Salsa Lessons

Last night was really fun. When I left the house I wondered what I was getting myself into, taking salsa lessons, but it was a great time (and I was a lot better at it than I expected!). The lessons were at a Cuban bar called Bodegita del Medio near Centro Magno. It’s a really cool old building with dark furniture and white walls covered in messages from past patrons in thick black marker. We either had to pay for the class or buy a drink, so I bought a mojito, and dedicated it to Jessica, Melissa, and Sarah!

First we learned the basic footwork all lined up in rows behind the instructor. I felt like I was back in a dance audition for some musical with the instructor adding new things quickly and me stumbling over my feet. I figured it out pretty quickly, though. Next we partnered off to practice twirling (yes, that’s a technical term). It was mostly CEPE people in the class but there were a handful of Mexicans, and Jessica brought her roommates too. Every once in a while the girls would rotate partners which made it even more fun. Some of the guys were really good and some were pretty bad, so I would get a little rush of excitement when I got to a guy who could dance (aka keep up with me). I got mini dancing lessons from the good dancers (step with this foot, hold my hand this way, twirl now). It was also fun dancing with the guys from CEPE and just get goofy with them. Every time I changed partners I would say something like “¿Cómo estás?” or “¿¡Estás listo?!” After two hours, the class ended and we all agreed to go out to a salsa club together soon.

I left the bar around 9, and as I was walking by Centro Magno I saw Linda, Ashleigh and Kristen (three girls from CEPE) going into the mall to see a movie. I went in with them and we decided to see Up in the Air (which is called Amor Sin Escalas in Mexico). We had an hour before the movie started so we sat in the food court while I ate a delicious Subway sandwich and they munched on the popcorn they accidentally bought too early. The movie was even better the second time around. It was midnight when we got out of the movie and said goodnight. Then I had to go home and do my homework. It was worth it!

Tomorrow I have midterms and then I'm going with a big chunk of the CEPE population to Barra de Navidad, a beach about a six hour bus ride from here. Most people are renting cars and going together, but we ended up having an odd number of people, so Minori and I are taking the bus together and meeting up with everybody at the hotel. We're all leaving right after classes so there will be a lot of beach equipment at CEPE tomorrow. It's going to be a good time!

Orozco and San Juan

Yesterday I went on another CEA excursion to the Instituto Cultural in el centro historic to see a mural by Orozco. Man, he was dark. It’s all about political and religious corruption, the coming of the apocalypse, technology as the fifth horseman, etc. Our guide supposedly spoke English but it was really hard to understand him. He kept moving us around to see how the mural changes depending on where you stand, which was interesting but, ultimately, succeeded in making me very dizzy since the mural is mostly on the ceiling.

After seeing the mural we went to the giant market, San Juan de Dios, nearby. It is so big that I’ve gone there three times now and I always manage to get lost. Even Cassandra (who is from Guadalajara) admits to getting lost in the three story maze of shoes, clothes, pirated DVDs, food, souvenirs, and hundreds of other vendors. I bought a tan, suede messenger bag to carry my school books in. A bunch of the other things the guy was selling had cool floral designs burned into them so I asked for a flower on the corner of the flap. The whole thing cost less than $12.

Today after school I hung around and chatted with Minori (a girl from Yokohama, Japan) about weekend plans. She loves to ask me about my time in Japan and my Japanese skills. She thinks it’s really funny that we say “itadakimasu” before eating, and “onaka ga ippaidesu” when we’re full. It’s fun talking to her because our common language is Spanish so we’re forced to figure it out.

Later tonight I’m going to meet up with her, Kim, Jan, Elan, and a bunch of others at a salsa club near Centro Magno. Should be fun since it’s 2-for-1 (dos por uno) night in Guadalajara!

This weekend is a three day weekend, so I'm going with a bunch of CEPE students to Barra de Navidad (a beach about a 6 hour bus ride from here). I'm excited but I have to figure out my transportation plans soon!

Sunday Sunday Sunday

I went and got my laundry around 1pm without any problem. It’s Sunday so I was worried about whether or not it would be open. I’m still not sure if it was open, but the woman was there and she beckoned me in and handed me a giant plastic bag with all my clothes folded inside. Everything was neatly organized; shirts with shirts, pajamas with pajamas, socks matched. I got charged double because I had so many clothes, so doing my laundry cost me almost $12. Next time I’m going to see if I can just get them washed and then hang dry them without her folding them and all that.

