I'm Alive!

I made it! I’m in Guadalajara!

I’m sitting in my room after having eaten dinner, unpacked, and attempted to hit the bars with two other American students living in Señora Avila’s home. It’s an unofficial international house with at least three other students living here and two more on the way. I’ve met so many people in the last hour or so that I can’t keep them all straight. The attempted outing was with Paul and Jesse, two guys who are here for a short period of time. Jesse got here yesterday and I think he’s here for two weeks just for vacation. Paul got here on Tuesday and is here for three weeks with a bunch of friends during their winter term, so he invited us to come out with him and his friends but wires got crossed or something and we couldn’t find them so I decided it would be better to just come back and sleep.

I was absolutely exhausted when I finally got to the Guadalajara airport (understandable after waking up before sunrise and flying for hours and hours to a part of the world I’ve never been to). I met Cassandra – my city director -- a beautiful, short woman who greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and she me to a car that drove me to my house. The driver was very nice and we had a very Spanish 101 conversation -- ¿Cómo estas?¿De donde eres? Etc.

Teresa Avila greeted me at the gate in front of the house with a big hug and some more easy questions. Her dog, Duke (pronounced doo-keh), a little butterscotch spaniel of some sort also came to give me a few sniffs. Then my host mom led me to my room and made her son carry my bags (later she changed her mind and put me in a different room, making Paul and Jesse carry my bags). There is a two story courtyard in the center of the house and all of the students’ rooms are on one side of it with the kitchen and main house on the opposite side. The courtyard is open so right now I can hear mariachi type music coming from a neighbor’s party. After giving me a room Teresa offered me dinner (rice, beans, hardboiled egg, salad, and the best limeade ever!) and the other two joined a few minutes later.

Teresa (who only speaks Spanish) said she has been hosting exchange students for 10 years and that there are always students here coming and going. She said that when there aren’t students here she gets lonely, which is understandable because this house is huge. I can tell she’s been doing this for a while because all the rooms are perfectly equipped for students. My bedroom is giving me flashbacks to my freshman dorm with its dresser unit that takes up nearly one whole wall. The only difference here is that I’m not sharing a room and that there’s a painting of Jesus hanging above my bed (caption: Jesús, yo confío en Ti). I like that she calls all of us mi hijo and mi hija (son and daughter) too.

Tomorrow I’ll be dropped off at school at 10am for orientation and Monday my program starts. I can’t wait to meet the other people in my program!