Day 11...

Okay today was pretty terrible, but overall I'm not that upset. This morning my roommates and I were absolutely dead. Some mornings are harder than others. Breakfast was incredible as usual. We had gorditas, papaya, and this strawberry deliciousness that was essentially a warm smoothie. I do have to say that the other day we had the most terrible breakfast ever. Well, it was better than eating rotted garbage, but overall it just did not taste good. It was a tamale something or another that was nasty, a juice tasted (and was thick) like warm, rotted egg-nog, and the papaya was more garbage tasting than usual. But one bad meal every 2 weeks isn't a bad deal. So I'm not complaining. It's just funny to joke about now.

Okay, here's my hilarious moment of the day. I have no clean clothes whatsoever. I'm honestly wearing my pajamas right now, and I wore them to school (I changed my pants to jeans so it wasn't that bad). So my roomies and I decided to hunt down a Lavanderia (laundromat). We knew of the ones near our house, but the only one that's within walking distance is a dry-cleaning/laundry place where people clean the clothes for you. We went to see how much that would cost... with our clothes like dummies, and they asked for $284 pesos, which is like $26 american dollars (this isn't all my clothes by the way, this is 3 people's laundry combined). Well that was just outrageous so we left, stood on the corner and tried to figure out possibilities. We decided to just find a cheap laundromat and take a taxi. But I had to run back home and get the soap. Let's just say I was outrageously sweaty by the time I got back to my roomies. The peak of day never ends here. Anyways we walked another quarter of a mile with 12 kilos of laundry, so so stupid, and found a taxi. He takes us to the nearest laundry place, but lo and behold, it was exactly the same thing. And it cost $288 pesos. By that point I just didn't care so I paid because we already paid $30 pesos for the cab, I have no idea where another laundry place is, and my Spanish is just failing miserably at this point. I understood nothing that the laundry-ladies said, like whatsoever. So we walk home all disappointed in our failed adventure, got some drinks at the gas station and walked the 2 miles home. Oh and by the way, my clothes will not be ready until 6pm tomorrow night (I still don't have clothes). Tomorrow will be interesting.

I also forgot Spanish while introducing myself during our service hours today. My teacher translated for me. I was so embarrassed and I felt so dumb because I full ability to say what I needed to say, I just couldn't. But even though today was relatively horrendous, I'm not upset. I learned a lot (like to just wash my own clothes in the sink), and I also got to serve and be with children. We went and helped out at school for the blind today and I met the sweetest kids I've ever met. They were so happy to just hear us talk whether it was in English or in Spanish. I got to hold their hand and talk with them about simple daily things. They told cute stories and just smiled and laughed away as I failed miserably at pronunciation. That made my day not a total failure. That sounds cheesy, but it really helps. Anyways, until next time. Adios

Mexico Dia 10

We went on our first little excursion this weekend. We went to Sayula and Tepalpa. This picture is of Tepalpa, gorgeous little town about an hour and a half out of Guadalajara. I cannot express how awesome these little mountain villages are. This one was pretty touristy (pretty sure I made that word up), but we drove through some gorgeous parts outside of the city And of course we drove in a bus up a mountain on a windy road with no guard rails. So the whole time I just watched out my window and hoped we wouldn't drive off and fall to our deaths.

Anyhoo, I can't think of any hilarious stories from the past 2 days but I have one from last week. My roommates and I were walking back from church and this super ghetto van pulled over and the guy started talking to us. The van had no windows except for the normal front ones and one in the back which was covered by a curtain, super sketchy. The guy asked us if we wanted a ride. We just politely said no and he drove off. That was probably one of the most sketchy situations ever, it doesn't sound like it was, but it was. It was straight out of a elementary school video of "what not to do". I mean getting in that ghetto car while speaking very limited Spanish would have spiced my life up a bit, but I decided not to get kidnapped by drug traffickers so early on in my trip.

Oh, I get to start working in the orphanage tomorrow and I'm super excited. Also, this weekend we're going to Tlaquepaque (a sweet town outside of Guadalajara) and we're going to a ceramics festival! I'm pumped. Hasta luego.

