Week One: ¡Mi nueva vida!

Oh my goodness, where do I even start for the last 7 days??

Well, let’s start with Tuesday. On my flight from Portland, I got really thirsty, so I got my water bottle out of my backpack. It’s one of those with the straw that goes down the middle… If you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, as I went to open it up, it basically did this:

It exploded out of the mouthpiece and spewed water ALL OVER MY PANTS! 

It almost got my neighbor, too! I was so embarrassed! Haha.

Note to self: Don’t open a water bottle without de-pressurizing it when you’re 30,000 feet in the air… You’ll most definitely regret it.

That night at about 11 o’clock my flight landed in Merida. We drove home with my roommates and our papás mexicanos (our mama and papa!), then went to bed at about 1:30. Unfortunately I couldn’t sleep since it takes me forever to fall asleep in general, and the beds and pillows here are pretty hard. I just wanted to get comfortable... So I basically did this:

So I got a grand total of 2-3 hours of sleep that night, because we had to leave for school at 6:45 Wednesday morning! YUUUCK.

Classes really aren’t too bad. They’re only Monday through Thursday, and now my earliest class is at 9:15. Huzzah for sleeping in! :D I’m just taking 2 classes. One is just a regular Spanish class, and the other is a Spanish conversation class. There’s only three of us in each class, so the pressure’s on!! And it sucks because each class is two hours long. It doesn’t seem that long, but when your brain is on overdrive trying to translate everything the professor’s saying along with translating your own thoughts...
Yeah, I was just sitting there, brain hurting and wanting to sleep, thinking...

But here I am, doing this! It's insane!

Here I am at our University, Universidad Modelo:

Our mode of transportation here are the buses (los autobuses). Oh my goodness, they’re CRAZY! They don’t have a schedule. Really, we just have to wait at the bus stop til the right bus shows up. And the drivers are crazy! Sometimes they go super fast!

Here's the view from a typical bus ride:

Luckily we haven’t gotten lost yet! I’m glad that I always travel with my roommates though, otherwise I would definitely end up on a street corner crying, blubbering, “Necesito ayuda... Por favor, por favor... No sé donde estoy…”

Wednesday night our group went to the theater to watch After Earth. The program paid for it, so yay for free movies and a huge soda! It had subtitles in Spanish, so it was nice to be able to simply enjoy the movie without any translation going on in my head!

On Thursday our group went to Centro, which is basically the downtown area of Merida. There’s tons of shops, restaurants, beggars… a typical downtown. It was so great! We got sorbet and it was so delicious!

Yep, definitely going there again.

Friday we didn’t have school, so our group went to Progreso! OH MY GOODNESS THE BEACH! There was a nice breeze and the water was just fabulous! It's so pretty!

Some of us girls at the beach!

Everyone tries to sell you stuff both on the beach and in the streets. I can’t count how many times I said, “No gracias, no gracias.” Progreso is really great though. My roommates and I are planning on going there often!

Oh, and did I mention the food here is FABULOUS!? Mama is a great cook! She taught us how to make empanadas on Friday night! 

 My first attempt at making an empanada. What a terrible work of art... 

Don't worry, my second one was MUCH prettier, I promise! Hahaha

Saturday we went to some ruins called Dzibilchaltún.

Having fun at some ruins!

It was super cool! There was also a cenote there. Cenotes are little bodies of water underneath the earth that become exposed after the earth above it collapses. This one was more of a pond though.

There were tons of fish in there. It was so scary! They loved to nibble at your feet and it tickled SO BAD! 

Afterward we went to a bienvenida for our groups and familias mexicanas and ate lunch and swam in the pool there! 

Yummy in my tummy! Tacos al pastor :) :)

Sunday was mostly a day of relaxation. We went to church in the morning, came home, ate lunch, went to Centro to window shop at the tianguis (it's kind of like a farmer's market, but with clothes/jewelery/etc). Unfortunately the tianguis are only in Centro on Sundays, so we didn't buy anything :'(

Gosh, it's so hot and humid here. I'm pretty much sweating every minute of the day! 

Honestly I feel like I'm melting. It's terrible! But really, it could be a lot worse. It's just been in the 90s with 80-90% humidity. Elder Gibby is in temperatures of 120+! I'm lucky!

Speaking of Elder Gibby...
Things are going alright! They have six investigators that are progressing, all who are under the age of 14. I'm so happy for him!
He also reminded me that tomorrow will be 200 days down :) It's crazy to think about that! Yaaay!

So I'm thinking while I'm here in Mexico I might have to start posting twice a week. I skimped over a lot of details just to spare you readers from reading way too much! So I think I might make Thursdays my other day of posting for the next six weeks or so... We'll see!

777 Days Left! :)

Oh hey, that number's pretty cool!