This Week...

Seeing: This past Sunday, we took advantage of free museum day (museums are free each and every Sunday!). One of the museums was the Museo de Arte Popular. It was great! Floors and floors of cool folkart. I'm totally taking any potential visitors here.
Some examples:

















Hearing: Really, really, really bad Spanish in my class (including my own). I'm having a lot of fun, though, and my abs hurt afterwards from countless belly laughs. This class is just one big culture explosion (and sometimes clash); we're all from different parts of the world, and we're trying to communicate in Spanish, knowing only one verb's conjugation. I'll write more about it in the near future.

Eating: We're getting closer and closer to Dias de Los Muertos here in Mexico. In the weeks leading up to the holiday, the grocery stores and bakeries stock special treats (including chocolate skulls, etc.) expressly for the holiday. One of those treats is Pan de Muerto; or, bread of the dead. Apparently, the origins of this baked good involved eating it at the grave of your loved one and reminiscing. Nowadays, people just seem to eat them like crazy this time of year, because they're tasty. I saw a man's cart full of them one day at the grocery store. They come in all different sizes, too. Central Market, Austin's gourmet grocery chain, sells a sub-par version that we tried last year. We decided hesitantly to try one again last week, and we've been eating them steadily ever since, not looking back.

Pan de Muerto is fluffy but also a little flaky and buttery (though not as flaky/buttery as croissants). There are some harder knobs of bread on it, and they're supposed to resemble bones. The bread is subtly sweet and has a slight herby taste. Matt and I couldn't pinpoint what that slight taste was. Matt wondered aloud, "Is it citrus?"

I retorted, "Am I tasting cardamom?"

Turns out, it's anise. Whatevskis, it's delish. PLUS, it's coated in granulated sugar for my enjoyment.

Here I am, ready to stick the whole thing in my boca. Do you see the twinkle in my eye due to this prospect???












Wearing: My usual bright-colored clothing. I always knew I liked color. Yeah, so?! Here I get the stares. Of course, this could be for a number of reasons. At 5'7", I'm pretty tall for a woman in this country. Plus, I'm shaped like a boring old ruler. Also, my hair is short, stick straight, and medium brown, compared to lots of beautiful, long, wavy black hair. Blah, blah, blah. But I've also noticed that my style, apart from a few girls in my neighborhood, is very different. Not to be rude, but the clothing style's sort of boring here. Lots of blacks, dark browns, and blues. Lots of long sleeves and only the basic bootcut-style pants. People are wearing puffy black jackets when it's 63-degrees, and I'm sweating in short sleeves. Many of the women wear black heels; I don't wear heels, especially with all the walking I do--I wear Vans, tall boots (flat heeled), or sandals. I've always been a bit of a ogler myself, so no worries. Anyway, I can't afford new clothes to fit in, and besides that, I like my 'drobe! However, sometimes I do feel like a big technicolor goof.