A True Love Story

Finally fed up with sitting inside the library, I pack up my things and settle down at a table outside the cafeteria. I've been enjoying the fresh air for about 10 minutes when the downpour starts. Students and teachers alike start running for the doors, but goddamnit, I just got out here! So I scoot my things to the other side of the table, under the protection of the umbrella, and obstinately continue to read my article.
After about 5 minutes, the entire outside patio has cleared. Except for one boy. We make eye contact with each other and smile, glad to find a kindred spirit who's not afraid of a little rain. I got back to my article.
Another 5 minutes later and I've decided it's a good time for a cigarette. The rain still hasn't let up, so I take the time to admire the trees and the sky and.. Oh wait, the boy over there is smoking a cigarette, too. We smile at each other again, and just like that, I think I've experienced the most profound love affair of my life.

Grindhouse

Have you watched the credits to Planet Terror? Seriously, have you?

Mr. Rodriguez's cook: Robert Rodriguez

And there's no way that's just a coincidence, because I once watched a cooking video starring Robert Rodriguez, talking about a sandwich he really likes to make. But why did he have to put himself in the credits as his own cook?

Still Alive, Part 2

Have you been following the news coming out of Mexico? If you haven't, don't worry. I didn't expect you to. My parents didn't know either. But it's important for you to know.

During the Mexican Independence celebration in Morelia, an unknown man lobbed a grenade into the crowd. It landed about 30 feet from where I was standing, drinking beers and dancing with a group of students and strangers.

I'm fine, but there are hundreds of people who aren't. Eight dead, over a hundred injured, and every one of their friends and family members in mourning. Not to mention the others in the crowd who made it out okay physically, but emotionally scarred.

I've been handling it pretty well, but when I've been sitting quietly alone in my thoughts for a while, invariably they turn to Monday night. I'll never be able to forget the blast of hot air that swept past us, and I've already noticed that firecrackers and other loud noises make me wince.

Mexican Independence here is a big deal, bigger than the 4th of July. Everybody is asking everybody else what they did over the weekend, and it's painful to see the way their faces crumble and the enthusiasm leaks out of them when I say I was in Morelia.

Still Alive!

But barely. Tuesday last week I came down with either malaria or yellow fever or West Nile Virus or AIDS or a very bad cold. I holed up in my bed, moved as little as possible, switched back and forth between hot and cold flashes, and ate no more than the equivalent of a small piece of bread each day. By Friday I was ready to climb out of bed, only to come down with actual cold symptoms (runny nose, etc.), intense digestive problems, and stomach cramps.

Sounds fun, right??

Yesterday I ate an entire tortilla with cheese and special sauce, plus a bottle of Coke and a several apples. Oh god, guys, seriously. It felt like a feast meant for a king.

So of course, tempting fate as always, I headed out early this morning with some other girls here for our kickboxing class. We're trying to figure out an exact schedule for our workout classes, and it doesn't help that sometimes they're cancelled with no explanation. Like today. So instead we went to the upper floor of the gym and joined the spinning class, and I think I spent more time watching the puddle of sweat grow under my bike than watching the teacher.

After, out of curiosity, I weighed myself on a scale and used the kilo-pound converter on Johanna's phone. Guess what! Whether it's entirely from my near-death illness or not, I've lost at least 15 lbs here!

I feel wonderful, but I think I need another nap.

My Bad

What can I say, really? There I was, enjoying a taco and a Pepsi with Amber and our new friend Roberto. Out of curiosity, both because I've slept only 3 hours total in the last 48, and because Roberto suggested that we hang out some more, I asked the time. Turns out, it was after 5am. Ooops.
Started the night out at Argentinian Ana's again, this time for the official Foosball tournament that occurs once every six months. They had a video on Youtube to introduce the players (projected onto a blank wall), an official Foosball tournament anthem, and team uniforms! Ana said it's been going on two years now, and honestly, I can't think of a better hobby to develop when it turns out the way these tournaments have.
I'm not sure when we decided to head to Wall Street. I'd left my phone at home, so in all honestly, the night went from 10pm when we left the house to 5am at the taco stand. The in-between time was good fun - the whole group of exchange students and their welcoming friends took over the dance floor, sang passionately along with Guns 'N Roses as well as less-known (for me, not the locals) Mexican ballads, and overall proved ourselves to be young and resilient.

"Futbolito". How cute!

Thursdays are fast becoming my favorite days here, for obvious reasons. It's the day of my literature class, which I stress out over and think I'll probably fail, but I love the content anyway. I'm done with the day by 11am, and then it's the weekend! Whatever I may do with the day, it's probably always going to end over at the Argentinian girl Ana's house, where they hold Foosball tournaments and prefunk before heading out to the clubs. This morning we made it home shortly after 4am.

