The first few days

Estoy aquí en Morelia. I’m here in Morelia. The day of traveling was long. We left Iron River for Chicago at 10:30 am, met Mandy and her parents for dinner, then went to the airport for our 8:45 flight. I was glad to have her to go through security and find our gate, which was changed every 20 minutes. Our tickets said M3, the screen said M1, and other students’ tickets said M5. Apparently, there was some difficulty finding a gate to depart from, which meant we didn’t actually leave the airport until 11 pm. Now, that means we didn’t actually arrive in Morelia until 3 am. The airport wasn’t very busy, so we got through customs quickly. But, two feet out of the parking lot, our van of gringos got pulled over by the highway patrol, who were trying to get a bribe from our driver, thinking he wouldn’t know the rules about trafficking gringos. By the time we met our families it was 4:30 in the morning, which means by the time I was in bed, it was 5 am.

Luckily, Sunday is the day of rest, so that’s mostly what we did. My host mother and I went to the market to buy chicken for dinner. We picked up some fresh strawberries and cream, too. Someday, I will take pictures of the market and put some up, but not today.

I like my host family. They are very nice and seem like good people. I live with Juan and María Carmen Frias and their son Carlos. The house is in a nice neighborhood, but it is kind of far from school and the other students. I’ve spent a lot of time with my mother. She’s taken me around and took me to school on the combis (little taxi/van/bus). She is friendly and patient. She makes me feel welcome but also that it’s okay for me to retreat to my room when I need to. I haven’t seen Juan much because he works a lot, but he’s nice and jokes around a lot -- he says I’ll have at least two boyfriends while I’m here. But, he also has a very calm and sincere aura that puts me at ease. I was worried having an older “brother” would be awkward. He’s 28, so it’s kind of weird age difference to me because he’s not my age, but yet he is close to my age group. He reminds me of my real brother in that he is kind and cool, has a girlfriend, is bilingual, and listens to techno music.

At school yesterday, we had orientation to learn about the school and the city. We walked around downtown and saw the basilica and a lot of other old buildings. Again, someday I will put up pictures. Later in the day we had “la clase de artesanías”… arts and crafts. We painted fabric and spoke a lot of Spanglish.

*These post will probably be a day behind, just for the record, because I write them on my computer at home, save them on a flash drive, and put them on the blog at school.