Mexico with Señor Oswald: Mexico City and Teotihuacán

From Guadalajara to Mexico City the road started rather steep as we climbed out of the mountains surrounding Guadalajara and headed to Mexico City.  On of the first activities in Mexico City was to attend a bull fight.  Doug (Tigre) Barker was very impressed with the bull fight as a bull at one point got of the inner ring and someone was gored in the process of getting the bull back into the ring.

The last day in Mexico we visited Teotihuacán, ancient Aztecan ruins.  Here they have the Pyramid of the Sun and the Moon.  I climbed to the top of the Moon, and have always regretted not going up the Pyramid of the Sun, which was taller.  I did take a picture of the Sun from the top of the Moon.

The last legs of our trip was a train rid from Mexico City to the border.  We slept on this train, and it had a dining car.  After arriving at El Paso, we took a bus from there home.  The entire visit was two weeks.

"Homeless" in Guadalajara

Between my junior and senior years in high school, I traveled with the Spanish club to Mexico.  We planned a week in Guadalajara, where we would attend an institute to learn more of the Mexican culture.  During this time we would stay with a host family in Guadalajara.  We were each assigned a room mate who would stay at the same home with us.  My partner was Gordon from Brigham City. 
We arrived at Guadalajara later in the day. 

We went to the institute where we were going to received instruction during the day for the next week.  From there we were loaded into taxi cabs.  The drivers had the address of the home where we were going to stay.  This was all good, but when the taxi driver arrived at ours, he couldn't find the home from the address given.  He looked up and down the street, but nobody knew of us or the family we were seeking.  He finally asked us what we wanted to do, and in our broken Spanish, asked him to take us back to the place where we started.
We got our stuff out of the taxi, to discover that there was no one at the institute and it was all locked up.  We found a patch of grass where I guess we figured we would spend the night, or at least wait for someone to return and figure out what to do with us. 
Within a half hour of our being there someone stopped and asked us what we were doing.  This was a family with a car who were missionaries from the United States serving in Guadalajara.  We explained our predicament.  At this point they invited us to their home for dinner, and to figure things out from there.

While we were eating, the father of the family called the institute and actually got ahold of someone.  They people at the institute had heard of us not arriving as the host family had also called them.  Arrangements were made for us to spend the night where we were, and then the next day after breakfast they would return us to the institute.  The family had a son a close to our age, so we had a place to stay and were fed well; and returned to the institute the next day, no harm done.
The next day when we arrived out the correct address, we realized we were close the day before.  We were only a few blocks away, but a wide highway separated was between where we had been, and the actual address.  We had been close to the Catholic Church, Church of the Cross. 

Mexico with Señor Oswald: Guadalajara

Guadalajara was fun, but not a first day.  We arrived at the institute where they put us all in taxis to host families.  The taxi couldn't find our family, so he drove us back to the institute and dumped us off.  We would have spent the night on the grass, but a family of missionaries picked us up and kept us that night.  We had free time every day.  I roomed with a kid from Brigham City named Gordon.  Our family took us for a riding tour of the city.  One night we visited the baseball stadium to watch the Jalisco Jays play.  They were semi-professional level.  They had a very large Black man playing first base who was very good.  We drove past the soccer stadium, which of course was much larger than the baseball stadium.  Gordon and I attending a dance at the Mormon church for young mens while we were there.  It was really fun, except for the drink the served.  I don't know what it was other than nasty.  There were many girls to dance with.  Gordon and I also found ourselves at a playground with outdoor basketball.  We took on a couple of locals, and lost to our shame.  With the group of travelers we visited a glass industry and watched people blow glass.  I purchased glasses but we were warned not to actually use them for the lead in the glass.  One night there was a big party at a host's home.  They paid for mariachi and it was a big deal.  It was fun with great food.
We ate mostly with our host family, cornflakes with bananas for breakfast, and then traditional dinner.  This often included tortillas.  Left over tortillas were used for making soup, and a pasta like dish.  I remember a big cockroach in the bathroom.  I didn't know what to do with it so I killed it with my shoe and left it there.  We also ate out often.  There was an ice cream shop close to the institute.  the institute was also close to a cathedral. 

The institute where we arrived the first day, and where we returned every day for class

The cathedral.  There were two old and new

glass blowing

views of Guadalajara

This guy taught us songs at the institute including Ay Jalisco

Church by where we stayed

One of the host families sponsored a party for us with mariachi

and dancing

Traveling through Matzatlan with Señor Oswald.

Boarding the bus in Logan

Between my Junior and Senior years of high school, (summer of 1974) I traveled with a group of Spanish students from Sky View to Mexico for a week.  Señor Oswald organized the trip.  Our destination was an institute in Guadalajara.  I can only remember that Terry Caldwell was with us, and perhaps Claudia Houston.  Our first significant stop was Mazatlan.  We crossed the border at Nogales, having gone through Phoenix and Tucson, and continued south to Hermosillo.  In Hermosillo, one of our group paid a couple of kids to have a race so he could see how fast they could run.  We made it to Mazatlan for the night, and were there a couple days.  One day we spent on the beach, and one of our party learned about jelly fish the hard way.  We ate at a restaurant there, and walked back to our hotel from the restaurant.  There was a very large beech area, shaped like a crescent moon.  I remember the cockroaches along the route were quite large.  We did see someone do a cliff dive which was really cool.  (Similar to the dive in this blog.)  He had to wait until the waves were just right before he dived.  A few of us were even able to attend church there, so we were there on a Sunday.

Skyview Teachers and Adminstration 1975

This short presents Skyview's coaches and teachers.  There were many good teachers at Skyview.  My favorite was Señor Oswald.  He had the task of teaching us Spanish.  I took Spanish all three years at school.  We use to give Senor Oswald a hard time, coming into class saying, "Vamos a tener fiesta hoy."  We would do that every day, until finally Senor Oswald got upset with us.   However he was a patient man.  He had to be to put up with us.  I think the people I knew the best at Skyview were those in Spanish class with me.  We were together three years, and Senor  Oswald had special names for us.  Mostly our names pronounced in Spanish, but not always.  Some of us were Tigre Barker, Jose Carreido, Claudia Houston, Patricia Apelskog and Gregorio Johnson.  My first couple years I was also involved in Spanish club.  We were able to practice dance, and even put on a couple programs.  We went to North Cache on one occassion.  I loved the Mexican Hat Dance.