It is always the first couple weeks in a new place that are the hardest: the lack of skill, knowledge, or in-person support I’ve come to rely on at home take their toll on my day to day life. Whereas at home I am very organized and efficient, generally knowing what I am doing on a day-to-day basis, here my routine is not so stable. It is Tuesday, do I still do yoga even though I’m no longer at my gym and have a to-do list a mile long? At home the answer was simple: yes. Here, not so much. Every day I have to choose how I will spend my time and things are complicated by the fact that everything takes a little longer because I am not familiar with the system here. So without my routine or close friends to comfort me, it is easier to feel discouraged and frustrated. So rarely, during the first couple weeks, do my grand adventures look anything like I imagined they would before I came.

Thankfully, I have a six-week study abroad experience in México to draw from, so I am able to more easily talk myself down from the ledge, understanding that what I’m going through is just a part of the process and things will come together in time.

So, this week I’ve spent my time getting acclimated to London, becoming familiar with the transportation system and getting to know some of my fellow students. Thankfully, Roehampton has an extensive social program, so getting to know other students has been relatively easy, even with my daughter tagging along with us. This past week, the study abroad office organized a “Photo Frenzy Scavenger Hunt,” which was an awesome way to get to know London and some of the other students. Going out with my camera was fun, but I was especially grateful to get to know another student from France, who seems to have some similar interests to me.

I’m looking forward to the start of term and some externally enforced structure to my day. My class modules have been selected and my classes look interesting. I am especially looking forward to my American Literature class: Reading the American South Through the Lens of Race, Gender, and Memory. It should be pretty great to get perspective on American literature and culture through the English frame of reference.

After so much traveling this past year, I’ve gained a little confidence in navigating unfamiliar territories; and, therefore, wasn’t too concerned about my arrival in London. However, it was interesting having to navigate the London Underground with my nine-year-old daughter, Sydney, and three suitcases in stow. Thankfully, many a kind stranger stopped and offered help, getting my luggage on and off the trains as well as up and down stairs. It was a beautiful introduction to what would become my home for the next 3 months.

Sydney and I made our way home, well past midnight, by foot from the underground. It wasn’t until well into our walk that I thought it might not be all to safe to be walking to our new home, dragging our luggage behind us, so late into the night. The reality was, I didn’t know the conditions or safety of our new neighborhood.

Yet, the streets were quiet and clean and I felt safe. We made it home with no problems, ready to sleep and rest after a 24 hour trip from the states. Sydney and I decided that after the busyness of our last couple months, we would take some time to recuperate and do our exploring later. So, instead of going out and about, we made a list of things we would like to see and do and made a plan for our upcoming weekends. We focused our time and attention on getting to know our own neighborhood and learning how to navigate public transportation, rather than exploring all of London.

It turns out, London transportation is quite confusing! There are different rates for buses, the underground, and the national railway. To add to the confusion, the underground has different rates depending on which zone you are traveling in and the time of day you use the card. All of the transportation is paperless, so you have to put money on your “oyster card” before you can take any trips. I tried figuring it out online, but once again had to rely on the kindness of strangers to get me through the task.

Also, figuring out the best way to do things is tough. I’ve had to go to a variety of different stores to try to find the most affordable one. Without any previous shopping experience here, it is hard to know what a reasonable price is. It has really made me aware of how much I rely on a variety of previous experiences to make everyday decisions. Without any background knowledge, even the most mundane activities take on a certain level of challenge. I am looking forward for the day that my activities are more second nature and I will be able to spend my energy doing more of the things I like to do.

¡Hola, compañeros!

Two weeks down and I seem to be coming out of the “adjustment period.” After an extremely disorienting week where I was bombarded by a new language, new customs, and new people, I finally feel like I’m starting to find my place in this beautiful country.

The adjustment, which began after a long conversation with a friend who is somehow always able to remind me who I really am, continued with persistent effort. It’s been important for me to make time for the things that center and ground me, the things that bring me back to myself. Coming to a new place, where nothing is familiar and there is no comfort zone to cling to, I’ve felt like it would be easy to lose myself in the abyss of the unknown. I don’t always handle change very gracefully.

Yet the tools work!

And sometimes, time just takes time.

