My First Bus Ride and Trip to the Centro

5:15 AM is when my alarm went off this morning.  Of course, I didn't drag myself out of bed until about 5:30 AM (even then, all I wanted to do was pull the blankets over my head and pretend I didn't have to go to class).  But, despite the sleepiness, I succeeded in getting up, dressing, and eating breakfast (we had coco krispies with milk).  Then we headed out.  We being MM (Mexican Mama), Christina, and I.

Because it was our first time going to school, our MM took us to the bus and actually took the ride to school with us.  (Which was very kind of her.  We would have gotten very lost without her).  So, we walked about five minutes to our 'bus stop' (I have air quotations with bus stop because they really don't have bus stops here in Mexico.  If you are standing by the side of the road and you see the bus you need, you just flag it down and get on.  When you need to get off, you just stand up and the driver pulls over and lets you off.  It's pretty great).  Then went to school (it was about a 15 minute bus ride).  We ended up getting off near the autopista (highway).  Then we walked another five or so minutes until we reached the school.  (Here are some pictures I took before school of the school)

There are such pretty flowers here!

Anyway, we arrive about 30 minutes early, so Christina and I explored.  Our MM just sat on the porch and listened to music.  Eventually, the other members of our group arrived, along with Profe Price.  Then we went to class.  First, we went to the Mayan Culture class (which seems like it'll be exciting!!).  The Spanish was sometimes hard to follow and I felt like my brain was going to explode, but I think the class will be pretty easy.  (I believe it was during this class that this huge spider skittered across the floor.  Only myself and Clare noticed - we totally jumped.  That thing was creepy!!  Luckily it didn't come near us).

It was after that class that we had a nice tour of the campus.  We got shown the library, printer place, and the bathrooms. As well as the pool (though apparently the pool is closed over the summer).  The school is SO small.  But apparently here in Mexico, the schools are seperated.  So, you have a college of medicine.  Then a college of nutrition.  Etc.  Which is why they are so small.  Luckily, the classrooms here have AC (which was REALLY nice).  And so does the cafeteria.

Anyway, after the tour, five of our group went to our class of 321 (or Advanced Spanish grammar).  The rest are in 205 (Intermediate Spanish grammar) or something like that.  That class seems like its going to be super awesome as well (we all sat in a semi circle.  And before we did anything, we did this exercise where we named five Spanish words about a person in the class.  Our teacher then put that in a website thing, and made one of these for each of us, using those words:

Bondadosa = Kind; Blanca = White; Aeropuerto = Airport; Yogur = Yogurt, Vestido = dress

 After that we went over class schedule, a poem, and all that good stuff.  After that, the five of us departed hence to wait for our mamas.  I ended up buying these from the vending machine while we waited:  (gummy bears)

Two of the peeps in our class got picked up by their mamas, but Conner, Christina, and I had to wait till 1:30 for our Mamas to return (our class got out at 11:15).  So, we explored a little.  Here's the picture from that (pretty right?):

 After a while, we ended up going to the Cafeteria to eat food and enjoy the AC.  And start our homework.  (Twas fun).

These are the papas I bought in the cafeteria

 Eventually, 1:30 rolled around, and after the other peeps from 205 got out of class, we headed home on the bus.  It was raining pretty hard when we got off the bus, so we were soaked by the time we got into the house (we = Christina, MM, and I).  So we changed, then had lunch (chicken fajitas.  SO yummy).  And then I took a nap.

About 5:30 PM, Connor, Christina, Scott, Brandon, and I braved the odds and the rain (or we were just being stupid, lol) and decided to go to Institute.  So, we hopped on the bus and headed towards the Centro (Central Plaza).  After a short bus ride, we got off, and spent next 45 minutes trying to find el Centro (which we did), then the Cathedral, followed by the LDS temple (all were on the way to the Institute building).

Let me just tell ya, when we found the temple it was SUCH a relief.  It just felt so comfortable there and relaxed.  There was such a sweet spirit there.  Anyway, we ended up going inside the church building and finding out that Institute does not start for another two weeks (*facepalm*).  But, hey, at least we found the building, right?  We ended up resting there for a few and using the WiFi (did I mention that it's nice that every single LDS church building in the world has the same WiFi password?  #legit).  Here's the pictures I took while we were there: (See how wet I look?  It was raining the whole time we were walking.  Luckily I had my umbrella).

