Polito #4 Visita a la UTM

As a program, we went on a field trip to the UTM (la Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana) and I had fun meeting university students. I was too busy having fun chatting with students to take pictures, so all of the pictures that I have on this post are lovingly stolen/ borrowed from Dr. Daniel Torres' Facebook, with the exception of one. All credit goes to him, and I think I will go with the term "borrowed"...

Anyways, the UTM.

Mi lugar favorito fue la biblioteca, donde había docenas de libros escritos por autores yucatecos.- My favorite place in the school was the library where there were dozens of books written by authors from the Yucatan. 

 Not the library. But it is on campus!

Hablé con varios estudiantes de la UTM en una mezcla de español e inglés, dependiendo de cuál idioma el estudiante quería escuchar. También hablé con un muchacho (creo que era un profesor joven) en portugués porque él había estado en Brasil antes.- I spoke with varios UTM students in a mixture of Spanish and English, depending on which language the student wanted to hear. I also talked with a guy (I think he was a young professor) in Portuguese because he had been in Brazil before. *I was super excited to have someone to practice with!*

My group!

Mi profesor, Carlos, comentó que hay más problemas problemas económicos y sociales en el lado sur de la ciudad, y que no se creía que era posible tener una universidad tan grande y desarrollada allá.- The most interesting thing that I learned about the university is that few people thought it would thrive, based on it's placement in the South side of Mérida. The North is considered the nicer and more affluent side of the city.

Almost all of the group for 2013 

The funniest part of the visit -->

 Me encantó el apodo que los estudiantes daban a un señor que vende comida al lado de la universidad. Le llaman "señor cangrejo" como el personaje avaro del programa infantil "Spongebob Squarepants".- I loved the nickname that the students called a man who sold food next to the university. They called him "Mr. Krabs" from "Spongebob Squarepants." 

Why?

Apparently he often butted into conversations in an attempt to sell students more food in such a manner that it was clear that he was interested in earning as much money as possible.