Culture Lesson

Well I am done with my second set of classes. Whoot whoot! They were a lot harder than my first set and I am still so confused about all these spanish grammer rules. It is like this.... Maestro de nivel 9: Well when you write you need to write like this but you will not talk like this unless you are really intelligent. Well I am not planning on writing novels in spanish as I can´t even write novels in English. Oh well I really did like my teacher for that class as he was cool and taught me a lot of noneducational things but interesting pieces of knowledge. I know know everything there is to know about the city busses because of him. I also learned a lot of politics in my culture class, funny huh. Basically culture was politics and history so I am glad that that class is over too. But get this. It took me like ten weeks to figure out this whole political mess going on down here and I can´t even remember how many people explained it to me. Finally I figured it out in Culture class. There are these two parties that are really close, PRI ( represents poor people) and PAN (represents rich people) and this year the winner, PAN won by .02%. Can you believe that. So basically they are recounting and recounting and both are saying they are the presidents. Guess we will see on December first because that is when they change. So I guess it was a good thing I took that class. What other pieces of knowledge can I share with you. For all you mothers that read this, down here the mother is the most important person in the man´s life. So when a man gets married his mom is still more important and has more say than his wife. On mother´s day down here the mothers get showered with gifts and it is a national holiday so no school. Education down here is GRATIS, aka free which is actually kind of sad that there are so many kids that don´t go to school. So if I become a mexican, which I am getting there as I have been eating quite a bit of chile lately, I can go to college at the UDG here in GDL for free. Oh... and for all you couples that read this when a man wants to ask a women to be his girlfriend he hires a marachi, which is a band, to sing underneath her window and so when you see a band coming down your street all the girls wonder who the lucky girl is. Needless to say I have had about ummmmmmmm five bands sing under my window. No no I am just kidding. Well that is your little clase on Mexican culture. Last weekend I just stayed in GDL with Emely and Amanda because Emely´s sister came to visit for four days. We were great tour guides and tried to do everything we possibly could in four days. On Sunday evening we went to a bull fight and that was really interesting. Basically they let a bull loose into the ring and get him mad so he runs into the walls and then the big man comes out and basically calms the bull down. He bascially knows that bull within minutes and can get it so he can turn his back and know for sure that he won´t get charged. Then they kill the bull with spears right in front of you. The point I think is to kill the bull in the least painful way. We watched seven bulls get killed in about two and half hours. The girls didn´t like it but I thought it was an art and really enjoyed it. It is actually really amazing. Although twice the bulls charged after the horses and I thought they killed them. That would have been sad. This week I have just been studying for finals and concentrating on school. We don´t have any plans for this weekend but will be staying in GDL again. There is always stuff to do here and I don´t doubt that we will get bored :) Well I hope you are all enjoying the winter that is coming in. It is getting cold here too, like high sixties so I know how it feels. Haha. Actually to me it is cold. Would love to hear from you all!

