Holiday Inn Toluca, Mexico

Hi, Sorry it has been awhile since my last entry. I have so busy learning spanish, I am improving slowly! I was supposed to start work this week but now I start Monday as they are over staffed. On Monday and Tuesday we had our usual spanish class which towards the end was hard going. Emma and I did not have a clue what was going on, yet alone undertand it. The teacher spoke in spanish for the entire class which made it impossible for us to ...

... of the challenges they were facing. It was really cool! Our first order of business was lunch. Yours truly had gorged the night before and had no hunger whatsoever. However, my friends had a wonderful lunch at a well established eatery. After lunch we went to the art museum. I thought this would be a pretty boring time, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. We got to see some of the art of ...

... balcony seating and circles around the top of the arena. The logistics of every fight are similar. There are two teams, the technicos and the rudos. The technicos are the precision fighters, the good guys, the rudos are the cheapskates who throw punches and kicks when the referee´s back is turned. The team who wins the best of three rounds is the winner, and rounds are ended ...

Hola friends and family, As many of you know, and some of you don´t, the three of us--Sean Conner, Melissa Moss, and Molly Hoss--have traveled to Puebla, Mexico, for a summer of community service and development. We arrived last Thursday, May 17th, and despite preparation we were still suprised by the vast cultural differences. Foremost we´d like to thank those that have made this transition as easy as possible, notably Dave and Marie ...

... us down to the nearest bar (little effort required) and we had a Tequila.. and another one.. and another. It wasn´t like the rocket fuel they serve you at home and actually went down with ease. The Tequila´s were the beginning of a long night, we did a small pub crawl and ended up in a bar with live music. Andy persuaded the lead singer/guitarist to let him play... not sure how he managed that. To our surprise (and everybody ...

... rucksack on my back, waiting for the shuttle bus to take me into the town to the main bus station and who should drive by but my friends from the Sian Kaan Tour, Jennifer and Lee. They stopped the car and offered me a lift. I didn't need to be asked twice - my bag was on the seat and I squatted my ass in their hire car before they finished the invite! It was a much nicer way to get to the station - thanks Jennifer and Lee - hope you're already planning your next hol!

... James is quite a bit of fun, you'll like him. You see today we all are doing what we do best here... contemplating the world and deciding where we are going to take our next coffee. Life is just a whole lot slower here, even with a job. It's kind of nice. James, a student from Swarthmore, has been living in Belize for the last 6 months. He was doing research on land development and labor issues amongst the villages there. He's got great stories beginning with his ...

... Not even IST (Indian Standard Time) is that far behind (1-2 hours tops!). But once we got there I have to say that it was one of the best Xochi trips so far. About 12 of us packed into a boat, played cards (badly!....I'm still bitter Lily), listened and danced to a mix of hip hop and Mexican tunage, played 'I have never' hmmmmm, and it was clear that by far, we were the most beautiful boat out there with ...

... on our way to the restaurant!), and hit the 405 in LA at about 1pm on Sunday....what a culture shock. We were suddenly in the middle lane of 8 lanes as 2 motorways merged. Wow it was scary but we survived. Surprisingly LA was wet and windy the whole time we were there but since we were staying in the lap of luxury at Chris's brother's place in Malibu it didn't really matter. We left Wednesday morning to drive across to Phoenix in Nevada and en route ...

... the whole room for ourselves, (and there is noone who would get up at 6am, and start to pack...americans...sorry, no comment:) On Saturday we visited the old town of Teotihuacan, and climed up on 2 pyramids, The Pyramid Sol (70 meter high) and the Prymid Luna (50 meters high). It was misteroius, and beutiful, the only thing i didn't like were the sellers, and the toooooooooooo many tourist.(I guess they felt the same way about us:) Yesterday we saw ...