The rest of my day was incredibly American. At 2pm I went with Tyler to the Chili’s in Centro Magno where we met up with Kim, Jessica, Chevron, and Jan and we watched the Colts vs. Jets football game, but not really. We ordered drinks and teased Jan about being Swiss and about his crazy Friday night shenanigans. I’m not a football person at all but it was good fun. After the Colts won we decided to go to Hooters in Plaza Galería for the second game: Vikings vs. Saints. We crammed ourselves in a taxi and got to Hooters in time for the first quarter. We decided to pick sides and make a bet, whoever lost had to buy the other group drinks. It was Jan, Chevron, and me for the Vikings and Tyler, Jessica, and Kim for the Saints. We ordered a pitcher of beer and got a little rowdy (which prompted other Hooters-goers to get excited too) but decided to try a different place with a full bar, so we moved down to Applebee’s where we got a big booth right in front of the TV. We spent the rest of the game there, I ordered an ice cream sundae, we cheered loudly, and we talked a lot. It was really fun. In the end the Saints won so I owe them a drink, but we were tired so we paid and went home on the bus.

At Applebee’s there was a group of guys in the booth behind us also watching the game and we interacted a bit, cheering and smack talking. After a while Tyler and one guy got into a conversation and we found out that he worked for ESPN and he’d just gotten back from working in San Diego. Tyler asked if he could get us into anything for free and he said we could go to a soccer game. He handed out his card to all of us so I told Tyler if he actually got invited to a game I would go. Ricardo’s card had something to do with an energy drink and when Jessica asked him about it he said he would send her a free case if she emailed him. I don’t know why being in another country makes us more trusting of other people, but it does. We’ll see if any of this actually happens.

Don’t worry, I’ll be careful!

Laundry Adventure

I woke up very slowly this morning, pulling out of my dream and entering the real world simultaneously and at a glacial pace. When I was most of the way out of the dream I realized I was arguing with someone in Spanish. I don’t know what the argument was about or who it was with or even if what I was saying made any sense, but it was Spanish. I dreamed in Spanish!

Around 4 yesterday I decided it was time to get my laundry done. Here, there are Laundromats but the workers operate the machines and for a little extra cash they will do it all and fold your clothes afterward. I expected to just drop off my clothes and pick them up the next day. So, after a packed up all my dirty clothes into one of my suitcases and asked my host brother (Mani) where the Laundromat was, I was off to get my clothes cleaned. When I got there the woman told me there weren’t any machines available (which I thought was a weird thing to say), told me to wait, and went back to busily folding laundry and transferring clothes from one machine to the other. So I sat there for like ten minutes listening to a skinny guy and a Japanese student around my age converse in rapid Spanish outside the Laundromat and being thoroughly ignored by the woman. Finally I got up and asked her if she was going to be able to do my laundry today and she got an amused smile on her face and told me to come back at six.

At 6:20 Duke ran out of the gate in front of me and down the sidewalk. It took me a while to realize he was walking me to the Laundromat because he kept racing ahead of me and stopping to pee on things. When I got to the Laundromat the woman was still there folding clothes and she told me “Cinco minutos más, hija” so I went and sat down. I sat there for a good 20 minutes with Duke by my side, getting more and more annoyed because I was supposed to see Avatar at 7, and still being completely ignored. I finally got up and asked her if she was going to have time to do my laundry today or if I should come back tomorrow. At first she told me to come back tomorrow, but then she asked me which service I wanted and seemed surprised when I said I wanted the full service. What else would I want?? She gave me a slip of paper and told me to come back at 9 for my laundry but it was already 6:50 and I needed to get to Avatar so I didn’t bother to tell her that I wasn’t going to be able to make it.

Alice, Jonny, and I rushed to the theater but got there about five minutes into the movie. The theater was packed so the only three seats together were in the first four rows of the theater and I was not going to sit there. We split up and I sat in the back and thoroughly enjoyed it for a second time. After the movie Alice said she had to move to the back too because she felt like she was going to throw up in the front. Jonny stayed in the front and went the whole movie without his 3D glasses on, what a waste. It was cool to talk to Alice about the movie after wards because she’s an anthropology grad student at the University of North Carolina. Apparently, the movie has created quite a stir in the anthropology community. Look up Human Terrain Systems (HTS) and you’ll see some similarities.

I’ve got another day of nothing to do. Maybe there will be a second installment of my Laundry Adventures when I go to get my clothes later today. I don’t even know if they will be open since it’s Sunday. Here’s hoping I do something today!

Taco Stand

Yesterday, in the break between classes, I went with a bunch of the girls in my class to the taco stand around the corner from CEPE. I see it every day when I walk to and from school, always surrounded by people, and now I know why. It’s SO GOOD. He only makes one kind of meat (barbacoa) and adds onions and then he grills the tortilla with a perfect amount of crispiness, and the tacos were only 7 pesos each! The guy working there was funny; he is probably used to getting CEPE students, so he told us that we learn grammar at CEPE but we should go to the taco stand to learn real Spanish. I’ll definitely be going back for more tacos.