With the help of my camera and a conscientious effort to remain positive, life has taken on a familiar rhythm. I’m beginning to find a new comfort zone, one within myself. In the mornings, I follow a regular routine. I wake up, brush my teeth, get dressed, and then go to the kitchen where my host mom has prepared breakfast. After a quick plate of fresh fruit and coffee, I head to the bus stop, where I will catch a bus for a meditative, hour-long bus ride to the university. Now when I smile at people, they smile back (or perhaps they always did… I hear attitude shapes experience, so who knows). I spend 4 hours in Spanish class and now when I leave, I don’t feel completely drained and like I need an immediate nap. In fact, I can talk in Spanish for hours and not get tired! Usually, I return home for comidas and then head to the local coffee shop to get on my homework. Sometimes I spend time in El Centro with my tutoras, touring the local art museum and learning more about Mexican history.

This past weekend the study abroad group took an eventful trip to De Jefe (Ciudad de México), where Murphy’s Law was in full effect. First, we spent hours lost in the pyramids of Teotihuacan and afterward some students got food poisoning from the chicken at a local restaurant (which is just one more reason I love being a vegetarian!).

That evening, we were unable to reach our hotel because of the protest that was blocking the doors. We finally made it to our hotel, but the next day, during a trip to the Palacio Nacional, one of the badges for our group went missing, and the armed guards wouldn’t let us leave! Apparently the badges are a National Security issue, (not enough for them to keep track of the numbers or anything, but enough for them to keep us trapped for an indefinite period of time). Eventually, after about an hour and a half hanging out in the jardín, they let us leave. I still don’t know if they found the badge, realized it was a miscount, or were just waiting us out to see if one of would break and admit we had thrown it away, but we were relieved and hungry!

After that fun time, we visited the Museo de Frida Kahlo, which one of the students missed because of a nice trip to the hospital to get 13 stitches after she cut her leg on a spear (Yes, a spear — another student had bought it as a souvenir for her family), and then, when the student finally got back from the hospital, our bus wouldn’t start. It was fun to watch a tour bus get a jump from a taxi. Ultimately the adventure, which started in frustration, ended in our laughter and complete acceptance that we just couldn’t control things.

So later that night when we couldn’t catch a taxi and had to walk home, we just enjoyed the walk.

It’s been a beautiful, messy, painful experience learning to let go and enjoy the ride; to let things be what they are and to learn to trust myself to handle whatever comes up.

I’m feeling ready for the next adventure!

The first day had been rough: overwhelming, exhausting. The second day seemed a mere extension of it.

Classes were to begin immediately and our host moms were to show us how to get to the university campus using Querétaro’s public transportation. We had to be at the campus by 8 am, an hour bus ride from our barrio, so we were up by 6:15 that first day. My host mom had prepared a simple breakfast of sliced fruit and hot coffee and handed me a sack lunch for my break at school. I felt spoiled having a person thoughtfully care for my every anticipated need. She made my breakfast, cleaned my dishes, and prepared my lunch. All offers for help were refused. My job was to follow along and learn as much as I could. I was again grabbed by the elbow and led out of the house with my house mom speaking what seemed a rushed Spanish, but in reality had probably been her slower version. It was all I could do to just smile and nod, follow along to the best of my ability, and say “Sí” when she paused and looked at me.

The language, the customs, the style- all were very different than what I was accustomed to.

But it was the bus that really revealed to me, “Brande, you’re not in Oregon anymore.”

Passengers are responsible to get the bus drivers’ attention by waving them down. If you don’t wave, they don’t stop. The drivers are always in a hurry, so dawdling passengers are likely to be left behind or required to climb on to a still moving bus. Because of this, potential riders are always seen rushing up the bus stairs with purpose. I learned: be ready, get on, sit down. Quick. Then: hold on. The buses are driven quicker than any other vehicle. Constantly speeding, they zoom around other buses, cars, motorcycles, and bikes. Lane marks on the roads are taken as suggestions, as all vehicles seem to go where they want, making new lanes as it fits their needs. It was like being in a constant game of “chicken” with several hundred other vehicles. That first ride, I envisioned a Frida Kahlo-like accident on repeat in my head. Yet somehow (miraculously??), we arrived in one piece, and were rushed to our first classes, the second-year spanish series.

