I'm here!

Hola todos!

Guess what. I made it to Mexico, and everything has been fantastic so far.

I’ll start from the beginning.

I was sitting at the airport in Phoenix, Arizona waiting for my plan to board. Pretty much everyone was speaking Spanish around me, and I was starting to get nervous about what I was going to do when the plane landed. But, a few minutes before we were allowed to board, I noticed a girl sitting near me pull out the same orientation handbook that I had. Turns out we have a class together. Her name is Kristina. We talked for a little bit before we got on the plan, but we were a few rows apart.

I actually ended up sitting next to a really nice older gay couple. One of them asked me how long I was going to be in Guadalajara when we were filling out our papers for customs. We started talking and it turns out that they have a vacation home in Guadalajara and have been coming here for the past six years. They told me about some of the restaurants around town and about some of the museums. They seemed to really love the town and the people who live here, and I was super excited by the time I got off the plane.

I met up with Kristina again in the baggage claim and she told me she was going to wait for her roommate because her flight got in about 20 minutes after ours. I decided to wait with her so she didn’t have to stand around the airport by herself. Turns out, my roommate, Kayla, was on the same flight. It was really nice to have someone to share a cab with on the way to the host family, especially since the driver got lost. We drove around the city for an hour and stopped three times to get directions. Luckily we paid for the taxi at the airport.

We finally got to the house around 5:30 and both Kayla and I were starving so Senora made us dinner. We had shrimp, vegetables, and soup that was similar to Mrs. Grass noodle soup, but it had some sort of salsa in it. It was delicious. She also made fresh squeezed strawberry juice. If you haven’t tried it, you should. It was amazing.

Our family is just Kayla, Senora, and me. Senora has a few kids but they are all out of the house and her husband died several years back. But, she has international students staying with her all year round. She is a great host mom, very accommodating and understanding. She can speak English, but will only talk to us in Spanish. It’s a little difficult to communicate, but Kayla is pretty much fluent in Spanish and has been a big help. I’ve been surprised how much I can understand.

Today, was our first day of class at ITESO. Kayla and I got up at 7:00 to shower and eat breakfast. We had papaya, toast, and scrambled eggs with ham and onion (just like mom makes them). We had an orientation in the morning then shortened class periods. First I had advanced composition, then multicultural small group communication, and Spanish guitar. Spanish guitar is taught completely in Spanish. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.

After class we went on a tour of the campus. It was beautiful. There are a lot of trees that I have never seen before with really twisty trunks and huge leaves. I took a few pictures, but I haven’t put them on my computer yet. I’ll post them as soon as I do.

After the tour we had lunch on campus. We had traditional tacos, with pretty much any meat or sauce you can think of. I’ve never had anything like it. The Tacos in the United States don’t even compare to the one here. They also had a mariachi band come play for us. They were all dressed up in matching traditional outfits and wondered through the picnic tables playing any song that you requested. I was really excited about the accordion player.

After class, Kayla and I both ended up taking a nap then going for a walk around the neighborhood. It’s not too much different from the neighborhoods in Racine. There are a lot more trees and a lot of different types of them. The houses are very square and brightly colored (orange, yellow, green, blue) but they’re about the same size and distance apart as home.

The crazy part was the driving. I didn’t notice it as much yesterday because I was so tired, but they really are nuts. There aren’t very many stop signs or stop lights so the traffic is pretty much uncontrolled and extremely fast. No one uses their turn signals and people honk…A LOT. We had to take a cab to school today because the bus missed our stop, and he was pretty crazy as well. We were driving down a highway on our way to ITESO and he missed the exit. Instead of taking the next exit and turning around he backed up down the highway in the middle of traffic like it was no big deal. Don’t worry though, everyone got out of our way.

Anyway, it’s almost dinner time, so I will have to write more later.

I hope everyone is doing well at home. I miss you guys.

Love,
Katlynn