First Day

I'll make this post short--I know Marja is planning to post soon with like, a buhjillion photos.

So, we started off the day with an orientation to Encuentros, our school away from school, and then quickly launched into some reading (in Spanish!) about the sites we were to see for today--Cortes' Palace and the Henry Brady Museum. I made the mistake of checking my backpack with camara at Cortes' Palace, and thus, you'll see no photos from me. But my personal highlight, and I think, for many of the girls, was a mural by Diego Rivera depicting the conquest of the Aztecs.

Afterwards, we ate our snack lunches in the Zocalo (that's Spanish for town square), where I did snap a few photos and where many girls did some of their first shopping from the vendors there.

With a little bit of food in our stomachs, we walked to the Henry Brady Museum, which was actually the home and art collection (over 1200 pieces!) of Henry Brady, an independently wealthy, world-traveling, tapestry-weaving, art-collecting, eccentric man from Iowa. His home was decorated in bold colors, and he mixed artworks from all over the world. This was for many the highlight of the day. I'm posting some photos of the girls resting in the courtyard of the museum.

We then returned home for "comida" (that's kind of like lunch, but many families eat comida around 3 pm and it's the largest meal of the day). I can say for Honore, Lena, and me, we are big fans of our host mom's cooking.

Then back to school for some Spanish language activities so that the Spanish teachers could start to get to know our SGS students and their Spanish abilities. By the way, the teachers from Encuentros have had high praise for our students so far. They have found them friendly, respectful, and lively.

All in all, everyone seems to be in good spirits and excited for all the adventures that lay before us!

-Ava

P.S. Do stay tuned! Tomorrow we'll get the girls to start adding to our blog and a chance to add more photos in case you didn't see your daughter among the ones posted.