A weekend in Veracruz

I have been incredibly busy these past few weeks and Its hard to believe that I have been here in Mexico for more than a month! I am starting to have a more settled schedule, but every day and week is different and I am always doing new things. This past weekend I traveled to Veracruz, a port city in the gulf coast which is about 3 hours from Puebla with some of my friends from my program. Veracruz is one of the first places that the spanish conquistadors landed in mexico and it has been a very important port for hundreds of years. One of the interesting things I learned about the city is that there was a substantial african slave population in Veracruz, which influenced the culture, specifically the music and dance in the city.
We left for our adventure on friday and took the bus, which is the most common way to travel around mexico and is very organized and comfortable here (better than greyhound). Unfortunately, the weather was not very great for our first two days in the city- cloudy and cold, which was a bummer because we were hoping to spend a lot of time on the beach. However, we found other things to do thanks to our handy guide book including a museum about the history of veracruz, the aquarium which had a lot of beautiful fish and dolphins, an old fort on an island which protected the port and lots of yummy restaurants. The last day the sun finally came out and we headed to Boca del Rio to find a beach. However, this proved more difficult than we thought because the coastline is very developed with many hotels and we found ourselves hoping over walls and a bit lost. However, eventually we found a free and public beach and felt the sand between our toes. The water was too chilly to swim, but there were palm trees and everything! Soon, my friend Jessica and I were very hungry and went off to locate a restaurant and the only one that we could find that didn't have a huge wait was very elegant complete with a live band and a playground for kids to play on! However, "vale la pena" as we say in Mexico (it was worth it) because the food was incredible- delicious guacamole and shrimp and vegetable quesadillas! Another highlight of the weekend was the famous gran cafe en la parroquia which has been there for 202 years and serves "lecheros" basically coffee with steamed milk, but what is special about it is that you have to tap on your glass with your spoon and the waiters come over and pour the milk right into your glass and its delicious! (see photo below). We had lots of fun adventures, but I was happy to return to my mexican family and home- Puebla is really starting to feel like my home base. And I missed my host family!