Day Two - Orientation at the University of Texas

So I was up at the crack of dawn (no surprise), and decided to get out of the room early and explore the city of Austin. Since the hotel is right in the heart of downtown, I had a fun time walking around and finding some hidden Austin “treasures”.

As I walked by Ladybird Lake, I found a platform with some awesome engraved metal maps. There was one showing what Austin looked like in 1889. How cool!

Then I walked across the Congress Avenue Bridge again and came upon a sculpture called “Nightwing”, a tribute to the city’s most famous residents – the bats that live under the bridge!

Our program orientation is being held on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. It was a quick 10-minute shuttle ride to the campus and we got started right away! Our first session was called “Pyramid Builders Had to Eat” and discussed the ancient Maya. The big takeaway from this lecture was that although this civilization make some great achievements, there were a lot of people who weren’t doing any of the things that we see visual remains of today (there were many people providing food to feed the pyramid builders! Our next session was called “Mexico: From Decolonization to Democracy.” I enjoyed this lecture because it reminded me of many of the historical facts I learned from Professor Appelbaum back in Binghamton, but had forgotten over the past few years. It’s great to have this knowledge stirred up again! Our final lecture of the day was “Paths to Sustainability in Rural Veracruz” and discussed the poverty in Veracruz and ways that the people are trying to improve their standard of living by selling such things as coffee and limes (Did you know that Veracruz is the #1 lime producer in the world?!).

Perhaps the best part of today’s experience at UT-Austin was a trip to the Benson Latin American Collection, part of the University’s library. Some of the artifacts we saw were: A letter from Hernan Cortes to the Spanish king, original drawings from Tlaxcala (including one of Dona Marina, or La Malinche), a 1577 questionnaire from the Yucatan, a 16th century dictionary, and a Sor Juana original book (Sor Juana was a nun and poet who lived in Mexico in the 1600s).  *The pictures are in order from left to right*

Tomorrow we’ll be discussing our curriculum projects (what we are asked to produce at the end of our trip – basically, a unit to teach to our kids next year) and other incidentals before we leave for Cancun on Wednesday. I’m hoping the weather holds up, as I’ve heard that Tropical Storm Alex is passing through southeastern Mexico right now. It’s off for some Tex-Mex for dinner now and then perhaps some more bat-watching!