Day 7 de Mexico

Well a ton has happened in the past few days. I had my first cheese experience on the third day and it was just as awful as I had feared. I only made it through 3 bites of the quesadilla (which picture haunts this post). I had hoped covering it in delicious salsa would help me through it... not true. And of course we've had cheese every day since then, and it's honestly worse here. There's a lot of grease and it's always on the meat that kind of freaks me out anyways. But the food really is incredible outside of the freaky meat on occasion and the gooey cheese. But I do have to say, Mexicans really do have tortillas, beans, and cheese every day. The rice isn't as common in the house I'm at, but every meal, including breakfast, has tortillas and beans. I'm not sick of it yet so we'll have to see how long that lasts.

My group and I have also had a ton of bus ride experiences. The buses are just insane. They never really come to a complete stop, you jump on, and when you push the button to stop they slow down and pretty much expect you to jump from the moving car. As the director of the international program here would say, the bus drivers think they're Nascar drivers. It's so true, my poor roomie was falling over at every stop. One of our bus drivers was literally swerving back and forth like a 4 year old. I was so glad I had a chair for that trip. They also don't stop at the bus stops, you just wave them down and hope they'll stop. They didn't stop for us the other day on the way to school, making us like 10 minutes late.

I hate the buses, but I honestly prefer them over the cars at times. One of our friends here gave us a ride home yesterday in his vintage VW Beetle and his accelerator broke. We were literally going 2 miles an hour. He pulled over and fixed something so we went a little faster, but the engine sounded like it was going to explode! I thought i was going to die, mind you we already had way too many people in the car. We had 6 people shoved into that Beetle, not comfortable in the least. But I got home and didn't have to walk the streets of Mexico at 10:30 at night, so not that awful really.

We also went into Zapopan to buy discounted bus tickets and it's the coolest town ever! There were tons of little shops, a massive cathedral, everything. It was so cute. I'll probably just go back on my own to check out everything at a slower pace. I'm just sure Ill get lost, I do not understand the transportation system here at all.

The storms here are also incredible. The streets flood and there are literal currents pulling garbage and small children into the gutter. Well, I never saw any small children get pulled in, but I'm sure it's happened. In places the water is well above my knees and the water flows pretty fast. Our teacher told us to just take cover if we're ever walking in a storm because it's so dangerous. There are also torrential rainstorms almost every night. I wake up all the time to rain pelting the window and roof while lightning strikes the poles near our condo. It's so freaking loud. I was taking a shower yesterday during a storm, smart I know, and lightning struck the pole near our house and it was honestly the loudest thing I've ever heard. Let's just say I got out pretty quick.

Oh, here's a great story. So there are 3 of us BYU students in this house. 2 of us share one room with our own bathroom, and there's 1 downstairs with her own bathroom. Well the shower in my bathroom would not get any hot water so i was taking cold showers for the first few days here. It wasn't that awful because it's so hot and the water is only running for a minute because you turn of the water when you lather. Anyways, I started using the shower downstairs because it got hot water. Well, my host mother saw me taking a shower downstairs and asked why I didn't use the one upstairs. I told her the water was super cold and she looked confused. She thought about it a minute and told me the handles were reversed... Super awesome. But I got my shower back so I'm happy, we just laughed about it for awhile.

My roomies and I also had another silly experience yesterday. We were eating lunch with our host sister and we were talking about her dog. She said su nombre es circe (her name is Circe). But we all heard hombre (man) instead of nombre (name). So we just assumed it was a guy, then one of my roommates looked at the dog and it was NOT a man, she definitely had had puppies at one point. So she told our host sister that it wasn't un hombre, and my host sister responded by saying yeah, it's a girl, and her nombre is Circe. But we heard hombre again. This confusion went on for probably 3 more minutes until we realized what she was actually saying, and we laughed for a good 5 minutes nonstop. It really isn't that funny now that I write it out, but we felt so stupid. Good thing we're sticking with minor mistakes right now.

