Poblana Nights

Puebla is a beautiful city, but if you happen to be downtown or anywhere by the zócalo, it's even more beautiful by night. The awe-inspiring 17th century Gothic Cathedral downtown (10min walk from my front door) is impressive in the daylight hours, but once the sun sets and the lights come on, it transforms itself into something even more amazing. One aspect that I've been working on to bring to this blog is more photos so that you get a 'better picture' of what my life is like down here. Last week I gave you some sunset images, and this time I want to show you some nighttime pictures. It was really chilly tonight, which added all the more to the appeal of the city.

To be honest, I'm not the greatest photographer. I haven't even taking any classes in the art of photography, and my camera - a Nikon Cool Pix - isn't anything a serious (or novice) photographer would use. With that said, I try to make the most of my limited skills and resources and give you somethin' ta look at. Here are a few of my favorites:

So hopefully you like these, and if so, more will be on the way!

Les presento a: Pascual, el Pulpo

This blog post is dedicated to my new friend, Pascual. You see, Pascual is a special friend, he happens to be an octopus. But not just ANY octopus, he's a knitted octopus that like to travel around Mexico with me. I have no doubt that I'll be posting a lot more about him as we travel around the Mexican nation. He is definitely going to be a cool addition to my blog.

Now lemme tell you story of how Pascual came to be: An awesome friend of mine from Las Vegas named Natalia stitched him together with her own hands and sent him off to me late last semester as a homesick present, along with a Gryffindor screened t-shirt that she also made for me. To top it off, my other friends, Soraya, Antonio, Katie and Sam who were also behind this, stuffed my care package with starbursts and swedish fish to hold me over. =D

Natalia is a master octopus maker and has made other tiny-octopi in the past, and now I am so happy to be the proud owner of one. Plus, I sincerely believe that I have her best octopus creation yet. 

To welcome him, I gave Pascual a tour of the town before I returned stateside. Since the tour took place in early December, he got to see a more Christmas-y side of Puebla. And here are some of my favorites:

As my first week here was coming to a close, I decided that another tour of the city was in order, so once again my and Pascual took Puebla by storm! This time we went around the northern part of the downtown, but the two ex-conventos that I wanted to visit were both closed for remodeling. :( But we didn't give up. He set our hearts and eyes on a large hill before us and said 'forward march!' We ended up at Los Fuertes (the fort(resses) where the Mexicans fended off the French in the now famous Batalla de 5 de Mayo. On our way there, we also found an awesome church:

Pascual even made a few friends over at the Fuerte de Loreto:

 Today was a good day, and I can't wait to take Pascual all around!