I am legal in Mexico!!!! well, almost...I have to pick up my stuff next monday but holy cats was that a process. I spent all week getting my papers ready and such, took pictures THREE times to get the right ones and had to take a taxi in San Miguel to go to the bank to pay $669 in pesos more...but hopefully I got it. The two hours of sleep I got the night before probably didnt help that process out.
Classes are going to be hard, mostly because of the language barrier, still not registered-we'll get to that next week. Mondays I have class from 10-12 and then in Valenciana 4-8 for a history class. The 10 am class is history in the language school and the 11 class is conversation. Conversation might be my favorite. Tuesdays I have 10-12 and in Usea/Marfil 5-8:30 sculpture class and I have to buy A LOT of stuff for that one. On top of that our 'building' is behind the campus fenced off and we could not get the alarm to shut off so we stood outside the whole class...pretty sunset at least. Wensdays are my favorite, one its hump day and two I only have class from 10-12. Also, hump day just means youre through the week halfway-all downhill thursday and friday. Thursday I have class 10-12 and 6-8:30 for the art class, fridays only the 11-12 class and a seminar from 1-2:30...not excited about class Fridays but I guess I have to learn to embrace it. Even just finding the classes is brutal here, however I do not have class early which I am SO blessed.
Wensday night we went to Cafe Tal and got drinking chocolate, its like straight chocolate with 6 oz of milk, little bitter and strong, and now that I have experienced it I am not sure I will again... They also advirtise for a circus by driving around trucks with cages as the bed with animals in them. We've seen male and female lions, a lepeord and monkeys. They smell bad and look so sad. And underfed. Last night we say "Up in the Air". Movies are like less than 4 American dollars here...and in English with spanish subtitles, I would not like it if I had to read all my movies in english subtitles, however its nice for me jajaja. After the movie we saw the CUTEST smallest little dogs EVER. They could fit in one of my hands. The lady that owned them was super nice too and let us play with them for a little bit. The night before we went Salsa dancing! It was so fun, all the guys there just lead you and its easy-except that Im so bad I even mess them up, I will learn!
Friday, January 29, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
La Bufa
Thursday Night I met Casey's roommates who are from Francia. They are so fun and amazing. We hung out at their house and ate fresh pinapple. It is so tasty! Yesterday was good, but not as great as planned with academics, we figured out our classes and everything. We got allowed to be in classes in Valenciana, but couldn't turn in our stuff to actually sign up-so we went and bought 8 avacados, cilantro, lots of the little limes, tomatoes, and an onion for less than 5 american dollars. With those ingrediants plus salt and galic we made the best pit of guacamole ever. We used 7 of the avacados and ate it all! We meaning Coleman, me and Casey for the most part. Her roommates helped us out a little. In addition to that we had watermelon, fresh strawberries and the mini bananas while on top of casey's roof laying in the sun. It was amazing. So warm and we could look over the city, which is beautiful...I will put up pictures sometime. It was so relaxing especially since Alex-who joined a little later, Casey and I all got less than 2 hours of sleep the night before. Last night I slept, showered, unpacked, found the scorpian under my shoes and slept more.
This morning we got up really early to hike the bufa! Its so incredible and so amazing. It took over two hours to go up and because I'm getting sick I was having a really hard time breathing, so it made it a little harder than it shoulda been haha. Anyways, we could see Leon and Guanajuato and all the mountains in the area. Everything was so BIG, all the crevasis, gaps, rocks, cliffs, it was incredible. Literally felt like I was on the top of the world. The aloe vera plants here are huge too! I tried to pick one of the leaves and the plant was taller than me and it was not even the biggest we have seen! They are everywhere even growing out of the rock walls around the tunnels.
Side note-Coleman is from Montana, Casey is from Eugene, but doing the exchange through SOU, Alex and Olivia are from Canada and Becca and Aly are from West Virginia. Jessica, my new roommate is from Ashland also and Junko my other roommate is from Japan. Becca is the only one that I accually share a room with. Alex and Aly live next to each other, both up the mountain. Aly lives with the same host family as Stephen who is also from West Virginia. Elvis is from Ghana and there is apparently a whole other group from Michigan and stuff that we haven't really met yet. My mother is Mari Cruz and her daughters are Fernanda and Pamelah.
Food: Increible. Delicioso. Amazing. The big meal is at like 3 or so and Mari Cruz always makes delicious food. Today it was tacos. In the morning there is always fruit with cereal or waffles or eggs or even pretoasted toast ha. At night its usually either quesadillas or sandwishes but I always eat quesadillas. I haven't eaten out much just because I want to hear about all the good stuff first plus Mari Cruz always has food for us. There is a drink that Mari Cruz gives us at dinner, but since I liked it so much now for breakfast also, its called avena. It is my favorite, better than coffee or hot chocolate or anything. It is cinnamon sticks boiled in water, oats, a little milk and I think sugar but not sure-some kinda powdery stuff.
