And it’s down to only one week left in Mexico! I’m a little sad but am ready to head home! It’s hard being abroad and hearing about everything my family and boyfriend go out an do. I’m having a wonderful experience here but just always feel like I’m missing out. If only I could be in two places at once! Today my older sister is giving birth to her first baby and I’m so sad that I’m not there to see my first niece. But I will meet her in one week!

As I’ve been here I’ve noticed many differences between my culture and the one here. For starters couples, no matter what age, are very affectionate in public. Not something you see very often in the US. I have become more use to it than the first week I was here but it still surprises me. One professor helped me understand why by telling me that children here typically live with their parents until they get married so they don’t have as much privacy when it comes to relationships. In the US many children move out at 18 or go away for college and have more private time which explains why they are more open about it. Makes much more sense now!

The time here is very different also. Being late isn’t a big deal here and everyone is okay with that. Personally I find it very frustrating because I’m use to American time where it’s important to be on time or let people know in advance that you are running late. This morning some friends and I went to grab breakfast at a restaurant and it was a little crowded so we waited but they didn’t seem to be trying to hurry for us to be seated even though there were open tables. Not the worst thing in the world but when when that happens almost every time you go out it gets a little old..but that is just part of the culture here!

All in all week four was a little stressful as were all the others but I’m down to my last week! Three days of classes and then finals! I decided not to go anywhere with the group this weekend since it is my last weekend here. I just wanted to rest and buy gifts for my family and friends and hangout in the Centro. I love Queretaro and hope I can come back to visit after this trip!

Let’s talk about our trip to D.F! The capital of Mexico! Boy oh boy was that fun. I was on high-alert the whole trip because there are SO many people everywhere. It takes a little over 3 hours to get there on the bus we took. The whole weekend we visited museums and walked around a lot. I more or less enjoyed the trip! Just got a bit claustrophobic at certain points. I missed my Mexican family a lot…and we were only 3 hours away so I’m not sure what I’ll do when I have to come back to the states 🙁

One of my Mexican friends here invited me to hang out after school one monday so I said I could go! I had no idea we were leaving the state of Queretaro….we took a 2 hour road trip to Guanajuato…on a Monday…and I didn’t get home until about 9. It was really fun though! We talked in Spanish the whole day too so I got plenty of practice! This week is my first week switching into 300 level Spanish so we’ll see how well I can do! 200 level was pretty easy for me so I was pretty bored most of the time….

Ah, I can’t believe how fast this trip has gone, I don’t want to go home at all 🙁 Alright, now I suppose I ought to catch the online blog up with my journal.

So the first week three other students from WOU and I came down to Querétaro a bit early with Carmen Cascaeda, our amazing advisor. The first thing I noticed after getting off the plane was that the airport was not air conditioned at all. It was warm, a bit muggy, and definitely crowded. I also noticed that a lot of the advertisements were in English, or had English on them, and though there were signs, I don’t think I could have found my way to the proper spot without Carmen leading. The bus ride to Querétaro was only eventful in that there was a lot of traffic and the driver decided to take an alternate route which added and extra two hours to our trip and landed us in Querétaro around 1am. A bit late for already tired travelers. Actually, I can’t complain much because I slept for pretty much the entire trip. One thing that shocked me with the taxis and later with almost every vehicle I have been in- they don’t use seat belts here! Some cars have them (in working condition), but few people ever use them and that’s usually just the driver.

We eventually made it safely to our hotel- Hotel Señorial, which was a beautiful old-fashioned hotel in the heart of el Centro Historico.

The first morning we walked to a little near-by restaurant for breakfast and had our first taste of authentic Mexican cuisine. The orange juice was fresh squeezed, the coffee (café de olla) was the only coffee I’ve ever liked, and the food was delicious. I did notice though that the eggs had a lot of oil, enough to drip out when I put some in a tortilla.

After breakfast we walked to an indoor market that sold just about everything. It was really fun to look but we only bought a little bit of sweet bread (delicious).

After the market we went on a pilgrimage to find sunscreen, and just generally explored el Centro. Two notable occurrences would have to be talking to the guy at the Bernal sweets shop, and taking a tour of an elementary school. The shop owner told us stories about La Peña de Bernal and showed us the animals in the rock face which was really cool, and then gave us goat milk sweets which were like extra delicious caramels. The school was really neat- one of the oldest in Querétaro. The students weren’t there because it was the afternoon break time, but we got to peek into the classrooms and meet some of the teachers.

One of the teachers gave us her number, and we decided to get together later to go dancing. We also walked all the way to the other end of town to go to a viewing point form which we could look out over the city and see the arches. It was neat but it was really quite a walk.

We went back to the hotel to lay down for awhile, because we were meeting our teacher friend at 10pm and going to the Plaza de Armas (one of many plazas in Querétaro). The plazas at night were/are awesome.  There are lights and music and people everywhere. There are vendors and performers and children playing with flying light-up toys that I coveted too. We met some friends of our teacher friend, and then walked to the antro (dance club) from there. The first one we tried (La Mulata) wouldn’t let us in because Josh was wearing flip-flops and it was the sort of place where you needed to dress up. In the end we drove to a different antro called Club Latino where we got our first introduction to Cumbia. I honestly think it was one of the most fun nights of my life. I danced for hours and I may not have been very good but I definitely enjoyed myself. We didn’t get back to the hotel until 2am but it was worth every second.

Day two started with another delicious breakfast, this time a croissant sandwich for me and molletes (beans and cheese on bread; delicious) for Josh and Courtney.

After breakfast we went on a tour of the city on the trolley, and it was fun even though I only understood a fraction of what the tour guide said.

We even went and visited the place where Maximilian was executed by firing squad… yay?