Beach Weekend

Well lets see. I went to the beach, had fun and now am back in Guadalajara doing school work. The end. Haha. I decided to make this one nice and short so for those that don´t want to read my nice long blogs, like you Michael, all you have to do is read the first couple of sentences :) On Wednesday I had my midterms and then I was free for four whole days. Actually I was really only free for one day because Thursday was a holiday in GDL for the virgen of Zapopan and then I skipped Friday. My teacher told me that it would be a good idea so at least I didn´t get into any trouble for it. We are allowed to miss three days every five weeks and that was the only day I have missed so far so I was due to use one of my days. We didn´t leave until Thursday afternoon though because Phillip had to work at the hospital. We left around three, we being Emely, Amanda, Phillip, Oscar and I. Oscar drove us in his car which was cheaper than taking the bus. We were a little packed but we all love each other enough that it was fine :) We did run into rain which slowed us down. I guess it should have only took about four hours but it really took close to six. It was nice to get out of the city and go through the mountains and through little towns. We first went to Barra de Navidad which is a beach in a really small town. It is very tranquilo, I can´t think of the word in english right now......... not many people there.... ummm peaceful. When we got there there was no electricity and it was pitch dark. We didn´t make any reservations because it is not the busy time yet and so we had to find a hotel in the dark. We did really good as the hotel we got cost us about $12 a night each and it was nice. Then we went out to eat and had a nice candlelit supper. We were all pretty much tired so played a couple games of cards and then went to bed. On Friday we got up went and had breakfast ( the hot cakes are REALLY good down here and a popular breakfast food is chilaquiles. It has tortillas, eggs, salsa, onions, tomatoes and a bunch of really good stuff in it. If you come down here you can try it :) ) and then we went to the beach. The waves were really big. Phillip was in heaven and sometimes I thought he was just going to disappear in them. They were really strong too as Emely and I found out after we got slammed into the ocean floor and got sand up our nose, in our eyes, in our mouth and basically everywhere. Basically after that just lying on the beach sounded like a smarter idea for me. The weather was ok. It was really humid but cloudy and it would drizzle on and off. The weather was like that all weekend but we all managed to get some sun. Bascially we just relaxed and by early afternoon it started raining hard so we went back and took showers and then went out to eat. We went to this restaraunt right by the beach and the guy there was really nice as he kept on giving us free stuff to try! It basically continued to rained so we just chilled out at the hotel and then later that night we went and walked along the beach. Emely got sick though so that was sad. On Saturday we got up and went to another beach Manzanillo which was about an hour away towards GDL. It is a much bigger town and the beach there was much nicer as the was more flat and the waves weren´t at big. We got a hotel there and then went to the beach and relaxed. On Sunday we hung out at the beach until about one and then went back and packed all our stuff up and left around two. We went out to eat and then left Manzanillo around three thirty which meant we should have gotten back around six thirty but since there was a lot of traffic and rain again we got back a little after nine. We had a lot of fun though and I was excited to get back to GDL as I missed it even after four days. I guess it rained here all weekend too. Just our luck. Actually it was probably a good thing that it was cloudy or else we probably all would have been fried. The last couple of days I have been working on my paper for my culture class. I am almost done with it and am excited as I am getting sick of it. We have finals next week and then have another four day weekend. Well I think I do anyway but the girls have one of their finals on that friday. We are thinking about going to Guanajuato which is supposedly a very pretty historical town about four hours away. This weekend Emely´s sister is flying in for four days so we will be giving her a crash course of GDL. We are hoping to go to a bull fight as those are going on right now so we will see. Supposedly if we dress up nice we can get good seats for nothing since we are Americans. Well I need to go home and eat lunch. Adios

October 6

Well this week went by really fast. I actually have been busy all week doing school work which has not been quite as fun! It is sometimes hard having classes that are only five weeks long because when I think I just started I realize that I am almost done. I have midterms next week already! Last weekend was my weekend to relax. All of us were really lazy and so I guess we deserved it! Basically we just hung out and played garbage which is now my new favorite card game. On Friday I went with my friend Leo to his friend´s house and we played soccer and let me tell you I looked like a fool. They play soccer really good down here and all I know how to do is kick the ball. We then grilled out and it was really nice to have a good juicy steak! That was baisically the only thing I did so yeah my weekend was really lazy. On Wednesday Phillip and I went to a salsa class at the gym we go to and that was another dumb mistake. Everyone in the class knew what they were doing except Phillip and I and people would come by and watch us and laugh. Oh well. It was really funny and I am sure that people didn´t even have to run to burn calories, all they had to do was watch us and laugh. Who knows if we will go again. People here are like born with rhythm and I am telling you I was not whatsoever. Today it was actually cold. Carlos told me that I am actually starting to act like a mexican because I wore jeans, a tank top, a long sleeve shirt, and a sweatshirt to school today and it was 65 degrees. Guess I will stop making fun of the mexicans in the states that always wear a ton of clothes. The rainy season I think has left so I am excited. The last couple of days we have had really really bad storms with tons of rain. At least it only really rained in the evenings. What really made me mad was when people would drive by really fast through the puddles and I would get soaking wet walking on the sidewalk. Yes that actually happens quite frequently down here. Well hope all is well back in the states or malaysia :)