Mari Cruz has a friend that helps her clean, like every single day. Every part of the house even our room so our floors are always clean and beds made. I thought it was only supposed to be once a week, but learned and felt bad about my mess after a few days. The roads are crazy! Super tiny and there arent really large sidewalks or sometimes side walks at all. All the roads in the city go one direction and the tunnels underneath the city allow the cars to go the other direction. Makes it easy to cross the road! time to nap....
This morning we got up really early to hike the bufa! Its so incredible and so amazing. It took over two hours to go up and because I'm getting sick I was having a really hard time breathing, so it made it a little harder than it shoulda been haha. Anyways, we could see Leon and Guanajuato and all the mountains in the area. Everything was so BIG, all the crevasis, gaps, rocks, cliffs, it was incredible. Literally felt like I was on the top of the world. The aloe vera plants here are huge too! I tried to pick one of the leaves and the plant was taller than me and it was not even the biggest we have seen! They are everywhere even growing out of the rock walls around the tunnels.
Side note-Coleman is from Montana, Casey is from Eugene, but doing the exchange through SOU, Alex and Olivia are from Canada and Becca and Aly are from West Virginia. Jessica, my new roommate is from Ashland also and Junko my other roommate is from Japan. Becca is the only one that I accually share a room with. Alex and Aly live next to each other, both up the mountain. Aly lives with the same host family as Stephen who is also from West Virginia. Elvis is from Ghana and there is apparently a whole other group from Michigan and stuff that we haven't really met yet. My mother is Mari Cruz and her daughters are Fernanda and Pamelah.
Food: Increible. Delicioso. Amazing. The big meal is at like 3 or so and Mari Cruz always makes delicious food. Today it was tacos. In the morning there is always fruit with cereal or waffles or eggs or even pretoasted toast ha. At night its usually either quesadillas or sandwishes but I always eat quesadillas. I haven't eaten out much just because I want to hear about all the good stuff first plus Mari Cruz always has food for us. There is a drink that Mari Cruz gives us at dinner, but since I liked it so much now for breakfast also, its called avena. It is my favorite, better than coffee or hot chocolate or anything. It is cinnamon sticks boiled in water, oats, a little milk and I think sugar but not sure-some kinda powdery stuff.
Mari Cruz has a friend that helps her clean, like every single day. Every part of the house even our room so our floors are always clean and beds made. I thought it was only supposed to be once a week, but learned and felt bad about my mess after a few days. The roads are crazy! Super tiny and there arent really large sidewalks or sometimes side walks at all. All the roads in the city go one direction and the tunnels underneath the city allow the cars to go the other direction. Makes it easy to cross the road! time to nap....
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Hoops
So...this week is definately teaching me to relax and roll with the punches....a lot. Monday we had orientation from 9 until three or so. Didn't really learn a whole lot but whatever. Monday I got a phone that still doesn't work. Tuesday we had orientation at ten and were supposed to be done at 2....we finished at almost six. No break, no direction, no idea it was gunna take so long and no idea that when it would be over. AND we sat around for NOTHING. literally, just listening to people talk in spanish forever and argue about how to register on their cell phones with other teachers. It was my favorite day ever. ha not. THEN yesterday we were supposed to sign up but everyone said something else. We were also supposed to take a test monday that we took yesterday and had already taken. Also we were told we would be doing a lot of paperwork for the migration papers....it took THREE HOURS to fill out and print ONE paper on the computer. That was it. So today, I went to sign up and we went to different places. Paid for insurance, thats about the only thing we accomplished in 5 hours. The plan tomorrow is to be at offices at 9:30 am for signatures then go to campus at Marfil(40 min from center of town) then to Valenciana (20 minutes from center the other direction) back to Marfil. That will only get me signed up for 3 or 4 of my classes-I still have to sign up for another class at a different campus Monday. Classes start Monday.
Oh and while we are trying to figure all this out, some of the classes we had planned to take are not offered or have time conflicts. Don't worry, our advisor at SOU doesn't know anything and got mad for us asking if we could take all our classes in the language school. Pretty amazing since we don't know what we are doing-no one else does either.
On a lighter note, we had a school function tuesday night that was a lot of fun with dancing and such, last night we went to a salsa bar and the intructors were teaching us. It's fun but really hard. Tomorrow a few of us are planning a roof session in the sun with a guitar and food if we get done in time and Saturday we are going to hike the Bufa at 8 am! SO early!
I'm learning a lot and its so much fun, but sleep is definately lacking, there is just so much to do! throw in church and bible studies and a basketball game or something and its pretty nuts!
