Its been many moons since my last blog, and as I have heard through the grapevine people are just itching to read the next chapter. Well, I have to apologize for the wait but it has been just crazy lately for me to get a chance to write my blog, and I apologize for this apology because that is not a good enough excuse. So now I will be sure to update everyone on what I have been doing here in Mexico.
The feelings I am experiencing now are more over-welming than I have ever known. It feels like two places have mixed to make up my life, and yet I feel that they are two completely different places that I can never have at the same time. As I near my date to return to the USA i feel that it gets harder to even think about leaving my friends and "families" here. I know deep down I will see the majority of them again, but the fact that I can't just call up Kike and talk to him for hours, or laugh for 10 minutes with Caro about nothing, or even try to translate the strangest words in English for Luis; makes me feel like I could lose the relationship that we have established in less than a year. More than half way through my exchange year I have made friends that seem like I have known forever. Despite this sadness about leaving I know that I will keep in touch and continue to visit Mexico. However it won't be the same, and although Rotary had warned me and I thought I had prepared myself - it still happened. I let my guard down and I met people that made me feel comfortable and let me be myself, while at the same time helping me mature and blossom. It takes a lot of guts for someone to put up with another that is finding himself. Therefore I thank my friends that I have made this year AND those friends that currently reside in the USA and have made an effort to stay in touch and listened to millions of stories. I also apologize if I don't seem to make sense, but it is a saying that Rotary has; sometimes only other exchange students can truly understand. Although this may be the case, I wanted to try and share at least a part of what I was feeling and try to include everyone in every aspect of being an exchange student (or at least my experiences as one).
When I left the last time I had returned from my best friends birthday party, the next two days Caro and I worked on the Kike's birthday present. It is a poster of our jokes and pictures of us that he can hang up in his room. After school we brought it to him at his school, and he loved it! We ended up staying and talking to him for a long time; later I had a basketball game and as Mariana and I were heading home we passed the circus advertising (driving the animals around the city in their cages) and I got within a foot of tigers, zebras, camels, and leopards. Friday all my friends from Tec and I met at Erick's house then we went to Velvet. Saturday Patti, Mariana, and I went to Moroleon, a nearby town that puts the tags on expensive clothes, and we walked about 15 blocks which were filled with JUST clothes! That night I went out with Kike and all of my friends from Valla to San Topez. Sunday I went to church with my family, and then met Kike because he had invited me to his birthday celebration with his family. I met some of his aunts and uncles and even his grandmother. His family is really crazy, so I fit right in. That is where my title comes in. Kike's mom explained to the family that not only do I speak English and Spanish but all the slang of Mexico as well.
Februrary 1st, and we had no school so Mariana and I spent the day lounging in the house, we even rented movies. The next day I spent in school working on my project on the USA and Kike came to visit everyone at Valla. Then Mariana, Mau, and I went to the circus, but it was horrible. We ended up leaving 3/4 of the way through because they had been beating the animals and we didn't want to support that kind of behavior. The next day, it had continued raining (2 weeks straight) so besides going to Immigration we didn't really leave our houses for anything but school.
We left for Mexico City at 3:30am and after picking all of the Exchange students up from all of their cities we headed to Mexico City; in reality Mexico City is only 3-4 hours from my house-it took us 11. We got three new exchange students: one from South Africa, one from Germany, and one from Austraila. I talked with Erin (from Austraila), Mackenzie from USA, Trinity from USA, Jenny from Korea, Robyn from Canada, and Fredi from Germany-and thus formed my group of exchange student friends. When we arrived to Mexico City we went to a mall to eat and hang out after the long bus ride. After we went to the hotel and finally got to shower before going out to dinner. On Saturday we went inside the President's house and even got to meet his two dogs! His house/land is the same size as Milford! Then we went to Six Flags for the afternoon. On sunday we didn't see Erin from Austraila (we found out later that her mother had passed away so she had went back to Austraila. Erin is coming back to Mexico very soon to start spend her exchange year here) then we went to Teotihuacan, which are the ruins of the Mayan civilization that first settled in Mexico. This is the story of Mexico and is the symbol on the Mexican flag: this ancient Mayan civilization were told by there gods that they needed to search for new land and they would know the land was there's when they saw a bird holding a snake in its mouth perched on a cactus that was on top of a rock! As you could imagine this would have taken a long time to find, and when they finally found this it was basically in the middle of a lake. But according to the prophecy this was there new land and so they proceeded to build on top of the lake. Later on the Spanish attacked a destroyed many of the structures-but what is still standing today we got to see! There are still a lot of remaining structures and you can climb most of them, one including the SECOND LARGEST PYRAMID IN THE WORLD (and we climbed it in 7 mins!). After a tour and looking all around we went to lunch and then returned to the center where we took a group picture. The final day of the trip we went to the famous Anthropology Museum and looked at the Mayan and Aztec exhibits; the museam is so big it ould take all day to see everything-so they only allowed us to see the two most important civilizations in Mexican History. After they took us to the Chapultepec Castle which has some of the most famous Mexican Independence murals painted right on the walls! It is also home to many very ugly paintings of Mexican leaders, apparently they painted leaders exactly how they were, unlike a lot of English Victorian paintings that made people look better than they were. We got Starbucks before heading home- I would like to take this moment to say that it must be a Rotary/Exchange student thing because everyone was craving Starbucks at the same time-it wasn't my idea to go. We got back to Morelia at 4:15 am and then Rocio picked us up and took us home. That following day was considered my catch up on sleep day, so I did nothing all day long.
