caves, torture methods, and fake sleepovers

This morning we woke up at about 6:30. This was pretty much the worst news of my life, especially since I went to bed at about 2:30. We got up, and ate some breakfast… and showed up at the school early. ALSO!!! ASHLEY AND I GOT 21 TICKETS! BOTH OF US! I know, amazing. We started our bus ride to Guanajuato… it was super long… and tiring, but WAY fun. I wouldn’t let anyone sleep, my bad. We played the question game, the what-if game, and we talked a lot too. It was really fun talking to everyone for four hours straight. We were pretty much tight after that bus ride. We got to Guanajuato, and I felt like it was exactly how I pictured Mexico to be.
This is a picture of some Natives doing a dance... pretty rad...

It was very picturesque and there were bright colors everywhere. It was pretty much amazing. We went to our hotel, and dropped off our stuff.

I feel like the hotel was pretty much the Winchester Mansion hotel of Mexico. There were so many random hallways with random rooms… and it was so cool.
becky and i in the snazzy hotel.

This is the view from our window!!!

Also, we had a bird in our window. Check out its eggs!!!

This is the street!

After we dropped off our stuff, we went to a Dulceria (it was our first stop on the tour). There were a million different types of caramels and dulce de leche… I bought some dulce de leche with almonds in it. I feel that I won’t miss Mexican food too much… but I KNOW with every fiber of my being that I will miss dulce de leche. I had better figure out how I am going to get a supply back to the United States. Tambien, there were bees ALL over the store. That sketched me out. After we went there, we went to a mine.
the beautiful mine landscape...

Becky and I feel sketched by such mines...

The tour was in Spanish, so I didn’t understand as much as I should have, but basically native slaves would haul ridiculously large amounts of rock from under the ground. We went down into the mine as well… it was super moist and sticky. I bought two different necklaces. One has a purple fist, a white fist, and a pink fist. The purple fist is for head health, the white fist is for luck, and the pink fist is for love and harmony. The fists symbolize the hands that hauled the rocks from the mine. The other necklace I bought was crystal (and I am pretty sure it is real tambien). The crystal symbolizes memory. The legend says that if you stick these necklaces in salt water for five minutes, they will make all of these aspects in your life improved. This is mainly why I didn’t buy just one… I figured I could use all the help I could get. Anyways, the landscape by the mine was GORGEOUS and so green. After the mine, we went to a torture place… with real torture tools. It was pretty much the most sickening place ever. They even had different kids from our group be models for what happens with the tools. It was sick. At one part, there was a tool where the victim had to stick their thumb into a little slot and a knife would cut their thumb. Four of our kids went up as examples, and Marc was one of them. His thumb almost got cut! Right after that, the creepy tour guide took us down into this musty old basement. I felt so eerie about it, and I couldn’t breathe, so I left with Becky. Basically, I am glad I did, because the tour guide turned off the lights. I don’t want to know what would have happened if I was down there when he turned off the lights. Basically, it would have been huge drama. Basically after that adventure, everyone was really quiet and slightly depressed. We got back on the bus, and cheered ourselves up by telling pick up lines and jokes. We went to this look-out point at this mountain, and it was BEAUTIFUL. We could see the whole city, and it was even more gorgeous because it was sunset.
Marc, Becky, and I in front of the city!!!

an amazing mexican sunset.

After we looked at the city for a while, we walked back to our hotel. We went down these little roads, and it was so quaint and charming. I feel like Spain probably looks like this city. We walked by a little street that is called the Callejon del Beso (the kissing street). The legend is that if you walk down the street and kiss someone, you will have fifteen years of good luck. I didn’t walk down that street, but Hermana Stallings and her husband did. It was cute. =) We finally got back to the hotel. Marc, Becky, and I were feeling so lame, tired, and anti-social, so we decided to go get hamburgers and ice cream from a little place we saw earlier.
This is a picture of us exploring at night...

This is a picture of me before the ice cream...

This is a picture of me after the ice cream...

The food tasted scrumptious, and we went back home. We changed into our pajamas, and just laid lamely on Becky’s bed and talked about cool things.

At about 12:00, Marc and I were going upstairs and ended up staying at an almost sleep-over for an hour. Here is a picture of us at our little fiesta...

Tyrell told the most HILLARIOUS story of all time about his planned out, almost first kiss. We partied for a bit, and then Ashley and I went back to our room. We clunked out pretty good, because it was a DANG long day. Adventure to be continued on Saturday!!! Love you!!!