Day Twenty-Six - Puebla (July 22, 2010)

Today we arrived in the city of Puebla, one of the largest cities in Mexico. Its main industry is car manufacturing, and according to Jacques, it has the largest Volkswagen plant, with over 15,000 employees. On our drive to the pyramids today, I saw a site for almost every car company imaginable – Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Fiat, etc., etc., etc.

We entered Puebla with a visit to the Cinco de Mayo battle site. Jacques explained that 5 de Mayo is more of an American holiday than a Mexican one. The day is important in that 5 de Mayo 1862 was the only time that the Mexican army won a battle against a foreign army (the French). But, the Mexican independence day (16 de Septiembre) is definitely viewed as more important in the country’s history.

Jacques found a local restaurant to eat lunch, not far from our hotel. I ordered a chicken noodle soup, which was a little salty, but pretty good. I also ordered tostadas, with what I thought would be shredded beef (tinga). Butttt, apparently I ordered pata de res, or cow’s feet. UGH!!!!! I was curious when I realized that my tostadas didn’t have any shredded beef. But when I saw something resembling head cheese scattered all over my plate, my stomach turned upside down.

I attempted a taste, but was pretty turned off (Sorry Gramps!). Since my lunch experience wasn’t so great, I made a mad dash towards Americanized food for dinner. Yup, that’s right…I did it…I caved…I went to…McDONALDS! But, mmmm, mmm, mmmm, was it good! Yummy chicken nuggets and fries surely hit the spot!

In between lunch and dinner, we made a trip to the area of Cholula, which houses the biggest pyramid in the world…it is actually bigger than the pyramid of Giza, but you can’t tell because part of it is buried under a hill. It is not taller than the one in Giza, but wider.

The pyramid in Cholula usually has a tunnel open to visitors, which cuts through the inside of the structure.  But, as our Fulbright luck would have it, there was a recent cave-in throughout the tunnel and it was closed for renovations. Oh well. Here's the tunnel anyway:

We had a short lecture in the museum and then walked around the pyramid’s base. Of course it started to rain, but we didn’t melt.

To add to my fun in visiting a new country, Veronica and I headed up the block from our hotel to get a taste of local teen culture…watching Eclipse at the movie theater!  The tickets were only 28 pesos (only about $2.50), and the theater wasn’t too crowded (and it looked just like a U.S. theater). As for the film, it was only in Spanish. But, I understood almost all of the conversations and enjoyed it a lot! I think tomorrow we might go see Shrek 4…if so, there’ll be an update on that too!

I finished the evening by grabbing a café latte at The Italian Coffee Company (which is on every block at least once in all of the major cities…it’s bigger than Starbucks is in the U.S.!). The coffee was good, but even better was the Cinderella book I bought from a street vendor…for only 50 pesos (less than $5), it came with finger puppets…HOW COOL!