Then I went to school and Caro got home from her visit to the USA. So that night we went to Starbucks with Kike and talked. The next day I worked all day in school on my presentation and we prepared for the Valentine's Day party that we were having the next day at school. After school Mariana and I went out form sushi and later Patti and I cooked brownies for the Valentine's Day party. We had no classes the following day, just a HUGE Valentine's party where people sold food and sweets and there were even dances prepared. The Exchange students were told that we were supposed to have something prepared, but they hadn't told us before I came up with the idea of getting two boys and two girls up on the stage and having the girls be the arms of the guys and get them to prepare some food for themselves and eat it-of course they prepared whip cream and jam covered crepes and every laughed when they got their faces covered. That night I went with Luis, Kike, Pedro, Caro and a whole bunch of people from my school to Velvet. We ended up having a lot of fun dancing around and just making fun of Valentine's Day. Saturday I spent the entire day with the family, going out to eat and talking. At night I went with Luis to try to go to Justine's birthday party- but she had lied to the security at the door and had way too many people inside so we weren't allowed in; it turned out to be ok though because Luis wasn't feeling great, but we did stop by Ego before going home. Luis is a DJ so he knows a lot of people in the clubs so we just walked in said hi to some friends of ours and then left. After church on Sunday we went to the movies as a family and we ended up running into Kike and his mom at the movies too. After Mariana and I went shopping for an hour or so before heading home.
Monday was a normal day at school, and after we ate I went to basketball practice. Later Caro showed up at my house and we decided to go to the movies. We didn't have school the next day so I got to sleep in. Mariana and I hung out all day and then that night Luis came over and we watched Mean Girls. Luis has friends from Canada and so he knows a lot of English-and now he is learning slag, so I have been teaching him little by little and we figured Mean Girls would be a fun way to learn some "American" slang. Caro presented the next day about Germany and after school we went as a family to an Ash Wednesday gathering. The following day I presented about the USA, NY, Milford, Friends, and Family (all in Spanish) and let me tell you, trying explain the Polar Bear Jump and Donkey Basketball in Spanish is a lot harder than you think. Then I went to my first host family's house to eat, and they had prepared my favorite meal! I went home later on and talked with Maru to get permission to go visit my exchange student friends in a near by town- Leon. She gave me permission so the next day I went to Immigration again before taking a bus to Leon. My friend Mackenzie's mom picked me up and Mackenzie and I met Trinity and Fredi at the mall. We had lunch then went back to our houses to get ready for a party that night (I stayed at Mackenzie's house). We went to a friends party and they introduced me to all of their Mexican friends, and to my surprise they all tried to speak to me in English! Of course I refused and spoke to them in English and they all complimented my spanish and said I spoke very well! It turns out that almost no one in Leon speaks good Spanish and so all the Mexicans just speak English with them. After 3 friends of Mackenzie took us to what they said was a new club, which turned out to be a joke. They had taken us to a gay club! It was really funny, but we didn't stay long. Saturday Mackenzie and I just hung out and then in the night we met up with the Exchange students before going to meet Mackenzie's best friend Andrea and some friends of hers. Then we all went to the most popular night club in Leon "La Nuit" and we met a girl from Austraila that had been an exchange student 4 years ago and had come back to study and ended up getting engaged to a friend of hers from Mexico (who was the DJ at the club)- and no, I am not getting any ideas! Sunday Mackenzie, Trinity and I went to Starbucks and then out to eat before I went home. I got to Morelia around 10pm and then went home to sleep.
The following week fell into quite the pattern: school, lunch, basketball, sleep. On Wednesday I met up with Kike and we sat in a cafe and just talked. Kike and I have declared the Wednesday is our "new Friday", which just means that we promise to hang out and talk every Wednesday night. For those of you that haven't noticed Kike is my best friend here and we literally are inseperable, he was an exchange student to he gets what I am feeling which makes it easy for us to relate to each other. He also is planning on studying engineering in the New England region, so we have so much to talk about. Thursday we were supposed to have a game but the other team didn't come, so Luis asked if I would stay and watch the boys team play, I did and then after Luis took me home. Friday I was really sick, my throat had been bothering me ever since I went to Leon- I had spent 5 hours or so in a house where everyone was smoking and it had gotten me sick. Saturday I had a basketball tournament and they really needed me so even though I felt bad I played two games then went home with Luis again. When I got home I showered and my whole family went to Patti's dad's ranch to eat lunch. I made plans to go to Velvet with my cousin, Mayita (20 years old), and when we got home at 8 Mayita had called and said she would be at my house in 8 mins. Luckily she said that we were going to her friends house to get ready so I just packed a bag and we left. We went with Mayita's friends and we ended up picking up Luis before going to Velvet. I met some of Luis's friends and we got to go in the DJ box and watch him play-which was cool. Then my other cousin Gustavo took Luis and I home. Finally, this week is following the pattern nicely: school, basketball, and meals. That concludes this hectic month, thank you and goodnight.
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