Arriving in Mexico was crazy. After flying all night, speaking spanish to the lady at customs and being surrounded by a different culture and a different language was very difficult which makes me very grateful for the few days the other WOU students and I had to adjust to the city before moving in with our host families. Today I moved in with Laura and the first thing we did was have lunch which just so happened to be my favorite meal, spaghetti. Laura has two daughters, neither live at home but they visit and her mother is here often.

I am understanding more spanish than I thought I would and I know I will only get better as time goes by. I will start classes tomorrow but for now I have a chance to rest. So far I love it here and am looking forward to the weeks to come!

After our flight was delayed for a bit in San Francisco, we finally made it to Mexico D.F. I was told before hand that the airport was going to huge and that Mexico D.F. might smell funny from all the smog, but I was still surprised to see that those pieces of advice that I was given was true. I found immigration and the paperwork a bit intimidating, but I made it through without too much hassle. Most of the time there is a blur to me because I was so hungry and tired from our long flight. Next, we took a bus to Queretaro. Surprisingly, there seemed to be tougher security and screening to get on the bus than the plane at PDX.  Even though the bus ride was a bit bumpy, the scenery was beautiful and the seats were comfortable! Finally, we took taxis to our hotel that we were staying in for the first couple of days. Traffic is crazy here! I never would have believed that so many cars could fit into such narrow streets! We managed to make it all in one piece to the hotel and today I moved in with my host family.

My plane from PDX to SFO preparing for passengers!

On the bus to Queretaro!

Taxi!

Today is the day! I remember just two months ago posting a status on facebook about the numbers of days left until the big day and now I’m just two hours away from having to leave my house, parents, boyfriend, and my new kitten. I’m extremely nervous. I have been to Mexico before but this time its different. I’m not going with family, i’m going alone. Its been six years since the last time I made a trip to Mexico, so i’m super excited. I’m nervous about finally meeting all of the girls that are going on the trip. I’m nervous about the moment that Carmen will leave us with our host families. what do I do if I get sick? What am I gonna do if I can’t keep up with he Spanish? Yes, I know Spanish but I don’t think I know it enough. I’m nervous but i’m also very ready for this trip. I’m ready to take a trip alone and be able to choose what I do while i’m there. I’m ready to meet new people. My group members and the locals from Queretaro. Everything about this trip is exciting and makes me nervous but I’m ready to immerse myself in the language and culture. Bring on the new experiences.

-Anahisse Gonzalez

After hours of travel I finally made it to Queretaro! The city is beautiful and the hotel I am staying in for the first few days is very nice and thankfully has air conditioning. Today we went out to lunch and ate some delicious food, visited a church, and got stuck in a rainstorm that caused a little flooding…It was a great first day and I can’t wait to see what other surprises this city holds!

More pictures to come!

Ashley

Today I am leaving for Mexico! I am super excited to be a part of the culture and can’t wait to see what all I will learn during my stay in Queretaro!

Hi my name is Marissa Gowen and I am so excited to leave for Queretaro, Mexico next week!  I have been looking forward to this trip all year!

I chose Queretaro Mexico because I want to become more fluent in Spanish and I want to learn more about Mexican culture.  I look forward to getting to know more about the Mexican way of life and skills that will prepare me for my future.  I also am excited to meet my host family and I can’t wait to get there.  I chose Queretaro also because I a taking a ESOL/Bilingual class for my teaching major and I look forward to learning more about the struggles that Mexicans have when they come to the United States.  Lastly, I am excited to go because I believe that I will become a more worldly knowledgeable person and I look forward to telling everyone about my experiences and fun times in Mexico.

I think my host culture will be like what I have heard about what Mexico is like.  I believe that it will be hot and dry as I have been told.  I also believe that there will be a lot of colorful buildings and a lot of good smells and foods as well as that women wear more conservative clothing. Lastly, I think that my host culture will have a lot of extended families and small houses.  I see myself interacting with my host culture as a representative of Western Oregon and I will be kind and respectful towards everyone.  I am excited because I look forward to trying new things and being abroad in the first place.  I have been abroad before but I know that Mexico will be very different than Europe in many ways.  I am also nervous because I have never traveled out of the country alone before and I have never lived with people that I have never met before.  Lastly, I am so excited to live in another country.

Hello!

My name is Hannah Meador and I will be going to Queretaro, Mexico for five weeks this summer. I leave next week and I am getting excited for my first trip outside of the United States!

When it comes to my host culture, I am expecting it to be more traditional than what I am used to in the U.S. For example, I am expecting that traditions, such as gender roles, like women doing most of the cooking and housework, will be more prevalent in Mexico than in the U.S.  I also know that both family and extended families are important in Mexico. The importance of extended families living together is not emphasized in the United States, so there might be a difference of family roles in Mexico.

I think that I will interact well with my host culture, just as long as I am patient and polite. I need to remember to be open minded and willing to accept cultural differences that I will experience. I also need to keep my sense of humor handy and be able to make mistakes with grace.

Right now, I am a mixture of both excitement and nervousness for my trip. I am both excited and nervous because this is my first trip out of the country. I am also nervous that my Spanish won’t be as a good as I believe it to be, but I am sure that if I relax and pay attention, the language will come to me. Overall, I am excited to go to Mexico and experience a new culture, food, and make new friends!

Week 4 went pretty normally. Life in Queretaro keeps moving along, and another week is over. It´s weird how fast 6 weeks can go by. Week 4 is already more than half-way through the program, and only a couple weeks remain. I am not really ready to go back, I feel like I haven’t been here very long (I haven’t actually been here anyway).

Week 4 we went to a town called San Joaquin in the Sierra Gorda mountain range. The area was really pretty, but it wasn’t a great experience all in all. We went to a kind of resort with ziplines, rock climbing, archery, etc. types of things. We got completely ripped off, and everything was way overpriced so no one really wanted to do much after we learned how expensive it was. We all did the zipline, and it turned out that it was 50 pesos for one cable, about 10 seconds of zipline. That seems pretty expensive, even for US standards. In the US I’m pretty sure they would normally let you do all the cables after you pay for the zipline. It was pretty deceitful, and wasn’t helped by the low quality food they brought us for lunch. All in all, I think it was a learning experience for a lot of people in the group. It reminds me of why I don’t like to go to really touristy places.