More Adventures

I seem to be getting worse and worse about posting on this. I can´t even remember what I did this past week anymore :) I really enjoyed my four day vacation. It was well needed. On Friday, Emely, Amanda, Emely´s parents, and I went to Tequila which is a town about an hour away by bus to see the Jose Cuervo Tequila plant. It was very interesting as the whole town works for Jose Cuervo. It is kind of sad because will all the money that the Jose Cuervo family has you would think that the people could get paid more but they don´t. The plant was actually going through repairs so we didn´t get to see it up and running but it was still interesting. We got to try tequila that was illegal to sell because it was too strong ( the tequila that you get only after one session of distilation). It literally feels like your entire throat, mouth, stomach, is on fire. The plants that they make tequila from remind me of aloe vera plants. There are fields and fields of the plants. I forgot their name, maybe Tequila plant :) Emely´s parents enjoyed the tour and I think they enjoyed their stay in Guadalajara. They left on Saturday. Saturday we had some errands to run like go change travelers checks, go to Wal-Mart which by the way are really nice down here. They have free samples of EVERYTHING, EVERYDAY. Basically we go there to eat :) We then had planned to go to a Mexican food show and then go to the grito del noche in Talaquepaque but once we got back from Wal-Mart we were tired so we relaxed and then went to the food expo and skipped el noche del grito. It was basically the same thing we went to last Friday but in a different part of town. Each section has their noche del grito on different weekends. The food expo was interesting and I bought some really good Mexican cookies!!! On Sunday we went to Tonala, yeah the place we went to the first weekend when we got on the wrong bus. This time we went to the marketplace. On Sundays and Thursday there is a huge handicraft market and everything is really cheap. It is overwhelming but it was a lot of fun and we now appreciate Tonala a lot more than our first visit. On Monday we didn´t have school because the new kids were having orientation. I didn´t get a roommate which means that I have my big room all to myself for the next five weeks! We got a lot of new kids though. A lot from Europe. A friend of my family Freddie thought that I needed to work on speaking more, which is true, so I went with him and toured a bunch of schools in Guadalajara. First we went to the poorest school which is in the section called Guadalupe. There are about 14,000 10-14 year olds in that area and only about 150 go to school. Out of that 150 60% live with a single mother because the bandas, or gangs there are really bad and the women hang out with all the gang members and when they get pregnant they don´t know who the dad is. It is really sad. There is no way I can describe the living conditions. I would never guess that people actually live in some of those houses. There is garbage all over in huge piles similar to piles that we would go sledding down. After that we went to the complete opposite. We went to the richest school in town. Basically it is just like the schools in the US. After that we went to the school where Vero and Terry teach at. Freddie used to teach there and he was basically a celebrity when we got there. He told all the kids I was his wife and they thought that Freddie was pretty lucky. Haha. That school is in between. The number of kids that go onto college around here is really low. Out of 100 students five will go on to college and 2 will graduate and when they graduate they usually have a hard time finding a job. So the education system here needs some help. On Tuesday it was back to classes. I am now in a culture class and another grammer class. I really like my classes a lot. I don´t even have homework this weekend :) Wednesday I woke up with a stomach ache but by the middle of the day it wasn´t too bad so I continued to do everything I normally do. That night we went bowling because our friend Louisa from Italy is leaving today to go back so we were saying our goodbye. It was Phillip, Emely, Amanda, Louisa, Oscar, and I. Oscar lives here and has a car so we all shoved into his little car and it was tight. He claims that he has gotten 8 people in it but I find that hard to believe. Thursday I woke up really sick but I still came to school. My friend Nicolas was sick on Monday and Tuesday and he said he had the flu and a girl in my class got the flu on Wednesday and my teacher hasn´t been here today or yesterday so I think I got the Mexican flu because I didn´t eat or drink anything that would have made me sick. I did luck out because on Thursday our teacher didn´t show up so we sat there and I relaxed for like almost an hour before one of the students in our class decided that she wanted to be taught so she went and asked the head lady to come teach us for the next 45 minutes. I was so mad. Who does that. There is only seven of us in that class and two of us were sick and the others wouldn´t have minded sitting there. Well then I had to concentrate which was really hard. My second class is just lecture so that wasn´t too bad. I went straight home and went to bed. My friend Leo got my a bunch of medicine and my senora made me a bunch of tea and this morning I woke up and didn´t feel all that bad so hopefully I am over it. I really don´t know what I am doing this weekend but am sure I will find something to do. One big difference between here and the states is that people never plan very far in advance and people hardly ever talk about what they are going to do and if they do they always say if god allows me to. It has to do with their religious beliefs. So I have learned not to tell all my plans to the locals because they think I am crazy.