Ordering and waiting for our DELICIOUS tacos!


With lime and salsa added. YUM!!

What Now?

Last night Alice arrived at the house. She’s a new student at CEPE and is staying at the house too. Finally another girl! She’s a grad student/Phd. at the University of North Carolina and seems to speak Spanish very well. She’s in level 7/8 so I didn’t see her much during classes today but I walked her to and from school today and she seems really nice. Jesse left yesterday and didn’t say goodbye to anyone. I knew he was leaving but he didn’t say goodbye. Oh well, lose one housemate get another!

I didn’t do much today. After lunch I went up on the roof and read my travel book while catching some rays. There are so many things I need to find in the city now! There are some restaurants that sounded really good and some museums I want to go to. Apparently, Guadalajara is the birth place of mariachi music and the hat dance(?) so I have to see some of that while I’m here. I want to see if I can arrange a weekend trip to Oaxaca because it sounds nice and there are ancient ruins nearby. Ancient ruins! And I also read about some rainforest in the mountains where thousands and thousands of monarch butterflies flutter around you. I think it’s really far away so I guess I will only go there in my dreams. Anybody out there have suggestions for me?

I was supposed to go to a salsa club tonight with some other CEPE people but I’m going to have to back out because I feel really sick. Like an ear infection is in my near future. It’s the same way I felt in Thailand because of the difference between the extreme heat and humidity of outside and the extreme cold of the air conditioner inside. I blame this crazy, dry mountain weather! It’s freezing at night and in the morning but it’s hot and sunny during the day. I was up on the roof when the sun went down today and I could feel the temperature difference immediately. I hope the nights aren’t always this cold. My hands are freezing! Time to crawl into bed and read some more.

Off to Chapala

So, yesterday I didn’t end up just hanging around the house. Jesse’s friends, Lisa and Amanda, came and swept me up into their weekend activities. Lisa and Amanda stayed here when they went to CEPE five or six years ago, so they came to the house to visit with Tere and family. They are both social workers now and spend most of their days speaking Spanish so they are both really good. It would be very intimidating if they weren’t so nice. When visiting had finished they invited me to come along with them and their other friend, Miriam, for a night out so I grabbed my stuff and we left for Miriam’s house (about 45 minutes later. I discovered Mexican time last night too.) Miriam was part of the Amigos Amistad program when Lisa and Amanda were at CEPE and they have managed to keep in touch for all these years. She is really nice and outgoing so it was fun to have her there.

We went to a club called Suite. It was like something out of a movie. I had never seen anything so incredibly club-ish. We danced the night away, and I got home at 3am for the second night in a row and immediately conked out.

Today we all went to Chapala, but don’t tell Tere that because Rosi didn’t ask to take the car there before we left. Lake Chapala is the largest lake in Mexico, has the largest population of US expats anywhere in the world, and happens to be about an hour away from Guadalajara. It looked something like Santa Barbara, with a wide sidewalk next to the water lined with palm trees and vendors. We went out to lunch once we got there (around 3:30pm) at a restaurant on the lake. There were a lot of restaurants on the lake all squished together in a line with men outside trying to beckon us into nearby parking spots. Highlights of the lunch: tortilla chips with lime, salt, and hot sauce (pretty much the miracle seasoning of Mexico), watching the others pay to get slightly electrocuted by a cute little old man with a very old-looking wooden box contraption, and listening to Miriam’s brother sing along loudly with a scruffy guitar player to finish all off.

Let me explain the electrocuting further: Miriam’s brother saw the old man trying to sell his electro-therapy to other restaurant customers, got really excited, and started explaining to Lisa and me (in Spanish) what the old man was selling. After a few minutes I had pretty much figured out what he was talking about but I must have still been making a face because he asked me if I understood (“Entiendes?”) and I said, with a look of horror on my face, “Si, entiendo. Pero,¡No entiendo!” Then he flagged the guy over to our table and convinced everyone else to try it while I took photos and videos. The way it worked was the old man had a wooden box with a dial on it to control the current and two wires coming out of it, each ending in a metal rod. They all stood in a circle and held hands with one person holding one rod and another person holding the other. They stared with a very low current and then he slowly cranked it up. At some point it became too much for a few people and they broke out of the circle. The guys (Miriam’s brother and Jesse) ended up doing it alone for much longer (which I caught on video). The whole thing was very strange.

We got back around 9:30pm and Jesse and I fixed ourselves some rice and beans (with lime and salsa of course!) before saying good night.

My next assignment for myself is to find things to do after school since we get out at 1 and dinner isn’t until 8 or 9. I think I’m going to try the volunteer program offered through CEPE where we go to an orphanage every Tuesday and Thursday, but I still need other things to do. Mexico guidebook, here I come!