"Semana Diabla"

What a good topic right? "semana diabla" … the best of the bests. We as adolescents LOOOOVE this week of the year! It is a week for us to behave badly. It is a week for having extreme fun with friends. It is a week for… disaster, deaths, accidents, misunderstandings… Everyone here know what am I talking about, don’t you? I know that this week is very funny, but we don’t know when something bad is going to happen to us or to someone near to us. I insist, we as adolescents don’t know how to measure danger. Visiting Kino Bay this week has turned out into a tradition year by year. Even though there have been lots of accidents, the young society continues visiting Kino Bay these days.
Visiting the beach in the “semana diabla” consists of lots of alcohol and drugs. Adolescents usually go to Kino Bay because they go without their parents, so they do whatever they please to do. They drink until they get to feel no pain. They not even get to sleep because they don’t want to lose any minute for drinking. This is the reason why things happen… Drunk and irresponsible adolescents are the culprits of the tragedies that occur during the week.

I’m not saying that every girl and boy who goes to the beach get drunk, but the majority does. I for example, I am going to Kino Bay, but I am going together with my friends, and my entire family. It is the first time in my life that I go to the beach this week. I cried my parents to give me permission to go, and they agreed, but they are going with me. I don’t see any problem with that, they are going to take care of me : )

I know that only YOU teacher read every blog post, but I really hope that some of my classmates get to read this and make conscience.

PLEASE take care. Have fun, but healthy fun... I love you all, and I’ll see you at Kino Bay!

The Beautiful San Diego

On my Semana Santa vacations, I went to San Diego with my family. It was a fun trip I really liked. First of all, we lost our flight from Phoenix to San Diego because our previous flight was 2 hours delayed. The airline changed our flight but we had to wait for three hours at the Phoenix Airport. Anyway, we arrived at San Diego at 3 pm. We were starving and wanted to be to the hotel as soon as possible. My brother made me realize his geography classes were useless because he asked full of amazement as the plane was landing “San Diego has a beach?” In case you are wondering, San Diego has a beautiful bay and a Naval Station.

The first thing we did was looking for a fine restaurant at downtown. We chose a nice Italian restaurant on 5th Street. I had never been to an Italian restaurant where the waiters are actually Italian. The food was simply delicious. We went to Balboa Park the next day. It is a huge, literally huge, park in the middle of the city where you can find museums, theatres, restaurants and San Diego Zoo. There are trees all over the place and everything is really clean and impeccable. Next day, we went to Sea World and we decided to use the public transportation to get there. It was a different experience and gave us a look at the city not many tourists get. Sea World was really nice! As a major touristic site, there was a huge diversity of people at the park. On Saturday, we went to Coronado and to San Diego Zoo. We crossed the huge bridge from San Diego to the island. We walked around the famous Hotel Del Coronado and the beach. The water was really cold and it was very different to Mexican beaches.

San Diego is a very wealthy city; there is no doubt of it. The tax is higher than in Arizona so the standards of living are better. Because of this, no wonder Californians have a particular culture different from the rest of the Americans. An important part of the income comes from tourism. The city has everything to offer to international visitors and it is really clean. I find it hard to believe that such a great city is so close to the border. Being along a border brings a lot of issues to a city but San Diego has being able of taking advantage of these circumstances for their benefit. It is amazing how the government takes care of every single spot of the city. At night you could see people cleaning the sideways and taking care of the way downtown looked. That must be the major difference you notice when you cross the border between Tijuana and San Diego. The amount of money our Mexican government invests on the cities is a lot less. As I mentioned on a previous blog, I think it is fascinating how a border divides a territory so deeply in all the possible ways. I hope I can visit this beautiful city again.

If you visit San Diego you cannot miss Seaport Village, Gaslamp Quarter, Coronado and Balboa Park.

BE CAREFUL!

The principal of the health Secretary, Jose Angel Villa lobos, said that during vacations the vials accidents increase form 10 to 15 percent.

Also he said that the car accidents were the first cause of dead on the population from 25 to 35 years, when half of these can be prevented and also for this cause 24 000 persons die each year! Between 40 and 60 percent of the accident are associated with alcohol consumption.

This accidents cause costs of $126 million each year, from which 5 to 10 milliards corresponds to the health sector.

They are making campaigns to prevent this type of accidents especially during this vacations that includes campaigns of communication about vial security, training, vigilance, and alcoholmeters.

The objective of this campaign is to reduce between 40 to 50 percent the number of accidents and dead.

The World health organization says that each year die 1.2 millions of people, while between 20 and 50 million are injured because of this.

Having precaution during vacations is very important. We want that our family and friends return complete, but also they want that we return like that. So, let’s be very alert of what happened to us take the necessary measurements .There are so many accidents that can be prevent it, it’s important to take care of us and every body around us.

Discovering Our Country

When we think about the perfect tourist destination we think about an exotic beach, a European capital or a big, fancy city in the United States. Don’t we? It doesn’t even cross our mind visiting a Mexican town. Last summer, I had a really nice vacation visiting the central part of our country. At the beginning, I didn’t know what to expect from cities I visited. Each city we visited, allowed me to understand another piece of our culture as Mexicans.

First of all, we went to San Luis Potosi to visit my aunt. San Luis Potosi is the beautiful capital of the state of San Luis Potosi. It is a big and industrialised city. Then, we decided to go to Aguascalientes, since it is only a couple of hours away. Did you know it is the cleanest city of the country? Honestly, I didn’t believe it until I got there and I couldn’t find trash on the street or on public places. The government really takes care of the image of the city and tries really hard to promote tourism. Also, people of Aguascalientes feel really proud of their city and take good care of it. Next, we went to Guanajuato. San Miguel de Allende is a small city in Guanajuato. As we arrived, I could see a lot of foreign tourists. At the restaurants and souvenir shops, you could pay with dollars. Most of the signs were in Spanish and in English. This city is full of foreigners because it is really beautiful, it has a colonial style and the government is focused on tourism. The next cities I visited we also focused on this. That’s why they look so nice and clean; to attract foreign tourists and keep the cities growing.

I was positively impressed by this part of the country. It isn’t all poverty and overpopulation. I think that’s the image we sonorenses have of the center and south of Mexico, until we meet those places. I really like getting to know other parts of my country. Most of us aren’t very enthusiastic when we hear of visiting Dolores Hidalgo, Zacatecas, Santa María del Río or Ojuelos. But the truth is that they are places full of culture and traditions. We as Mexicans should be the first ones to appreciate this diversity. Sadly, we are not. I wish hermosillenses could feel so proud of their city as people from these places feel. I do not know why, but we are always complaining about our city instead of taking care of it. If we appreciate Hermosillo, I am sure it could be a lot more beautiful.

I think we’re all a bit Malinchistas. We rather visit cities in other countries like the USA, because we somehow think they are better. There is nothing wrong about going international, but let’s not forget where we come from. Knowing Mexico can be a really positive and fun experience. Getting to know our country is the only way we are going to be able of feeling proud of it and loving it even more.