Sigue la vida mexicana...

*DISCLAIMER: My English is terrible....too much Spanish.

So, I´ve decided that I´m pretty terrible at the whole blogging thing. I tried to update everyone at least once per week, but it has been more than three weeks now that I´ve gone without a single update. I have just been so swamped that I haven´t had a second to sit down and reflect on my time here. Now, the time has come...

So, since I last wrote (nearly a month ago), I have been traveling around quite a bit. Since I spend all week in the office, I like to try to take advantage of the weekends to get out and see the country. A few weeks ago, I went to the city of Taxco with my roommate, Melodie. Taxco was once the silver capital of Mexico--it´s where Hernan Cortes used to send his men to mine tin for his artillery when he was conquering New Spain. The city is so beautiful and set in a hillside in the state of Guerrero. It is filled with winding cobble stone streets and all the buildings are white-washed with red tile roofs. Apparently, the city government established a law that the city has to maintain its colonial-like appearance. Even the gas stations look beautiful. We mostly walked around, went shopping in all the jewelry stores and just took in the sights. It is always nice to get out of the huge metropolis that is Mexico City, as it really is easy to feel alone and lost in a city so large.

The next weekend, I took a long weekend trip to the states of Jalisco and Nayarit to spend time with my family (minus my dad). Since my brother recently graduated from high school and I was conveniently going to be in Mexico all summer, my parents decided that his graduation present was a trip to Mexico. Lucky for me, that meant I got to go to the beach! We stayed in a really nice resort in Nuevo Vallarta (close to Puerto Vallarta). As nice as it was to have a clean, comfy bed to sleep in and a hot shower every morning, I realized how much I dislike resorts. I definitely prefer to travel backpacker-style. Everything is all centralized in one place, so you are forced to spend all your money at the hotel---and they are definitely not lenient on the prices of things. It was a bit ridiculous. But, it was nice to spend time with my mom and brother (and his two high school buddies who came along). We went swimming, went to the beach and went out each night to the local karaoke bar. We also ate lots of fresh seafood, which I was definitely happy about--finally, some protein!

That Sunday, my mom flew back to DF with me to spend the week there. Since she is former resident of Mexico, she had been to the city quite a few times. However, she couldn´t stop talking about how much the capital has changed since her last visit. We toured all the popular historical sites, went to the zócalo (main plaza), ate lots of Mexican food and even toured to the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan. I learned that the pyramids are the 3rd largest in the world (behind the Great Pyramids at Giza and the ruins in Cholula--in Puebla, Mexico), so I felt proud to have climbed to the top!

As well, the whole week my mom was here, the International AIDS conference was going on in Mexico City. Lucky for me, I am living here and my organization does HIV/AIDS work, so I got to go. It was a once in a lifetime experience that I will never forget. I felt so privileged to attend so many sessions with amazing speakers and researchers. In fact, I created one of the oral abstract presentations that my coworker presented, so that´s one cool thing to check off my scope of work. I also saw Bill Clinton speak during one of the plenary sessions. It was amazing and he spoke about universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care. He really is inspirational and knows how to get a crowd going. I also met the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, who I have admired for many years. She is a huge human rights activist and advocate for international peace. The most exciting person I met, however, was the chief of the public health/HIV division of the United Nations Commission on Refugees. The conference really stimulated me and made me think about what my real passions are within the huge field of public health and I finally decided that I am going to focus on researching the reproductive health needs/services of vulnerable/refugee populations in conflict and post-conflict settings. A friend and I are even thinking of submitting a research proposal to a funder soon to do our own project in Latin America. We´ll see if it works out!

This weekend I am going to Acapulco! It is apparently the number one spring break destination in the world, but thankfully it´s not spring break time...I would not do well in that environment. I will be traveling there with some friends I´ve met here who are French, Mexican, Chilean and Argentine, so it should be a good time.

Until next time (which hopefully won´t be too far from now)...I will be attempting to watch as much of the Olympics as possible and rooting for Michael Phelps! Oh, I also really like watching the synchronized diving events...especially the Colombian duo!