"Do you like onion rings?"

There is this bar/restaurant (good drinks, crappy food) called Los Arcos that is downtown in the zócalo, and on Tuesday and Friday nights they have salsa (yes, dancing) nights with live music, and absolutely everyone goes to salsa nights at Los Arcos. Last Tuesday a big group of us Gonzaga kids went, and ordered some food because we were hungry. There are these two girls in our group, Maite and Christine, who are roommates and who I absolutely adore they are so funny. When we were ordering they were looking to split something. In keeping up with Mexican culture, Maite asked Christine "Do you want enchiladas?" and before Maite finished her sentence Christine asked "Do you like onion rings?" Oh man, we all died of laughter. And the best part was that the waitress was laughing too. Good old gringa times. That story was better in person, but it's still pretty classic. (In case anyone was wondering, they ordered the enchiladas).

I was not very good about writing in my journal this past (second) week, and my exhausted brain has little recollection of the smaller details of this past week. I'll do a better job this week!

I can tell you that on Saturday, our group went on an excursion to Cholula and Puebla. In the town of Cholula, there are (I think) 350 churches, almost one for every day of the year. When the Spanish came and conquered México, they saw a temple in Cholula, and as our tour guide described it, "they thought it would be a good idea to throw sand and dirt on the temple and build a church right on the top of it." And so they did, and so became the butt-burning hill-climb in Cholula. From the top of that covered-up temple you could see so many churches in all directions, it was a bit overwhelming I must say. While some of the churches were incredible sights, others had strangely-creepy figures that would have made it impossible for me to worship in a place where they were luring over me so eerily.

All of the churches also made me think of my time in Zambia last summer. When we went on our weekend trips around Zambezi, we often stopped in many churches if not attended mass at the churches we went to. What permeated my brain on Saturday was the disparity between the ornate, elaborate churches the Spanish built in Cholula and the simple, plain churches that the Zambians built on their own. Not only were these differences a point of economic comparison, they were also a point of comparison of the beauty found in everyday simplicity, and the beauty that people often overlook in the simple things that are right before them. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, no?

Voy a dormir, hasta luego!

Besos!