 Well, after getting some directions from the gate guard at the temple (and taking our photo in front of the temple:

Left to Right:  Connor, Brandon, Me, Scott, Christina

...as well as finding out that the temple is closed for repairs until July 7th) we headed home.  It was much quicker this time.  The only hang up was finding the bus home.  But after asking multiple times for directions, and after calling our MM, we finally made it home.

It was then that we took off our shoes (and I discovered in the shower, while washing off my feet, that there's nasty little water critters that are kind of like centipedes, but not.  The kind that crawled into the shower were small, but apparently there are bigger ones that will bite you *shudder*).

Anyway, after washing up, we ate quesadillas with ham and cheese (SO yummy.  And people said quesadillas weren't Mexican food.  Pssh).  Then Christina and I got ready for bed and are (even now) watching Rapunzel (and I am crunching on my wintergreen mints).

So, yep!

That's it for today's adventure.  I would call it a #success for our #byuabroad :P

Hasta mañana!

R J Carr

Red Eyes, and Time Changes, and Layovers, Oh My!

Today was exciting to say the least.

One, because I am now OFFICIALLY in Merida.  Two because...have you ever tried to navigate the Mexico City Airport??  Talk about...exciting.  (But I'll get to that part in a little bit).

So, on June 23rd, I hopped on a flight for Atlanta at 11:45 PM with my good friend named Connor (whom I met in our preparation class prior to the trip - and boy was I glad to have someone with me on this 12ish hour trip).  Also known as a red eye flight.  For good reasons.  Let's just say, I managed to get about an hour and a half of sleep on a three hour flight.  Then we landed in Atlanta (here's the picture of the incoming flight. And my complementary blanket):

Here, as we hopped on a subway to get to our terminal, we ran into another fellow student on the same flight as us (her name is Claire - hope I spelled that right).  What's fun about our meeting is that she had been following us because we looked like we knew what we were doing.  What's ironic is we had hopped onto a train going the opposite direction of what we needed, so we ended up taking the long way around (what can I say?  It was 5 AM in the morning - though technically my body thought it was 3 AM, dern time changes).  Needles to say, we arrived at our gate eventually (much cultured from the history of Atlanta we saw as we walked to our gate) and slept.  On the tables.  In front of the gate.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Unfrotunately, I don't think any of us ended up getting any more sleep.  We eventually gave up on the idea and went and found a McDonald's (typical Americans) before boarding our next flight to Mexico City.

Well, on the flight, I watched Cinderella (the live action one.  It was all right.  Kinda slept through part of it), ate a ham and cheese breakfast roll, and filled out the paperwork for customs.  (That was fun, and slightly confusing).  After that 3 hour flight, we landed in Mexico and got to go through customs.  At first, we got in the custom line for the Mexicans (we misread the sign).  Luckily a Mexican walked up to us and was like, "Uh....this line is for Mexicans."  And you're obviously gringos (he didn't say it, but hey, I'm sure he was thinking it, lol).  So we shifted lines, made it through customs (the attendant there was pleased with my Spanish trying thing going on), got my passport stamped, then had to go through security (and also grab our luggage)...again.

This is where it gets dicey.  Apparently they randomized whose luggage gets checked.  Well, Claire and Connor got a green go after pressing the red button.  And I got a red.  So guess who go their luggage double checked?  Yep, me.  So I put my backpack and two suitcases on the lovely little conveyor belt thing.  And got another red.  So they had to open it up and check.  What's funny is the expression on their faces as they found the six ziploc bags of wintergreen mints.  The guy looked at me and was like, "Mints?"  And I was like, "Yes."  Definitely not drugs.  [Side note:  Though my freshman roommates would say differently,   Which makes this even better.  When I was a college freshman, I would sit and eat wintergreen mints like they were potato chips.  Normally I would do so when I was studying.  So one day, one of my roommates was like, "Are you just...eating those?"  And the conversation ended up with all three roommates agreeing that wintergreen mints were Rebecca's Cocaine].

Anyhoo, after all this, we ended up splitting up because Claire had to reprint her ticket.  So I went upstairs (I'd already been cleared else I would have gone with them) and had to go through security twice because I had water in my bottle.  Luckily, I didn't have to go all the way out.  The security person was like, "eh, just dump it in the trash" (I sincerely apologize to the custodian who had to deal with that trash bag).  So I finally made it through (basically winged it.  At one point one of the guys was like, "does anyone speak english?" because he thought I couldn't understand.  I understood, I just couldn't get my poor brain to figure out what to say).