We ate lunch at a place that we were pretty sure converted into a bar at night, and I had my first taste of mole which I hated (only food I’ve disliked so far, actually).

We spent the rest of the day exploring the city some more and catching up on sleep.

Day three had a calm start to it. I went to church with Quo friends and then met back up with the group in time to be dispatched to my host family.

My host family welcomed me warmly and I love everything about living here, well, except Leonin the dog. He is sweet most of the time but the first morning that I went into the kitchen to get some water before school he barked his head off and completely terrified me. Anyway, the house here is fairly similar to houses in the US, but it is in a very small gated community with other similar houses, it is more colorful, and it tends towards tile and painted metal.

The location is perfect because I’m in el Centro and only about a 15 minute walk from the school in the mornings. After I got settled in a little bit, my host mom and her daughter took me with them on their errands including two bookstores and Costco- I even got Costco frozen yoghurt!

Monday was the first day of classes… the beginning of the end if I’m allowed to be melodramatic about it.

My first two classes are spanish language in context (Lengua en contexto) which is mainly about the social, political, and cultural context of Mexico, and composition which is mainly grammar review and writing. The first teacher, Alejandro, was a bit intimidating because he put us on the spot and expected us to answer, which is not something I’d dealt with before in spanish. The second teacher Nadia is young and very sweet, but also has an excellent way of explaining concepts so that they make sense. she also writes words on the board if we don’t know them, which I really appreciate because then I know how to spell them, and it also makes them easier to remember. After classes we went to a restaurant and had a buffet lunch with all of the students and their host moms from session 2. The restaurant’s name was Las Monjas and their tortilla soup was fabulous. That night I went with a group of students from sessions 1&2 to college bar, which was a lot of fun.

Tuesday was my first day with ESOL class at La escuela de Gabi and it was very different that what I was expecting. All my classes here are small, but it’s one thing to have a new class be very different, and another to have a normal ESOL class be in a tiny little bare-bones classroom with three other students. The only equipment there in the room is a whiteboard and some desks. It is very different but it’s kind of fun that way.

Wednesday was Laurie (our resident director)’s birthday and so we had tres leches cake at la escuela de Gabi after classes. It was my first time trying that type of cake, and I’m a convert :).

Some observations from my first week in Querétaro: I was right about the cobble-stones, don’t ask me how I knew. I love the cobble stone streets and sidewalks. I have no clue how girls navigate them in heels, but they do. People dress up a lot more here, especially at night. I’m pretty sure girls are obsessed with their footwear because they all wear fancy shoes and at night they all wear deadly looking heels. I don’t think I would last five minutes in their shoes on these streets, but then again they all seem to have a guy to cling to. That’s another thing, couples are *very* open with affection here. It is a common occurrence for there to be couples making-out randomly anywhere any time of day, and no one bats an eyelid. It has been hard enough for me to adjust to the whole air kissing people’s cheek in greeting thing, but the rampant PDA kind of shocked me. Also, society here seems a bit more paternalistic than the US, and they definitely treat men and women differently. For one thing, in many bars and antros men have to pay a cover charge and possibly get patted down, but women do not. Men do many of the traditional gentlemanly things too, like opening doors, pulling out chairs, acting protective etc that aren’t very common in the US (wish they were). There is also a lot more smoking here for both men and women.

Oh my goodness! I’ve been so busy I totally spaced writing in this blog! I keep a journal though so I’ve been keeping track of everything I’ve been doing! I absolutely love my family here and I don’t even want to think about leaving soon. Let’s see….we’ve had a bunch of activities going on after school. We went to cooking class but that wasn’t at all what we were expecting because it was at the same restaurant where almost everyone got sick from the food. I did get sick. Went to the doctor when I thought I wasn’t feeling well and he said he thought I had appendicitis or maybe some ovarian cysts. I freaked out. I had to go get blood drawn for the first time in my life…in Mexico. But I’m fine! No appendicitis as far as my blood test goes! A couple days later I actually got sick from food poisoning so I just slept all day. I’ve met quite a few people here through my ESOL class and I’ve been hanging out with some of them and helping them with english! I’ll explain in Spanish and talk in Spanish and they’ll reply in English! It’s actually really fun for me to teach them even though it’s difficult! They’ve been telling me that I don’t even need Spanish classes because I speak so well and understand a lot which is good to hear! I don’t exactly agree because there are still a lot that I don’t know. We’ll see how the rest of this trip goes! I’m having fun though!

This week was very fun, but also very tiring! During the weekend (last weekend) the group and I went to Mexico City. Mexico City reminds me a lot of New York, everyone always moving, the city coming to life after dark, people dressed nicely… With saying this, Mexico City I would have to say was (so far) my least favorite place on this program. There was just too much packed into such a short time. My favorite place was the Frida Kahlo Museum, in my past Spanish Classes I was taught a lot about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, so to be able to actually see their house and their art work, was just amazing. The other place that we went to was Teotihuacan. This place was just amazing, the history that is held deep in the walls of the places and the work that went into creating these enormous structures was just amazing. Climbing the Pyramid was an amazing experience as well! I am just so overwhelmed with how nice the people are here and how willing they are to help you find where you are going or help fix the way that you said something, if it was wrong. Some friends and I got a little lost this last week looking for our school and we ran into this very nice man who was walking in that direction and was willing to show us where to go…later we realized that he miss understood us and took us to the opposite university, but it was still nice of him, and we also got a chance to communicate with another local! My uncle was here these past 5 days just visiting and that was so amazing! Im glad that he was able to be here, because his host was able to recommend places to eat and visit, giving me an advantage of knowing more areas! I also now have more friends in Queretaro, for future visits! Any ways its getting late here so this is all for now! 🙂