Well I can now add getting stung five times in the leg by an angry scorpion to my list of Mexican adventures ( Read more... )

Whenever you go for a long time without updating, it usually means that there´s been a lot going on. I don´t know where to start. We´ve been on all kinds of trips. Well, actually just two, but between them I´ve been trying to write papers and meet new people and do all kinds of fun stuff, and oh yeah I had my birthday too and now I´m 20 ( Read more... )

Since the last time I wrote in this thing we´ve been to a beach called Guayabitos where I nearly drowned and Matt lost half his swimsuit ( Read more... )

I´m so shocked about New Orleans. It´s so sad! I almost considered applying to Loyola University, mainly because it WAS in New Orleans, and I always wanted to go there. Now it´s completely wiped off the map. That´s so hard to fathom. I feel so cut off. Amanda Szabo, the girl I´m staying with here, has family there. Luckily, they are all okay ( Read more... )

Things are so exciting around here. My school is kind of annoying, especially the fact that I have to write a ten page Business paper in Spanish, and find four sources for it. I barely know how to do research in my own language! And my school doesn´t even have a library, I have to go to one of the ones downtown. Stupid school, you would think ( Read more... )

I just had the funnest fun weekend ever. On Saturday, we hiked the canyon again but we went to a different part. The path was 3 and a half miles practically straight up and down. I couldn´t enjoy the scenery without falling on my face on the way down, and I was too busy huffing and puffing on the way up, but at the bottom we walked around and saw ( Read more... )

I moved in with my host mom on Saturday! She is a short plump woman with white hair who likes to make sure we´re all VERY well-fed. My host dad doesn´t really do much except watch TV in his undershirt and frown, but we talked to him and he´s actually a nice guy. Apparently he likes to follow celebrity gossip, even though he would never admit it ( Read more... )

Yesterday we had our first visit to Intercolonias, the organization where we will be doing a cultural exchange with Mexicans (as opposed to school, where we´ll be in classes with folks pretty much just like us). Intercolonias is an organization that works to fight poverty and other not so cool stuff. It is intergenerational, with members that are ( Read more... )

I´m so freaked out. I have no clue how to navigate this city. I´m just starting to get used to the idea that I´m actually going to have to know how to do that at some point ( Read more... )

Wow, Guadalajara is so much like San Salvador it´s crazy, but maybe that´s just my ignorant gringa worldview. Well it´s kind of overwhelming that I´m actually going to have to sorta kinda survive on my own in this big city! I´ve never had an experience like that before ( Read more... )