Each day of my first week mirrored the first: busy, full, exhausting.

I felt ill-equipped to use my Spanish. Each encounter left me more exhausted. It was the interpreting, the thinking, the problem-solving, all in Spanish, that made my head feel like it would explode. The good-natured laughter at my ineptitude left me feeling all the more incompetent. To top it off, I felt regularly taken advantage of by taxi-drivers and market vendors who seemed to charge me more because I couldn’t speak the language well. Often, after a day of attempted connections that seemed to end in failure, I often felt more alone than the day before. Each perceived personal failure was added to an ever-growing pile, and by the end of the week I was so full of fear and insecurity I could see only a trace of the confident, excited woman I had been when I left home.

In this mind-set, tiny setbacks seemed to be insurmountable roadblocks. My first day riding the bus by myself, I missed the stop on the way home and ended up in a neighborhood I’d never been in (not that being there before would have helped because I couldn’t differentiate between landmarks those first couple days). After making my way off the bus, I had to take a taxi home (in which I was over-charged, of course), and, to make smash my ego a little bit more, had to deal with the laughter of my host mom when I got there. These setbacks, which would have been little more than speed bumps in my life back home, suddenly became stumbling blocks in which I seemed incapable of overcoming.

At night, when I was so angry I couldn’t sleep, I wrote it out. I found my part in all the mess, found the aspects of my situation I had control over. I realized I hadn’t put enough time or effort in learning the language before I came, so perhaps spending some solid time studying would give me some action to take which might getmy mind off all the stress. I wrote gratitude lists in the morning that sometimes only included the things I wanted to be grateful for because that I couldn’t muster any more positivity than that. I looked around for opportunities to be of service, even if only folding pamphlets at my local meeting. I practiced listening rather than complaining – and thank God I was only practicing, because that was definitely the hardest part!

Then, in what is the most recent phase of darkness I’ve experienced, a light appeared at the end of the tunnel — God did for me what I could not do for myself.

I talked to a dear friend, a person who has always seen the light in me, even when it’s buried under piles of resentment and bitterness. He reminded me why I’m taking this trip and the ways it will enable me to make the kinds of differences in the world that I want to see. He reminded me that these struggles are the ways that God shapes us and forms us into the people he needs us to be. He reminded me that pain really is the touchstone of spiritual (and emotional!!) growth. He reminded me of the fortitude I have inside myself that will get me through anything the moment I choose to harness it.

Bless him. Our conversation made all the difference.

We made a pact: both of us would enter the next day on a new footing. We had spent enough time struggling and growing, cursing and angry. We decided that it was time to go into the world as a light and be the people we knew we were created to be.

I wanted an adventure and that’s what I’m getting.

My mistake was thinking that an adventure is synonymous with fun. Sometimes the adventure is a learning process, and that can sometimes be painful.

I guess this is what studying abroad is all about: learning things about yourself that you didn’t know you didn’t know.

Things have begun to shift and I’m beginning to get the hang of the bus system, the language, the customs. I’m beginning to feel more confident in my ability to make it through each day with a little more independence. It’s still very touch and go, but I can tell that it’s getting easier and ultimately, I’m grateful for the opportunity to be out of my comfort zone, because I know that is where I will grow the most.

I arrived in Mexico City at 3 in the afternoon after 24 hours of traveling. To say I was tired does not even begin to describe the weakness in my arms and legs and the sting in my thoughts. Yes, it hurt to think. And now, my thinking had to be in Spanish, the language I’d been learning from a textbook for the past year.

I arrived and forgot the word for “luggage” – for “exit” – for “left.”

I was shuffled through the dingy airport, relying on the slightly better spanish of four other students I had only just met on the plane and the well-meaning airport personal.  They would ask me a question. I would respond with “Como?” They, perhaps realizing the pointlessness of repeating themselves would start using gestures or broken English to try to communicate with me.

I felt incompetent. I felt dependent. I felt lost.

I wanted only to get to my homestay and take a nap.

