we are leaving this crazy, charming city in 3 days. we have a lot to do before we leave so this will probably be the last note from here (until i get home). we have definately established which wine bar is our favorite. 'cocha de baca' has very nice wine and each glass is the same price. it's a bit expensive for here, but 4.50 for a large glass of wine is cheap in cali! i like it because i can choose the wine i like the best, without feeling extravagent. last night we took hermalinda and deanna (our host family) out to dinner to cocha de baca and had chicken pesto with penne pasta. yummy. hermalinda and i had one glass each and her daughter teases us calling us borrachas (female drunks). it makes hermalinda and i laugh because hermalinda is a very prim and proper lady.
yesterday we decided to visit the family we stayed with 3 years ago, but they weren't home, so we continued on past their house for a walk. 30 minutes later, uphill, we'd discovered a beautiful park. this park is more wild than is normal for a mexican garden (usually they are extremely manicured). we sat on a bench and rested. i broke out the map and saw a square marked 'presa la olla' directly uphill from our bench. we looked and saw a barrier of sorts and we wondered what a 'presa' was. so off we went to explore further uphill. presa = dam! it was a dam for an empty lake. above the empty lake was another dam for another empty lake.
between the two 'lakes' is a short river/creek that has been designed to resemble a tropical prehistoric garden. an enormous mosaic snake slithers away from an equally gigantic crocadile through heavy tropical plants. of course the creek is dry, but i can imagine how beautiful this place must be during the wet season!we had our visit on the way back home with our old family. they were impressed with our progress (or so they said) with spanish. the conversation turned to the besso negro at cafe tal and then to chocolate in general. this led to them giving us their prized stash of chocolate as a gift. as i'm sure you know, you can't refuse gifts like that. it is delicous and i can't wait to get home and make a mocha with it :)
i have an incredible amount of homework to do. we have a new teacher and she is super hard. she expects us to pronounce everything correctly . . . can you imagine that? how mean! i also have to be able to conjugate the super-irregular preterites without a cheat-sheet. i don't understand why . . . won't i have my cheat-sheet with me when i talk to people? this all seems unnecessarily cruel.
talk to ya soon, heidi
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