related. Oh wow, and in one church, they had the original picture of La Virgen de Guadelupe, which is printed (?) on a poncho that Juan Diego owned. It's considered to be a miracle, because nobody knows how it got onto the poncho, and what type of material it's printed with. Wow!
Three nights in row, me and a various friends, went to an all mariachi square. We went into a restaurant, and paid for one of at least 3 bands to play songs for us. Also, two of my friends, Christian and Jennie, play in a mariachi band at their college, so they actually got to play their instruments with the band that we always asked to play for us. It was soo awesome. I even picked up the violin, and kinda followed people to play in a few songs. I miss music soo much. It was so good to play anything!
Sunday was our free day, so me, Katie, and Morgann took the subway (exceedingly efficient!), back to Santo Domingo to visit our family and friends there. We had lunch with our family, then some of our friends invited us to go watch them play in a soccer tournament. That was a lot of fun, and they won! Yay. We then went out with them to the mariachi place for the last time. The next day we had to wake up at 5:30ish am to go back to Oaxaca. I didn't really want to leave. But it will be good to rest for a little bit. I felt like I had no real breaks in Mexico City. I'm hoping to sleep for a week! And that concludes my long account. (I think, I hope?). I'm sure I forgot something so we'll see!