Veracruz was a blur. A beautiful blur. To date, this is the most modern/commercialized Mexican city we’ve visited. There were loads of advertisements of major companies – Coca Cola, HP, McDonald’s – lining the busy streets of sea-side city. There were huge malls, big name brands stores. But just outside of the city, and if you looked closely enough – inside the city – there was poverty. Again a stark contrast between rich and poor. My hostfamily was in the upper spectrum. They lived in the 12th floor of an apartment within sight of the beach. My roomie Emil (Sweden) and I really enjoyed the family and their extended friends – like their driver, maid, and chef. The host family consisted of Carmen (the grandmother), Christina (the mother) and her tow sons, Luis (18) and Christian (15). The family was very much into golf.
One of our first activities was a tour of the city. Our sponsor, the Veracruz Local Government, took us to their aquarium. We saw fish, sharks and sea-cows aka Manatees. Three lucky individuals, Phil Woods included, were selected to feed the sharks via an submersed cage. SCARY BUT AWESOME! I’d totally do it. Then we had a tour of a very old part of the city that was held origins to conquest history. Here we saw one of the first churches ever built in the Americas near 1521 when Cortez arrived.
La Dia de Independencia
Happy birthday Mexico! One hundred and ninety-nine years old! Emil and I and our entire troop went to one of their family member’s houses in town and we celebrated the holiday. Like in Leon, my family had other family that was hosting other UWP students. It was great to get down to some classic Mexican tunes (and American ones, too!) while ringing in the birthday of our host country.
After all this partying, our cast had the tragedy of going to the beach. Tough life really. If I was to compare this week to anything, it would be as if UWP had a vacation week. After some group activities most of the cast rushed the shore and jumped into the warmest, saltiest sea I’ve ever swam in. Beyond the awful taste in my mouth, I had the best time floating around in warm sea water. I am such a sucker for warm or hot water. I don’t do cold water – rivers, lakes, the ocean – no thank you! But this one was totally warm!
About 5 hours later I felt the worse sunburn of my life. My whole frontside and the top of my shoulders were laden with hot-red burns. Thankfully I was smart about putting sunscreen on my face. After learning some new European dances – which naturally involved a lot of shoulder movements – I completely regretted not wearing any sunscreen on the rest of my body. Oh well. It turned into a nice tan a few days later.
For our host family day, Emil and I went to Christina’s ranch about 40 minutes away. When we woke up, we walked around the 40 acres and saw their goats, cows, pigs, donkeys, chickens, turkey and a horse. Emil and I also rode the donkey bareback and the horse with a saddle. More UWP kids showed up with their host family to celebrate a friends birthday of my host mom. Emil and I left to go back into town to watch a movie with our host brothers and then called it a night.
Show night went well but could have had a much better turnout I think. We performed in a basketball arena and we’re greeted by the Governor of the state.
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