When I went to walk across the hallway to the bathroom at 11pm, there he was, crawling in from the rainy outdoors. My senora came in and squished it for me.

This week went so much better that the last one. I finally have gotten into a routine and am not so homesick. I am also going into the city more.

We went to Mexico D F this weekend. It was a super fun trip but just way too many museums. There are so many other things I wish we had time to do! We also didn’t get to see the Leonardo Davinci and Michael Angelo. My one regret is that I didn’t take my photo with the golden wings. There a street that has each side separated by trees in the middle. When you go to cross the street, there are these golden wings made by a famous Mexican artist. People can step up onto these steps and take their photo as if they have those wings. It is a really cool experience to see all the people stand up there. The wings are called the angel of independence. I saw more by this artist in the Museum of Art in Queretaro this weekend and since then have been enthralled with this artist and his work. This was the first time I really felt like art “spoke to me”. I think that this is because it connects with people and is not just a solitary object to watch and not touch.

I had another first this week. I got my blood drawn. I am usually so healthy but I am just not getting over whatever it is that I ate to get so sick. Ends up my antibiotics are too weak. I am going to have been sick or on antibiotics for the entire five weeks of my trip. I found out just in time to have my blood checked again the day before I leave. I have learned two things from this experience. One is that my trust in God has increased greatly. I am in a foreign country taking medicine I have never taken before. I have been presented with so many decisions with such little time to think about it. I have just had to trust that I am doing what is right and that God will take care of me. I truly feel like He has. I am completely shocked that despite how sick I am, how little I am eating, and how much I am walking in the heat, that I still have energy and feel great. I strongly believe that if I didn’t’ have my faith, I wouldn’t be able to get through the day. I know that this is where God wants me and that I will learn so much from these hard experiences. If I didn’t have these hard times, I wouldn’t learn anything. Everything would be perfect and I wouldn’t have to turn to God for help. (James 1:2-4) Secondly, medical care doesn’t have to be expensive to be of good quality. Last week I went to a clinic and paid a few hundred pesos. This week I went to a doctor who works in relationship with a pharmacy and paid only thirty pesos. In my mind, the more expensive doctor would be right when in fact, she was the one who misdiagnosed me. This has taught me to not judge a book by its cover.

I have learned the same thing in my host mother’s house. I have been in about five Mexican homes so far and they are all rather plain. The furniture doesn’t match and the walls are usually white. Also, the trim is sometimes messy and the walls aren’t perfect. No one has covers for their lighting fixtures. All light bulbs are just hanging or mounted on the ceiling.

Yep, my friend the cockroach was in my shower. Didn’t have my contacts in so I didn’t realize that there was a dead cockroach in my shower the first time I took a shower at my new house. I am glad I decided at the last minute to wear flip-flops.

I did figure out the bus better this week. I take the 70 to and from class each day. It takes me about an hour to get to school and an hour to come home. When I have my night class I stay at school and work at an awesome café. I love Renov Arte Café because they are so nice and they play a lot of Christian music. It is comforting to not just have music in English but also music that I listen too. I think that since I am listening to music in English, I often forget I am in Mexico. I have spoken in English many times to the waiters.

I have been surprised at how much English there is present everywhere. Most people my age know English. People who are older know a little bit here and there. I am just amazed at how English and American culture works its way in to other areas. One Direction is constantly playing and everywhere I look I see a minion poster or trinket for sale. One thing that is funny is that since popular songs are played in English, they aren’t censored. I have oftentimes been shocked to find out that a song I listen to in the US is actually the cleaner version.

This weekend the whole group went to Bernal for the day. It was so fun! I was so glad to hike and visit another town. We climbed la Pena de Bernal. It was the hardest hike I have ever done. After the mountain/rock climb, we ate the famous gorditas. Gorditas are like a pita pocket made from tortilla and they fill it with many things. I got one with cactus and another with chicken.

This week was a really hard week for me. I missed my family a lot and have been pretty sick too. This week has been a good testing of my faith. I have to put my trust in the Lord. I am so mad to be sick while I am in Mexico but I know that God can help me through it. It has been amazing to see that I have enough energy to get through the day and have a good attitude despite how sick I am. I also had to change houses this weekend so that was stressful too. My new house doesn’t have internet which is incredibly hard considering how much I miss my family. I am a bit sad about these things but in the end I think it will be good because I won’t spend my nights watching Netflix or skyping with my family. Instead I can spend my time practicing Spanish with my senora and learning more about the city and culture.