After a three hour bus ride from México City to Querétaro, we arrived at a brightly painted yellow bus station and hailed our first taxi. Three of us shared a ride and the cost was $50 pesos, or about $4 US dollars. Not bad! Then we got to our barrio. To take us to each of our homes, approximately two blocks apart from each other, the driver wanted an additional $40 pesos. It seemed a little unreasonable, considering it had been only $50 to get all the from the bus station, but none of us knew where we were or how to get where we were going. We were at his mercy. I’ve learned it’s common for taxi drivers to increase their price with foreigners.

My frustration at feeling taken advantage of quickly dissipated at my relief at finally being “home.” My “house mom” came outside, visibly excited at my arrival. We embraced, touching our cheeks together and kissing the air, as is Mexican custom between women.The house was immaculate and the decor simple. The dining room table shined, the pine green couch wasn’t worn or faded, and the plastic flowers laid on the floor in the walkway were perfectly arranged. I was shown to what would be my room for the next six weeks, sparsely decorated like the rest of the house. A picture of Mary hung above my bed, a small arrangement of plastic lilies and a cactus were on one bed stand, and an small glass lamp stood on the other. I would have my own bathroom, a shower and a toilet with a yellow rubber duck pattern on the seat cover. The house was clearly decorated with care, yet there was little consistency in style or pattern. With my unaccustomed, Americana perspective, it seemed cheap and stylistically ignorant, maybe even quaint. It took time to appreciate the time and care my hostess took in displaying and caring for her household items. Nowhere was there clutter, or even dirt. But, I didn’t see that my first day.

At first, it all seemed wrong.

I put away a few items, but was cut short from settling in to eat comidas, the two-hour lunch period where families join together for the largest meal of the day. We were to go next door to join her sister and nephew, who were waiting for us with another study abroad student. I sat on the couch with a young Chicana student who had family in Querétaro and advanced Spanish skills, both of us across from my host mom’s nephew, a gentleman in his late thirties who had come home to eat with the family. Sweetly, they had prepared a vegetarian meal for me, and I was comforted to be able to talk about literature in English with the nephew.

After food and awkward conversation in my struggling Spanish, with my study abroad peer often translating, I was finally able to make it to my room to unpack and rest. I had an hour before we were to leave and start exploring the barrio with the other house moms and study abroad students. Out of the house, my house mom held me by the elbow, determined to explain everything to me: where I could buy good chili rellenos, where I might have a pizza party, and when was the best time to go to the movies. It was clearly well-intentioned, a way for her welcome me and give me a chance to get to know my new environment, but the constant Spanish combined with endless new sights was overwhelming, especially with each of the moms grabbing me excitedly to show me something else or ask a question.

After an hour of exploring, we went home, and I was finally able to retire to my room and pat myself on the back for making it through my first day.

As I am slightly late in posting my pre-departure post, unfortunately, I will have to write this from the hindsight perspective. Thankfully, they say hindsight is 20/20, so hopefully it will still be useful.

Prior to departing for Querétaro I had little to go on as far as what to expect culturally. I’ve had many friends who are from Mexico and I am slightly familiar with their culture, but the majority of my understanding comes from the American stereotypical perspective, which generally designates itself as superior to all other countries. Because of that, I can’t help but expect to witness an increase in poverty. Also, I’ve heard many stories about how violent and politically unstable Mexico is, so I also expect to see people being more careful and reserved.

As for my personal feelings prior to departure, although I am excited to have the opportunity to travel and expect to have a great time, I also am leaving home for an extended period of time, and ultimately may not return when I’m done traveling. For this reason, I am incredibly sad to be leaving. It is hard to leave my friends and family behind for this trip. But, I have faith in my ability to cope, so I am not worried that this will disrupt my trip at all.

Hello! My name is Brandy and I will be (Am – Sorry, I’m late posting this!) studying in Querétaro, Mexico. The reason that I chose to study in Querétaro is because it is one of the few spanish programs that offers the entire second year spanish program in only one 6 week session. That probably sounds ULTRA-practical and gives little indication why I would choose to study spanish in the first place, so, let me tell you, I am studying spanish because 20% of my city’s population is spanish-speaking and I would like to be able to communicate with them. Especially as a future teacher, I feel that it is important to have a more in-depth understanding of the large demographic of people that I will likely be teaching.