A lot of the students here have been complaining about the disrespect shown in the classroom. Students leave to answer their cellphones, smoke a cigarette, or go buy food. The process involves saying goodbye to every one of their friends as they leave, and hello when they return. The professors usually don't say a word; they just continue on with their lecture unheard. And let's not forget the continuous conversations taking place in various corners of the classroom.
At least, this is what I've heard. My experiences in the classroom have been a lot less horrifying. Students still get up and leave regularly, but usually with a minimum amount of attention-seeking. Professors are vague about the homework, but it's not hard to ask for clarification.
But one thing I will agree on. The lectures usually contain about twenty minutes' worth of information in a two-hour lecture. I realize semesters allow for more time to cover the information, but come on! It's almost as if the students here expect the teachers to write their notes for them, holding their hands the entire time.

Time'sa Wastin'

I've noticed that everything here seems to move at a much slower pace. It takes an hour to get to school, classes more or less start ten minutes after the hour, dinner often lasts more than two hours, and even a simple task like getting a visa photo taken can take an entire afternoon.

Take, for example, today. My second day of classes. Upon arriving at the school, I discovered that my class had been changed to a different room. After asking around a bit, I found the room. But, of course, no one was there. So back I go to the office and find out, oh, not only was the classroom changed, but so was the day! There was little choice in the matter, so now my schedule is a lot less awesome and a lot more annoying. Anyway. I'd agreed to meet the Finnish girl (Johanna) after classes (which were supposedly in the same building at the same time), so I decided to take care of a few errands and walk around the campus some more. I ran into Paty a little later, so we spent the hour left walking around and chatting with various other exchange students. The story continues along this thread for a while, me running into other students and chatting, moving on, finding more people to talk to, until the next thing I know it's almost 2. I'd gotten to school at nine!

Of course that's not all. The second leg of the adventure took place off-campus for another 3+, which consisted of catching a bus, getting our visa photos, and walking maybe a mile from the photo place to our house. I was hurting like crazy because of various bumps and sores I've acquired in the last week, Amber was complaining about the walking the whole time, Johanna was too excited about her new Nokia phone to care about any of us, and Paty just plain didn't want to go home to her empty house.

So now it's 6, I've walked at least three miles today, and have nothing to show for myself except more blisters on my feet and a fading sunglasses tan.

I love this country!

I Know Spanish Slang

For breakfast here, we usually have fresh-squeezed orange juice. It was great the first day, absolutely refreshing and invigorating, but it's more like drinking orange-flavored pulp than orange juice. So I bought myself a big box of chamomile tea and went back to drinking two cups of tea every morning.

The day before yesterday I was stung by a bee. My toe has swollen up to twice its size, and when we got back from last night's party, I took of my tennis shoes to find a blister the size of a peanut M&M. Big and puffy and ready to burst. So I poked it with a needle, and now all the skin on my toe is shriveled and white and sick-looking. I think my toe's going to fall off.

As for last night's party, it was thrown by an ITESO student named Chuy. Some of the other exchange students showed up, but mostly it was local Guadalajara kids hanging out and listening to american hiphop (yeah Akon!). Everyone was super nice and friendly, and after a beer or two I loosened up, stopped being nervous about so many people speaking Spanish, and started joining in the conversations. Amber and I got quite a few numbers, both guys and girls, as well as more information about local happenings. Today, for example, they rent bikes in the park near our house. Main streets all over Guadalajara are shut down until 8pm, and everyone takes to the streets on their bicycles. How awesome!

Damn, school is far away!

Today was the actual orientation, rather than the fake one that I convinced myself existed yesterday. It was more or less interesting - no, I take that back. It was complete bull shit. The whole chat in the auditorium was the same stuff you hear whenever you travel - safety tips, location propaganda, and warnings about feeling depressed. For two hours. Finally it ended, and we continued to sit and fill out paperwork for our student visas. That'll be fun, since I have until next Friday to pay $100 (dollars, not pesos) to get a visa that says I'm allowed to study in Mexico. Even if I had prepared for this beforehand in Seattle, it still would cost me $60. I guess it's typical, having to pay large sums of money to the government while traveling, but I'm still chafing over it.

Okay, so finally, after four hours of eating up our time, they show us to the lunch. Bowls full of chili, hand-made corn tortillas, pico de gallo, more bowls of meat and potatoes. It was like Heaven, and all of us were getting cranky from low blood sugar and dehydrated. And you know what they made us do instead of eating?

Play a game.

Yeah.

Getting to know you games when the food is getting cold right in front of our eyes.