I begin this post with this strange title because I am writing these a week or two late since I didn’t have wifi to post. About once a week, I have an encounter with a cockroach. I have never seen one before this trip. They are so huge and gross. They come into the house when it is raining, which is usually at night. I don’t know how they get in and I refuse to be the one to squish it. This is one thing I do not intend to overcome on this trip. Anyways, just thought it would be a fun way to title my posts.

I am so glad that I came down to Queretaro early with the WOU group. It was great to get to know the city and explore the center since I will be living outside of the center. We visited San Miguel Allende one day. That was a shocker. So many people and so many busses.

This week has definitely been a shock for me. I am looking forward to settling in next week and finding my groove. Sometimes, my experiences are so crazy and so shocking that I kind of just laugh. I took a bus home from school with one other student in my class. We knew we had to get off at an OXXO (like 7-11 store) but every single stop was close to an OXXO! We ended up not getting off and then all of a sudden the bus was going up a big hill and started driving faster and faster. We slowed down in this more sketchy area of town. We didn’t want to get off so we decided to just stay on and wait for the bus to come around. It was dark by the time the last person left the bus and we began descending down the huge hill. The driver turned off the lights inside the bus and we managed to explain to him where we lived. He gladly helped us find our stop. That first bus ride took an hour and a half. I hope to get a better hang of the bus system next week.

The WOU group.

In the downtown Queretaro.

I have finished my second week in Mexico, and I feel like I am becoming a lot more comfortable with my surroundings and the language. I spent some time shopping for souvenirs in Teotihuacan, and I found that for simple interactions with the vendors and negotiating prices I didn’t even need to think about what I was saying. We spent the weekend in Mexico City, where we were able to visit several museums over three days. It was a completely different cultural experience from being in Querétaro; the city is much larger, there are far more U.S. stores and restaurants, and there are many more tourists of all nationalities and languages.  Interesting side note: on our last day in Mexico City, a massive drug lord escaped from a high security prison in the same state as us for not the first, but the second time. Consequently, we got to see even more police officers around the streets than we normally would.

One of the most interesting things here is the rain. It has rained most nights that I’ve been here, but it’s usually only at night. When it rains, though, it rains a lot. The city also has very poor drainage and a lot of pitted areas, so walking around when it’s raining or even the morning after is like a massive and never-ending game of hopscotch. I’ve found it very interesting to observe how the people here react to the rain; if it starts raining, the streets rapidly empty, and it becomes almost impossible to find a taxi. They also seem to be very adept at reading the clouds and knowing exactly when it is going to begin raining; my señora has not been wrong yet, and people always seem to know when they should have their umbrellas with them.

I tried traditional mole for the first time while I was in Mexico City. I’ve only seen real mole in a few Mexican restaurants in the U.S., but pretty much every place here has it in some shape or form. The most common type is chocolatey and very sweet and spicy at the same time. One of my favorite parts of being here is all of the food I get to try; I grew up eating a lot of Mexican food, both homemade and from restaurants, but all of the apparent equivalencies I’ve tried here have been very different. As amazing as this is, it can be very overwhelming to have absolutely nothing familiar around me; even the ketchup is completely different. I feel like I have been experiencing a belated form of culture shock. I caved and visited a McDonald’s the other day, which was somewhat familiar and comforting and helped me to not feel so out of place; since then, I have returned to my previous excitement for trying new things.

On our way back to Querétaro from Mexico City, we took a detour to spend a few hours in Teotihuacan, where there are many intact and massive Mesoamerican pyramids. Pictured above is the largest pyramid there, the Pyramid of the Sun. It was amazing climbing over all the structures around the site; there was also another museum there where I was able to learn more about the cultural significance of the amazing pirámides. This was also the first day that I managed to get a very bad sunburn; even with sunblock, I hadn’t realized how high up we were and how much sun was getting through the heavy cloud cover. Regardless, it was my favorite site that I’ve been able to visit since I’ve been in Mexico.

I am almost half-way through the program, and I already feel like I have learned so much. I am so excited for the next half!