Holiday Inn Express Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico

... deceased friends and family.<br><br>To experience this unique event we decided to hire a van and drive down to Patzcuaro in Michoacan, home to one of Mexico's biggest celebrations for "El Dia de los Muertos". After picking up our 12 seater van, stocking up on food, blankets and tequila, we set off on Halloween for a three day roadtrip. It was nice to feel the freedom of the road again having spent nearly a month since last leaving Guadalajara. Everyone was in a great mood as we ...

... a good way to relieve the hangover but once we got out it was absolutely freezing due to the high altitude. Probably the first and only time I've actually felt cold since being in this country.<br><br>That evening we returned to have a fiesta in the big house we were staying in. A brief powercut meant that it was a candlelit party for sometime, but the power soon returned and the festivities continued. As it was the only common language between all the different nationalities, I think ...

... in English (Rutter´s "For the Beauty of the Earth" which I did with my girls at school last spring) and their English was so bad it was funny! I wanted to get up there and correct them, but I behaved myself!<br><br>Yesterday afternoon I went to a music workshop for children and adults. They taught guitar, violin and wooden flute in groups and then put them together at the end of the workshop. This takes place twice a week, so I´ll go again next week. I´ve borrowed a ...

Hello, all! Sorry for the long silence - been extremely busy!<br><br>I celebrated July 4 by taking a tour with other students in my school to 4 really pretty towns - Tiripitéo, Tupátaro, Tzintzuntzán and Pátzcuaro. The names are all from the P'urhépecha Empire, hence the difficulty in pronuciation. Here´s a quick resume of each:<br><br>Tiripitéo - We visited the first university in the Americas, founded by Augustinians in 1537. The monastery/college ...

... me what sounded like jello she was really offering me "hielo" which is ice. I finally figured out today that jello is "gelatina." Ohhhh!)<br><br>This is a bit dull because there´s nothing really exciting happening! The organ recital that was supposed to be on last night was cancelled, but no one seems to know why. I did go to see two Chekhov one-act comedies yesterday instead. I found the scripts online and read them before I went, which was good because it was ...

... in Morelia had wanted. We then returned to each others host families homes for a well deserved shower and meal. It was a beautiful morning here - warmed up to about 80. The sun was shining all morning and then in the mid afternoon we had a short thunder and rain shower. It is very nice this evening - reminds me of Yakima in June. Tomorrow morning we meet early and we will have breakfast at the Camalinas Rotary club.

... set around a plant filled garden and patio. <br><br>Hotel Posada San Alejandro, Serrato No.5, Tel: 01 (434) 3426133, Web: www.posadasanejandro.com . This Hotel had the friendliest and most welcoming staff that you could ever wish for. The spotless tiled rooms have cable TV and are set back from the street, so you are insured a quiet night&#8217;s sleep. They offered an excellent single rate of 250 Peso, which was a lot lower than the advertised rate.

... preservation of the colonial city but what did he know, he was a blow in. We ended up paying way over the odds for a beer in a poseur's joint off the main drag and then called it a night. 'Manana' said the locksmith. I supposed I could handle that. The weekend was over and the hostel was deserted. I killed time: wandered around, paid a cursory visit to a museum, sat in the zócalo reading a newspaper; spent a couple of hours surfing the Internet. Later in the evening Phil ...

... s'est gâté, j'ai essayé de me réfugier au musée d'art contemporain mais j'ai trouvé porte close... J'ai diné dans un super restaurant de poisson, j'avais les lieux pour moi seule! Dans la soirée j'ai rejoint les autres pour une expédition à la casa del salsa et...c'était fermé!! Là, la soirée a empiré, un type est passé en voiture et les autres ont pensé qu'on pouvait monter avec ...

... with gas. The guy that drives the gas truck told me that the previous tenent called them a couple of times to try to force gas into the tank and then just gave up and took cold showers. The apartment is a mess of paintbrushes, hammers, rags, cleaning supplies and scraps of wood right now, but I can already see that it is all going to come together really nicely. I have termites in the roof, so every morning I wake up with dust in my hair and ...