It was interesting enough. The idea is to work together, lifting and pushing and pulling each other one by one through squares of rope without touching the sides. Once two people went through every square, the rest had to go over the top! With 60+ people, it was chaos. For a few moments we all just stood there and cursed in our respective languages, threatening to just walk away and go buy food somewhere else.

But we did it in the end. And then we ate, and the tortillas and meat were delicious. Then I won a free ITESO tshirt, got my school ID, and started on the longest adventure home yet.

It took Amber and I three hours to get home, from going to the wrong bus stops to taking wrong turns, asking for directions from nearly every person we passed. We finally got back to the casa at seven. TEN HOURS after we left for orientation. Gloria had had dinner sitting and waiting for probably two hours by then, but she reheated it and commiserated and pretty recognized that it was a necessary evil for us to finally figure out our way around. And just in case we haven't learned yet, her son Diego is printing us off a few maps of the city right now.

Meanwhile, I'm not getting off this couch until the battery in my laptop dies.

Day One

As soon as I realized I'd be getting in to Guadalajara two hours later than expected, I figured my night would consist of getting to the hostel, throwing down my suitcase, and falling lovingly into a hard twin bed with only one pillow.

I got that last part right. The rest varied.

Turns out, even though I have very little confidence in my Spanish, I'm doing well enough to meet kind strangers at every turn. Maybe it's just the cute and slightly lost American girl aspect that's getting me by, but I don't think it is. My experiences traveling have proved again and yet again that strangers are generally kind hearted, helpful, and willing to try an adventure. One example would be the girls who drove me to the hostel from the airport. None of us had any idea where to go, and after getting off the freeway we spent a good thirty minutes going up and down one-way streets, on the phone with the hostel, trying to figure out where we were.

As for today, I spent the better part of it walking up and down the local streets, searching for various destinations. On no less than four separate trips I've walked a minimum of a mile each time, looking first for a grocery store, then a bookstore, lunch, and finally another bookstore. Later I'll be heading out with another girl from the hostel to find some form of dinner for under 20 pesos.

I'm really satisfied with the trip so far. I was afraid I'd be overwhelmed, or that I wouldn't find someone to commiserate with, or that Guadalajara in general would just be too different to get used to. And yes, there was a moment this morning around 9 am when I was walking through the freshly-doused streets, dodging spray kicked up by the speeding cars, when I wondered just what the Hell I thought I was doing, signing up to spend four months away from all my friends and family just to run around by myself while barely understanding the words being spoken over my head. But now it's 7 pm, and I'm a bit sleepy, and I have a giant cup of horchata to soothe me. Whatever happens next, I'd be terribly disappointed to have missed it.

August 11th is Here!!!

Alright guys, this is it. In two hours I'll be at the airport, getting ready to start the adventure. My parents just woke me up so I could say good-bye before they went to work, and now I'm doing the final packing for my suitcase. There are just a few last minute tasks to take care of, such as changing my voicemail message and mailing off insurance information to the university (shit! can you believe I waited this long?!)

See you in Mexico!

My Sorrows

So I think I'm cursed. I've managed to abuse and destroy every digital camera I've ever owned. Last Christmas, I got my very first and favorite camera. Two weeks later I dropped it during low tide into the water and sand, permanently scarring the lens. I coughed up the money to replace it, and went along happily from there. Then this spring, during one of our better apartment parties, the camera got dropped onto the kitchen counter from, oh, maybe a foot in the air. It never recovered. Since Mexico is coming up very, VERY soon now, I finally hopped to it and replaced the second broken camera with a small, lovely new Nikon Coolpix. It even came with a carrying case, so I wouldn't destroy it when I inevitably dropped it!

Instead it's either stolen or lost. One day it was sitting happily in the bottom of my purse, the next, I go to take a picture and it's gone. I really, really don't want to buy myself a fourth camera in less than two years. Unfortunately, I can afford it (but damn I'll be sore about it) so if it hasn't shown up by Sunday evening, I'm going back to Costco.

Current Events

Sometimes I like to catch up on the most obvious forms of corruption and deceit in our country. When the mood strikes, I turn to Don't Tase Me, Bro. Often, and tonight is no exception, by the time I reach the fifth or sixth entry, I'm ready to puke, hide my head under my pillow, or attempt to erase the entire reading from my mind. It's a challenge to confront those feelings, recognize what they say about my country, and try to reevaluate my opinions. While the experience is never enjoyable, I keep the website readily available. Reading about these dealings is the only way I can claim to be educated and informed. I can't back up my side of an argument without evidence, no matter how sick I may feel about researching it.