Oh and while we are trying to figure all this out, some of the classes we had planned to take are not offered or have time conflicts. Don't worry, our advisor at SOU doesn't know anything and got mad for us asking if we could take all our classes in the language school. Pretty amazing since we don't know what we are doing-no one else does either.
On a lighter note, we had a school function tuesday night that was a lot of fun with dancing and such, last night we went to a salsa bar and the intructors were teaching us. It's fun but really hard. Tomorrow a few of us are planning a roof session in the sun with a guitar and food if we get done in time and Saturday we are going to hike the Bufa at 8 am! SO early!
I'm learning a lot and its so much fun, but sleep is definately lacking, there is just so much to do! throw in church and bible studies and a basketball game or something and its pretty nuts!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
ME ENCANTA GUANAJUATO!!!
MUCHO! MUCHO! MUCHO!!!!! I can't believe I have only been here for the weekend, its so amazing.
Friday night we ended up just sleeping and Saturday we woke up to meet Christain at 10:30(EARLY!!!) to get phones...too bad I didn't bring my passport and have no pesos still...so Becka and Alli did instead. Christian is from Mexico, but best friends with Becka since he went to school in West Virginia also...all these WV people! Before getting the phones we walked around and after we went to Mercado Hildago....above the city-meaning we had to climb a huge hill...seriously nothing is like these hills down here. Even the stairs are hard because they are 2-3 times the size of standard stairs in the states. After lunch Becca and I went to a Youth Service with our sisters-also out of town, but we rode the bus...for a whole 4 pesos! It was hard to stay concentrated when you don't understand much, but one of the songs was one that we knew so we sang in English while everyone else was singing in Spanish. It was amazing to be connecting with these people I barely know through worship.
After service, I showered:) and got ready for the Birthday celebration. (side note-apparently in Mexico it is tradition for the Birthday person to bite the cake then everyone else pushes their head into it, so that their face is covered in frosting...we took it easy on Becca) Alli, Steven and Steven's friend from Ghana-that goes to school here, met us at our house for a wonderful night of dancing. The night life here is amazing. I love it. Lots of people are out walking around and at resaurants (Cena is between 8-10/11 pm) There is a plaza close to my house with outside seating resaurants, candles, even tvs put out so that the atmosphere is very open, calm and fun. You can hear the music from the clubs or street vendors and the lights make is so pretty. I cannot wait until its warmer! There are lots of clubs to dance at and we went to a few...also here clubs are open till 4-5 am so when we started at 11 it was DEAD, hardly anyone was there. A lot of people smoke in the clubs-my clothes, hair and skin REEKED like stale cigarette smoke this morning. Thank goodness for perfume when there isn't time to shower! The music was so loud my ears were still ringing when I got home. It was a superb night! Happy Birthday Becca!
Today, after getting little sleep, I went to church at 10:00 am, we did not get done until 2:00! They sang for a VERY long time and had the LONGEST prayers ever. Also hard when you don't understand the language its hard to tell when they are going to say 'amen' and can miss it easily so its a little embarrassing to look up and the prayer has been over...oops. After that, we waited and rode on a bus for an hour and a half for una fiesta for the baby that was dedicated before the service started. It was Mexico. We were on a two level patio, the grandpas (I think) were playing guitar the whole time and singing, lots of laughing, different conversations, traditional mexican food(mole-..didn't like it much) and everything. Mother: Mole is pronounced mow-lay. Everyone is so welcoming and nice. Us foreigners stumbled through convo and I even gave english lessons to the pastor of the young persons service! He said he would help me with piano and spanish...he has a degree in music!
Friday night we ended up just sleeping and Saturday we woke up to meet Christain at 10:30(EARLY!!!) to get phones...too bad I didn't bring my passport and have no pesos still...so Becka and Alli did instead. Christian is from Mexico, but best friends with Becka since he went to school in West Virginia also...all these WV people! Before getting the phones we walked around and after we went to Mercado Hildago....above the city-meaning we had to climb a huge hill...seriously nothing is like these hills down here. Even the stairs are hard because they are 2-3 times the size of standard stairs in the states. After lunch Becca and I went to a Youth Service with our sisters-also out of town, but we rode the bus...for a whole 4 pesos! It was hard to stay concentrated when you don't understand much, but one of the songs was one that we knew so we sang in English while everyone else was singing in Spanish. It was amazing to be connecting with these people I barely know through worship.
After service, I showered:) and got ready for the Birthday celebration. (side note-apparently in Mexico it is tradition for the Birthday person to bite the cake then everyone else pushes their head into it, so that their face is covered in frosting...we took it easy on Becca) Alli, Steven and Steven's friend from Ghana-that goes to school here, met us at our house for a wonderful night of dancing. The night life here is amazing. I love it. Lots of people are out walking around and at resaurants (Cena is between 8-10/11 pm) There is a plaza close to my house with outside seating resaurants, candles, even tvs put out so that the atmosphere is very open, calm and fun. You can hear the music from the clubs or street vendors and the lights make is so pretty. I cannot wait until its warmer! There are lots of clubs to dance at and we went to a few...also here clubs are open till 4-5 am so when we started at 11 it was DEAD, hardly anyone was there. A lot of people smoke in the clubs-my clothes, hair and skin REEKED like stale cigarette smoke this morning. Thank goodness for perfume when there isn't time to shower! The music was so loud my ears were still ringing when I got home. It was a superb night! Happy Birthday Becca!
