Finishing Up

So the semester is finally winding down.  After a busy last few weeks, I am finally done with all of my classes.  It's exciting to be done, but also sad to know that I'll be heading home.  At this point, Puebla is like my home away from home, and I'm not excited to have to leave.  That being said, I'm very excited to come home and see all my family and friends again.
I actually only have 2 and a half days left here in Puebla.  We have all day tomorrow, and then on Friday, a few of my friends and I are leaving for a "road trip" of the Yucatan peninsula in southern Mexico.  We'll be there for 6 days, seeing different Mayan ruins and spending the last couple days on the beach near Cancun.  We'll get back around noon on Thursday, we'll have all day Friday, and then we'll be leaving early Saturday morning.

The time has really flown by recently, but I've been making the most of my last month here in Mexico.  A couple weeks ago, Mom, Dad, and Adam came to visit for the annual Puebla Thanksgiving party, to which all the students' parents are invited.  We had a really great time; I loved getting to show them this city I've come to love this semester.  Some highlights were running the "Outta Town Dash Around" of the Indy Drumstick Dash on Thanksgiving morning, eating dinner with my host family and the family of my friend Sam (we share the same host mom), climbing the ancient pyramid in Cholula (town outside of Puebla), and exploring all the markets in the historic center of Puebla.

One of the many markets we explored

View of Puebla from the pyramid

  

After the "drumstick dash"

Since they left, I've also had a great time celebrating my 21st birthday with a big party at my host family's house, complete with piñatas and lots of great Mexican food.  The next day, I also celebrated by getting up early to climb the nearby mountain Malinche with a group of exchange students from UPAEP.  The hike was difficult, but it was SOOO much fun.  It was an awesome experience, and I was super greatful to be able to go (after being too sick to go the first time all the ND kids went to climb it). 

Showing off the birthday pinata

Our pinata had fruit, peanuts, jicamas, and even a little bit of candy!

Climbing up above the clouds on Malinche

Most of our group decided to climb a tree during a short break

The view from near the top

towards the end, we were hiking in the middle of the clouds.  It was cold

So even though I haven't been blogging a lot lately, it's not because I haven't been doing anything. Actually quite the opposite.  I'm super excited for our end of the semester trip.  I'm sure that I will take a lot of pictures.  Hopefully I'll make one last blog post for the semester.  I'll include those pictures, and maybe say a little bit about what I learned this semester.  

Thanks for keeping up with my blogs even when there's a lot of space in between them!