Days 16 and 17- Home Sweet Queretaro

Because it has taken so much time and effort to blog about my trip to Mexico City, writing about my first two days back in Queretaro seems simple. It was nice to "come home", and I looked forward to the comparatively calmer life of a city of a half-million people. I know my stories and photographs make Queretaro seem much smaller, but that is because we are based in the more historic downtown area. There are more modern areas that I have driven through to get to schools and in my travels that look much more like a mid-sized American city. There is a major freeway, and some of the major streets remind me of Los Angeles. These are the places where I have seen American chain restaurants and stores- I am particularly struck by the number of pizza chains found in the city.

But this is beside the point- it was nice to be back to familiar territory, to a place where I can come and go as I need to and have some freedom. But I have moved away some from the calm and peaceful person I was the first week- Mexico City was an invigorating experience, and more of my fun, energetic personality is back. It's not to say that I'm not still calm and peaceful, but I'm a lot more... me. But still without the stress and spazzing. It's a very good thing, because I'm starting to see how I'll be able to take this into my life when I return home.

The bad part is that I am a little subdued due to as yet unidentified illness. Nothing related to Montezuma, hopefully just exhaustion. Also, I think we are all burning out a little bit of the workload. This is a very intense trip, and by week 3 it is hard to keep up the momentum. But it's hard to complain, given how fortunate we are to have this kind of experience. Tomorrow will be a good day, because it is our calm day before our final day of meetings, then some last minute traveling we have asked to do. I will get to do my final explorations of the city, shop, and start saying goodbye. I'm not sure whether I'm ready for this yet...