Today, after getting little sleep, I went to church at 10:00 am, we did not get done until 2:00! They sang for a VERY long time and had the LONGEST prayers ever. Also hard when you don't understand the language its hard to tell when they are going to say 'amen' and can miss it easily so its a little embarrassing to look up and the prayer has been over...oops. After that, we waited and rode on a bus for an hour and a half for una fiesta for the baby that was dedicated before the service started. It was Mexico. We were on a two level patio, the grandpas (I think) were playing guitar the whole time and singing, lots of laughing, different conversations, traditional mexican food(mole-..didn't like it much) and everything. Mother: Mole is pronounced mow-lay. Everyone is so welcoming and nice. Us foreigners stumbled through convo and I even gave english lessons to the pastor of the young persons service! He said he would help me with piano and spanish...he has a degree in music!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Dia Uno
Well, it has been surreal thus far. I got to my house at 6:30 am and did not sleep at all during the night. I did not have any problems with travel and got a green button!
It was warm last night, well compared to what Oregon is, and I was kicking myself for packing so many warm clothes, however, this morning I was so glad. I woke up at about noon to POURING rain, hail, wind and thunder. So glad I brought the warm clothes. It stops and gets sunny then starts again. Plus no houses have heating so it is cold all the time, not just outside.
My family is amazing so far. My mom has two daughters and is also hosting 3 others until tomorrow and the end of this month. There are also two little cute dogs! One is called Chaquita and the other one is Oso, or bear. Oso is a puppy and my favorite even though he barks ALL the time. Even comes in our room just to bark and then leave. My roommate, Becca, is from West Virginia and already knows several people from her school here and a couple were here last semester. They all speak much more spanish than I do. I'm like a chicken with its head cut off, I have no clue really what is going on. My house is right by down town, super grateful for that one. Everything is a ten minute walk away and no major mountains to climb everyday to get home. My house is green. And we have hot showers. Although, I am having a little trouble remembering to not flush the toilet paper:/ The city is amazing and beautiful. There are huge bright red flowers all over, and I have not gone very far. It is very clonial like I was told, but ALL of it is, not just patches and there are amazing buildings.
Today we walked around a bit, the buildings are really bright and streets are narrow. We went to a farmacia so someone could get shampoo and such, I think I forgot my toothpaste somehow but I was sure I packed it so I will be getting that tomorrow. We were watching spongebob in spanish with the girls and talked about twilight and avatar! Tonight we're gunna go dancing, jump right into it haha and tomorrow is my roommates birthday so we're planning on celebrating somehow...
Thats all for now I guess, I havent even been here 24 hours yet so I know it will get way more exciting later.
It was warm last night, well compared to what Oregon is, and I was kicking myself for packing so many warm clothes, however, this morning I was so glad. I woke up at about noon to POURING rain, hail, wind and thunder. So glad I brought the warm clothes. It stops and gets sunny then starts again. Plus no houses have heating so it is cold all the time, not just outside.
My family is amazing so far. My mom has two daughters and is also hosting 3 others until tomorrow and the end of this month. There are also two little cute dogs! One is called Chaquita and the other one is Oso, or bear. Oso is a puppy and my favorite even though he barks ALL the time. Even comes in our room just to bark and then leave. My roommate, Becca, is from West Virginia and already knows several people from her school here and a couple were here last semester. They all speak much more spanish than I do. I'm like a chicken with its head cut off, I have no clue really what is going on. My house is right by down town, super grateful for that one. Everything is a ten minute walk away and no major mountains to climb everyday to get home. My house is green. And we have hot showers. Although, I am having a little trouble remembering to not flush the toilet paper:/ The city is amazing and beautiful. There are huge bright red flowers all over, and I have not gone very far. It is very clonial like I was told, but ALL of it is, not just patches and there are amazing buildings.
Today we walked around a bit, the buildings are really bright and streets are narrow. We went to a farmacia so someone could get shampoo and such, I think I forgot my toothpaste somehow but I was sure I packed it so I will be getting that tomorrow. We were watching spongebob in spanish with the girls and talked about twilight and avatar! Tonight we're gunna go dancing, jump right into it haha and tomorrow is my roommates birthday so we're planning on celebrating somehow...
Thats all for now I guess, I havent even been here 24 hours yet so I know it will get way more exciting later.
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