A week complete!

I´ve had a full week here, and am going out to celebrate with a beer!
Tomorrow we´re going to a shrine to st michael. Two busses away in a tiny town.
I´ll let you know how it goes.
Thanks for reading my blog and commenting. You can email me now too, and I can respond. I´ve found a couple of wifi places outside of school.
More later!

My first week of school!

Well, it´s my first week of school completed, and I said goodbye to Gabi, my guide for the week. We change conversation partners each week to get a new perspective, but I had such a nice time with Gabi that I might request to go with her again. Today she showed me the way to the bus station for tomorrow´s trip, and then we celebrated friday with a beer. I had a Victoria, which is with lime. She had Michelada, which has spices and hot sauce in it.

A day in the life

My day begins early, which is quite a shift from unemployment! I get up at 6:30 to shower and get ready for school. At 7:30 I go down for breakfast, which is usually fruit and something else, like cornflakes or a quesadilla or a ham sandwich, and a cup of coffee. Then I go to take the bus to school, a walk of about four blocks. The bus costs 5 pesos, or less than 50 cents!
Driving here or riding the bus is crazy. People drive at warp speed, and there is no such thing as easing on to the brakes or the gas. Crossing the street is crazy.
It takes about half an hour to get to school. When I get there, I have about half hour to hang out, do email or blog before class starts.
Class is intense. There are two other women in my class, and we go from 9 am to 1 pm with a couple of short breaks. Today, luckily, I found the coffee shop so I can pop over and get a cappuccino, which costs about $1. There is no such thing as skim milk here.
At 1, we go to lunch. We can go to a vegetarian place or a Mexican place. Both are okay. At 2:30 we meet at the Zocalo (the town square) to meet our guides, who change each week. Then we can do what we want, conversing all the while, of course. I´ve gone for coffee, and gone to some churches and museums.
After conversation, I go back to the Institute for more email, blogging and homework. I head home on the bus around 6 or 6:30. At home, I do more homework, listen to podcasts and talk to Eduardo and Lorena, and their family if anyone is there. I have been going to bed early, because I´m so tired out!

Almost a week here

I´m here almost a week. It seems like the the time is moving slowly, but I guess I it´s Thursday already. Yesterday we went to Cholula, which is a church on top of a pyramid. It´s the biggest pyramid (by the size of the base) in the world. On the way, we visited two other churches in in small towns. The baroque Mexican architecture is something else alltogether. It´s ornate and then some, with elaborate plaster covered in gold and swirling around and around the columns. I'll look the word up for it and post it. It´s May, so the churches are full of flowers for Mary (Yay!) and smell terrific. There are all kinds of saints everywhere, because the Spanish thought they could get the indigenous people to abandon their polytheistic ways by introducing them to saints. And the saints have clothes on. Imagine St. Sebastian in a skirt!
As you can imagine, the statues are all really gory, especially Jesus. In one church we saw a guy gilding a picture frame, which was really interesting to watch. I´d never seen it done.
This morning our class went out for tamales for breakfast. I´d never had a real one, and it was delicious. Here the restaurants are one of a kind, like just tamales or just tortas (sandwiches). You can´t get anything you want to drink, either. We tried atole, which is a drink of corn and chocolate. Interesting.

If it flies in Puebla...

Turns out, Puebla is the Peoria of Mexico. The town is so traditional, that they say if something works here, it will work anywhere in Mexico. There´s lots of market research here. In fact, there´s a chain of coffee shops called The Italian Coffee Company, that I thought was a foreign chain. (The name is in English). Turns out, they noticed that people were going just for coffee here, and they capitalized on that, starting the chain. They also introduced the concept of cold coffee here. And now it´s huge. Go figure.
There are Starbucks here, but I haven´t seen one.

Talking about stuff

What´s interesting about being here is being able to have a variety of conversations that don´t appear in textbooks. My guide for the week, Gabi, is getting her degree in psychology and writing a thesis about women´s roles, so we´ve had some interesting conversations about marriage, dating, women´s roles here and in the states, and so on. It´s fun.

email and phone

Please don´t call on my cell phone. Apparently there is a surcharge here of $5 per minute! My email isn´t working, and I am trying to get it to work, please send messages on facebook and I can reply!
I miss you all, and can´t wait to post photos of everything I'm experiencing.

Settling in

There´s so much to talk about, I don´t know where to begin. I´m settling into the house, and finally today figured out how to take a shower without scalding myself. It´s amazing the little things we take for granted! I took the bus to school today all alone, and made it just fine. I hope I can figure out how to get other places too to explore the city. There are about a million museums and churches in the downtown area.

I´m here!

Holy smokes, I´m here! I arrived yesterday and after some confusion arrived in Puebla Sunday evening. The house and the people, Eduardo and Lorena, are really, really nice! I think they´re retired, and they have three grown children. The house is about a 30-minute walk from school. As you go from home to school, you enter the historic district. It´s really pretty, and I can´t wait to explore it. There are lots and lots of churches (natch), some modern, some colonial. Everyone is so nice! The food is different, and with all the walking, maybe less of me will come home!
Best of all, I´ve discovered that I can speak Spanish pretty well!!!!! I´ve been talking up a storm with Eduardo and Lorena, and pretty soon you´ll see this blog in Spanish too! The institute is really serious stuff; we have homework and everything. I´ve already had to write an essay to show how much Spanish I know.
More later! It´s time for school.

Almost there

It's really late--midnight-thirty--and I'm almost packed to go. My good friend Laura is picking me up shortly to head to the airport! Tonight my wonderful neighbors had a send-off party for me and it was great. All that's left is to get there. I should be in Puebla sometime tomorrow evening, and starting school first thing Monday morning. No time to be nervous. I am really fortunate to have so many wonderful friends and my wonderful family pulling for me that this adventure will be fun and fruitful as I look for gainful employment.

Keep watch on this spot for more news, and pictures of my adventures.

It's tuesday night, less than a week before I leave. I found out today that I'm staying with a couple who have grown children and grandchildren and own a business. The home is close enough to walk to school--17 blocks--let's hope they're short ones!

I still haven't found anyone to stay with Ella the cat, but my wonderful neighbors will help out and feed her. I hope she'll be okay. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't like traveling with me.

It's amazing how many little things have to be done before leaving home for a long time. I've spent my days running around on mindless errands, from buying cat food and light bulbs to getting my hair cut and a charger for my phone. Jeez.

Getting started

Here I go, into the future by revisiting my past. Just after my fiftieth birthday, I'm returning to Mexico to attend a Spanish language immersion program in Puebla, Mexico. I want to regain my bilingual status so that I can once again be able to do something that I love. I'm also hoping that this added skill will help me get a better job that combines using Spanish with my marketing experience.

I'm spending time now getting ready for this extended trip. Mostly I'm concerned about Ella the cat and how she will do on her own. Some people say cat's don't have a sense of time, but I'm not so sure.

Watch this spot for more notes as I prepare to take off in a week or so!