We've also had a ton of people come in and talk to us about getting sick. There's been one person from our group to get sick every day. My roommate was first, and lets just say she was violently ill for a good 30 hours. Not excited for my turn of that. Anyways, one of the people who came and talked to us had to tell us grimy details about getting sick. We were fine talking about until she said "poo-poo". I know, immature, but we all started laughing, like we couldn't control ourself laughing. It was so darn hilarious. I just thought it was great to see a full grown woman with super thick accent say poo-poo and expect us to just sit there stone faced. Absolutely not. Anyways, this is enough for now. Hasta luego.

Here's a few wall paintings describing the wars for Guadalajara's independence. This was at a old building in el centro de Guadalajara.

Here's the other side of the balcony in the gorgeous old building. The tour guide spoke super quickly and into a microphone making it obviously much easier to understand her. But what I got was that this building was from the neoclassicism period and held the history of the city.

Here's the sweet cathedral across the street. It's a leftover of the Spanish influence in Guadalajara. It was really beautiful inside... except there was a glass case containing a dead little girl representing a form a valiance during some war between the religious and non-religious. Apparently her father killed her because she wanted to take the sacrament. It wasn't that bad except you could see her rotting hands (she was wearing a mask).

Here's another part of the centro, there was a nice fountain and little girls putting stickers on you and then asking for money. If you didn't pay them they just took the stickers back. It was kind of sad.

Here's the view from my window.

Day 2 de Mexico

I've only been here for 24 hours and I feel like I've been gone for weeks. Guadalajara is crazy and I love it. It's not too different from a crazy day in NYC actually, but it's more congested here. The roads flood when it rains, there's a vintage Volkswagen Beetle every other car, and there are no such things as blinkers, seat-belt requirements, or traffic laws. Coming back from the airport there was a car next to us would have been pulled over so fast in the U.S. The driver was weaving in and out of traffic as the woman in the front seat had a toddler in her lap while other children bounced from seat to seat. And no one was wearing a seat belt. It really isn't that shocking it just makes my heart leap whenever I see a family just asking for death.

Anyways, I'll just get to the good stuff and tell about all the stupid things I've done so far, which honestly haven't been that good, but they will be. Yesterday we met our host mothers and chatted a little. I love my host family by the way. They talk really slow for me and feed me TONS of food. They own a panaderia (bread shop) so we get delicious pastries and breads. :D Well, Maggie (my host mother) asked me how old I was and having not spoken spanish in 7 weeks I just said what I thought sounded right. I said veintinueve (29) she looked at me funny and then my roommate corrected me and said no, we're diecinueve (19). I started off on a great foot (rolling my eyes right now). That wasn't a big deal really, we just joke about my age all the time now.

I also had a hilarious moment yesterday with the refrigerator. I have these pills for my typhoid immunization (which I procrastinated getting like a pro) and they have to go into the refrigerator. Granted they have been out of the fridge since 4am, so they're probably worthless now; but, I went downstairs super late after unpacking to throw them in there and as I opened the fridge I heard this freaky alarm noise. Then as I closed the door of the fridge it made the noise again. So I went to my roomie's room and told her that there was an alarm on the fridge or something because it made weird noises when i opened it. We kind of laughed it off and forgot about it. Then today during dinner I heard the freaky alarm noise but the fridge never opened. Then we heard it again and we realized that it was the clock on the wall and not the fridge. We laughed for a solid 3 minutes. Our host family was super confused at the random burst of laughter. I felt so dumb but it was hilarious nonetheless.

Well, I'm sick of writing. So in a nut shell, mexico is great. I haven't had a cheese encounter yet which shocks me, but I'm really glad. The food is amazing though. Breakfast was composed of fresh mango with yogurt, eggs with crazy spices in it, bean something or another, pastries and hot chocolate. They feed you tons for breakfast and lunch because they don't really have a dinner. Dinner is late and is usually composed of a piece of bread and a drink. Anyways, I'll post more silly stories when I get some, but in the mean time. Hasta Luego!