Walking's Free, If You Can Stand It

For the most part, the following week was much of the same thing. Up at 6, out the door by around 7, class by 8, leave by 2:30. My first class has 6 people in it, but my 2nd and 3rd are only 2 other girls, so I generally hang out with them during the day because every one else has class when we don't, and vice versa. Between classes we usually get our homework done in the hour break we have so that we don't have to worry about it later that night. We found a little cafe with a really nice guy that's always there working, and by now he knows that I'm gonna buy a chocolate muffin, and they're both gonna get a coffee. Cool little system we got. We also found a little spot next to the cafe with tables and benches made out of palettes that's pretty cool to hang out at, but unfortunately one day they re-finished all the wood and didn't realize it and so now I've gotta figure out how to get wood finish out of one of my pairs of pants. . . Besides that though, life there is pretty uneventful. Every once in awhile there's other Mexican students that we say hi to but that's usually not the case unfortunately.

For the first week, I met up with some of the other girls to take the bus to school, but we found that the bus timing is dismally unreliable in the mornings. Well, in the afternoons as well. Generally all the time late, never not late. After the first day of school we waited an hour for a bus to take us the 4 miles home we needed to go, so that was pretty dumb. I would've just walked but the roads are actually pretty scary. After a couple of days we decided that we'd just take a taxi home since that would be a lot quicker. The bus is 9 pesos, so about 50 cents, and a taxi was generally 110 pesos so about 6 dollars, but since we could split it and it would certainly beat waiting an hour that's what we did. After one of the girls in my class told her host mom how we were consistently late to class in the morning because of the bus she offered to take us to school in the mornings, she offered to take us as long as we would help with gas a little. So now, instead of walking to the bus stop in the mornings I walk to her house where I meet the other girl in my class so her mom can take us to class. It takes me about 25 minutes to walk there as opposed to the 10 minute walk to the bus stop but I don't mind, especially since Pokémon Go just came out and I have that much time to catch Pokemon on my way there. . .

Eventually we got tired of some questionable characters driving our taxi's so we decided to try using Uber, it was just about the same cost and 100% of the time clean and this way, the drivers actually wanted to talk to us since being friendly is kinda part of their job. So since about week 2 we've been taking Ubers home from school. The three of us have found some pretty cool drivers that way. Just last week though, we found a really cool guy who drove us home, and we asked if he could pick us up everyday since we liked him so much. Long story short, Fernando now picks us up everyday at 2:30 and drops us all off where the two girls live, and I walk home after that. He's not a part of Uber when he takes us home so we just pay him when we get out, but we like it a ton since he's kinda our friend by now. Basically, I've been making friends in the coolest and most unexpected places. The cool thing is even though I'm not making friends with every person I meet, most of the time the people I talk to are super nice when it comes to going slower when I need them to so I can understand, and when they hear I'm from Oregon they almost always tell me welcome to Mexico and that they hope I have a great time here. Not necessarily a big difference from back home, but it's still reassuring, and has definitely helped me get more comfortable talking with people here.

Come back whenever the next time I post again to learn about. . . I don't know yet. Haven't thought that far. There will be more though. Promise.

P.S. The picture this time is from the cafe place I talked about, its basically just a tent with some red tables and chairs next to one of the university buildings