The Lay of the Land

Much like there are Two Obama's, the city of Morelia seems to have a serious split-personality issue. On the one hand is the conservative colonial city built around a bunch of colonial-era churches and cathedrals (it is illegal to build anything taller than the one below), where families can take their kids out at night to see festivities like clowns and fireworks.

On the other is a rapidly modernizing university city with a pretty wild nightlife, complete with countless bars in the centro and massive raves (Ecstasy is the drug of choice) on the edge of town. What’s most amusing is to witness the scandalously-dressed Mexicanas enter the churches and immediately transform into good-little-Catholic-girls, atoning for all the sins they’re about to (or already did) commit. I won't say we're any different in the United States, but Catholicism is just so ceremonial that it's even more obvious here. It also gave them some gorgeous architecture, though:

Not that any of that is a bad thing. In a way, you get the best of both worlds here: there’s so much culture and history here, and everyone is courteous to the elderly, but it’s also great if you want to pull an all-nighter of debauchery, which has certainly been the case thus far this weekend.

Seeing as my parents read this, it’s hard to know how much detail to include about such things, but I’ll go with this: I certainly feel closer to the 13 other students I piled into a single van with on Friday, although we’re all a little mystified about how to face a certain classmate on Monday after we (and about 30 random Mexicans) saw her dancing topless. It was pretty neat that the club owners brought as a huge ice chest of beers for her efforts, though. If we're talking about the girl in sit-com terms, just think of Phoebe from "Friends" and you're getting pretty damn close.

And just in case you think your Faithful Correspondent is sacrificing his education for cheap thrills, I'll leave you with this: there's no better introduction into the culture of Mexico than getting falling-over drunk with a Mexican woman old enough to be your mother while her grandkids run by.