My first few days

I still can’t believe I am going to be living here for four and a half months. It hasn’t hit me yet that this isn’t a vacation. My flight went well, it was 4 hours. Then I had to take a bus, called Primera Plus, to Queretaro. It took about 3 hours. The bus was awesome. It was a large charter bus with big seats and foot rests. There was a movie playing (Marley and Me) and the scenery was unbelievable. Mexico City was very colorful. There were many vendors and parks. At one park there was a circus so the first animal I saw in Mexico was an elephant! The city is crowded and there are houses almost on top of each other. It is almost sad because it is a beautiful place but there was liter everywhere, even in the parks. Once we got out of the city we were mostly in the country. There were only a few cities and they were smaller. There were not too many houses in the country but there were many animals. I saw many stray dogs and sheep and cows there were roaming free. Some were really close to the road. There were also many tolls on the highway. At one there was a guard with a huge gun, it was kind of scary. The police we passed also carried the large guns. Once I arrived in Queretaro it was completely different. The city is huge and we you are driving in it looks almost like Greece. There are mountains surrounding Queretaro and houses are built up on them like in Greece. I arrived at the bus station and I got a taxi with my friend Amanda. We gave our taxi driver our addresses and he drove to my street but used Amanda’s number. So she got out thinking it was her house (I wasn’t going to question the taxi driver) and the owner of the house explained where her house was. So we were on my street at 48 and I live in 24. He went to the other side of town to drop off Amanda and then got angry with me because we were so close to my house before ( I tried to explain to him when we were on my street but he didn’t listen). So I tipped him well for the troubles and he was fine.

My house is awesome. I promise to have pictures soon. I have 2 bedrooms that connect and a patio/balcony off of one of them. My host family is wonderful. My host mom has been very patient with my Spanish. I’m not so good at understanding everything she says, and my responses are not always right and they take a long time. It’s taking a while to get used to. She took me grocery shopping today and drove me to my orientation at the Tec. She also drove me downtown (el centro). She wants to me know where things are so I can get to and from school and other places around the city. There is another international student that lives close to my house. He is from Pennsylvania and we plan on riding the bus to school together.

Today I went to the Tec for orientation with the other international students. I am registered for my classes and I am starting to know my way around the Tec. I met many different people from different countries which was really great. Tomorrow we have more orientation and we are all going out for lunch to a Mexican restaurant. The food has been good so far. I have had many ham and cheese sandwiches.

The best part so far was tonight. I got to watch CMU play in the GMAC Bowl and win. I was so excited it was on tv down here. It was in Spanish so I learned some football terms in Spanish. Great game and it helped with me being homesick!

If you would like to send me mail it cannot be sent to the house I am staying at. So if I gave you my address please don’t send anything there. I will email you the address soon!