Passing Judgement

I'm officially declaring this summer as the #2 Best Summer of My Life So Far. With time, I might re-rank it up to #1, but I'll need some perspective first. I've managed to completely avoid stress, emotional instability, and severe boredom. In fact, even if it's a day spent sin human interaction, I'm still getting out and exploring the area and plowing through books. Basically, it's just been entirely relaxing, a time for me to fill up on good memories and warm sun and lack of responsibility before I go off and kill myself over the stress of living in a foreign country and not knowing the language.

Since I'm leaving Bellingham a week from today, I'm trying to pack in as much time with Irene as I can. We went out for drinks and fries yesterday, then finished off the night watching The Neverending Story. Today we spread a blanket and read books in the sun, baked a cake, found Super Mario's Taco Truck, and best of all, we raided her boyfriend's record collection and made ourselves a pile of old classic rock/blue grass/ country music to listen to. Right now Jethro Tull is showing off his fluting skills, earlier Bob Seger was telling me how I'm still the same, and up next Dolly Parten, EmmyLou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt are going to step up to the mic.

Transitioning

Very, very soon, this is going to turn into my travel blog. Traveblog? A little less than a month from now, I'll be in Guadalajara! Four months of living abroad! Okay, I know I'll get homesick and feel out of place and I might even be disappointed in it all, but right now, four months seems far too short.

To prep for my going-away, I packed up (some of) my suitcase. I think I'll be able to fit everything, but I also haven't done the real deal so who knows what I'll try to jam in at the last minute? The shoe corner is steadily morphing into a shoe layer, and..

.. and I just watched my neighbor across the street walk around her living room in her underwear. I feel like such a perv, except I put on the same show most nights of the week. Not tonight, though. In response to an achy sore throat and stiff muscles from all that swimming yesterday, I've curled up in my favorite rowing sweatshirt with a nostalgic Latin American novel written by Isabel Allende.

Anyway, Mexico. Coming up. Very nervous, very excited, kind of afraid to talk about it with people because it is just so BIG. and IMPORTANT. And I'm leaving so many people/ things/ relationships behind, I don't want to think about it all having an expiration date.

Home Sweet Home

Well! Being back in the Federal Way has been very, very nice. While I'm disappointed that Chanel never returned my calls (we're pushing over 6 months since our last visit), I've been on really good terms with Scott this time around. No fighting, no snarking, no yelling... The days when we can have a decent conversation, let alone tell jokes and hang out, are few and far between. Instead, we spent a few hours playing with my laptop's webcam, talked about books, and took Mom out to see Wall-E.

The other piece of even mildly interesting activity down here was the shopping trip Dad and I took to Fred Meyer. We spent a good 45 minutes dragging suitcases up and down the aisles, fiddling with handles, kicking sidings, checking seams, and of course comparing prices. I'm pretty sure I can fit and zip myself up inside the thing. Hooray!

Long Hot Summer

Coming home from work just a short while ago, I didn't take time to wonder what I would do with the evening. After a 30+ bike ride in the glaring sun during the hottest hours of the day, followed by four looong hours at a too-loud workplace, I was in no position to question my instincts. I simply acted on autopilot.

That's how I've come to find myself laying in a pile of nearly every blanket I own, head propped up by pillows, laptop resting on my knees, drinking a beer and preparing to watch Dexter until I fall asleep.

Finally!

After yesterday's woodland adventure, I've had an insatiable craving to get outside again and be on the move. Luckily for me, I moved my bike into the living room and pumped up the tires a few days ago.
So post-work, I took to the roads and did the warm-up loop from last year. You know, around through Fairhaven, along State, downtown and back again. I continued on down Old Fairhaven until I hit 32nd, then detoured for a glass or two of wine from one of my favorite redheads. It felt great to be moving, exercising old muscles, flying down streets on my little red road bike, and eventually climbing off and finding my legs shaking from the exertion.
I think tomorrow I'll run a mile or two on the track. What better time than now to rekindle my old loves?

Day Off (Sort Of)

Since I don't work until 5, and dumb Irene works until 5, I found myself with an empty afternoon. I took the time to finally clean the apartment, and after two hours of scrubbing and vacuuming and dusting and rearranging, guess what? I know it's clean, but nobody else would be able to tell.

We wrecked this place this year. Oops.

Home Comfort

Brent got a Wii about a month ago and never told me. (Granted, we don't see each other as much as last year.) He brought it home with him this weekend, though, and it's been mad fun playing it on our parents' giant plasma tv.

Right now is really adorable. We're behaving just like we did in high school. I'm on the couch with a book, Brent's doing his video game thing, and there's a laptop with a walkthrough set up for me to read to him when he gets stuck.