So there I was, alone, trying not to look freaked out that I was alone in  Mexico City airport, completely lost.  (In the Mexico City airport, they only put the place of the flight, not the gate.  At least, for our flight that's how it was.  So looking at the kiosk, it said "T2" and I was like great....where's T2?  Because, on the different directional signs it only had the gate numbers, not the terminals.  *Sigh*).  Eventually, I ran back into Connor and Claire.  We ended up asking a flight attendent person, who gave us the gate number and directions.  The gate ended up being on the opposite side of where we were (of course).

After waiting around, and trying not to look too dead (see this here picture was taken at the Mexico City Airport.  I'm tellin' ya, three hours of sleep makes 12 hours of travel really, really, exciting):

We finally boarded the plane for Merida!  (On this flight, I watched finding Nemo.  And slept a little.  And tried to not panic over the turbulence and skidding as we landed).  Then...we arrived!  (The thing said it was 176 degrees Fahrenheit.  Luckily it was not that hot, or we would have melted.  But it was VERY hot and sticky.  Reminded me a lot of Missouri).

And our Mexican Mommas were there to greet us :)  We had to wait around for the rest of our crew to show up (for me, I just had to wait for my companion/roommate Christina).  Then Connor, Claire, and I parted ways and I left with my Mexican Momma and Christina.

We came to the house (I'll have to post pictures of that on another blog because I didn't take any pictures of the main part of the house today) and were shown our rooms (Notice the cool swan made out of towels, made by the maid):

And met the other members of the family - the husband and two daughters.  Then, before anything else was done, we ate.  (Some delicious rice, sauteed meat - I think it was lamb - and salad.  My stomach was not happy so I just had some rice and meat.  My MM [Mexican Mamma] said that if my stomach was ever upset to let her know, and then she'd make me soup for dinner :) )  Soon, a storm rolled in (it was AWESOME.  Like a true Missouri storm, except the rain was SUPER fine.  It was interesting) and cooled things off (which was nice).  And during that storm, Christina and I got acquainted with MM's two chiwawas (they were super sweet puppies, much different then my grandpa's chiwawa) and other dog (who looks like my dog Kip).  Then we unpacked.  Lazed round.  Went to the bank (Bank of America is awesome because here, I can exchange money with no commission fee at the Banco de Santender).  Showered (a cold shower has never felt SO nice).  Gave my gift to MM (a Missouri mug).  And headed off to bed (well, more like wrote this blog journal entry thing).

Special things of note:  

*Mexico does not have draining ditches.  So when it poured down rain, the street literally became a river.  The cars were passing through it and it covered the bottom part of their tire.  It's all drained now...but I have no idea to where).

*WiFi is awesome.  Because I got to tell my mom I was still alive despite not having cell phone service here.

*The bathroom door does not stay shut when the window is open and it's storming.  It blew open like, three times (well tried to, I caught it each time) when I was using it.  Luckily, it's just a private bathroom in our room.

*Mexican vendors roam the streets.  And even come up to you when you're parked at a red light.  (These are not the vendors with carts.  But vendors with fruit - which they carry in bags - or flowers).  They ain't scared o' nothin'.

*There are basically no official crosswalks in Merida.  Everyone J-walks.

*Mexico time = Missouri time

*Mexico City is HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Srsly, looking out the plane window, I was like, "this is the city that never ends..."

*My MM is a nice Catholic, and when I mentioned my Uncle David's passing she was very kind and understanding saying, "At least we know he is with God now."

Well, that's all for today!!  Gotta get up early for my 7 AM class (I am just...really looking forward to being up that early :P) Stay tuned for...tomorrow!

R J Carr

And So We Begin

Words cannot describe how excited I am to head out on this study abroad to Mérida, Mexico.  It´s hard to believe that I will be there in seven short days!  It is nice that, after two years of hoping, dreaming, and working, that this trip has finally become a reality.

I have started this blog so that I would have an easy way to share my experiences in Mérida with my friends and family.  At the moment, I am planning making this a daily blog (once, of course, I am actually in Mérida).  This is because when I come home from my trip, I plan on printing out my posts and getting the bound together to create a little memory book of my time in Mérida.  (You know, for posterity´s sake).

Here´s to safe travels!

R. J. Carr