Saturday morning we went to León. We had breakfast at 9 and then got ready to go. We took the bus from the Plaza Embajadoras, which is near our house, to the Central de Autobuses (bus station). We waited about 10 minutes for the bus, and then it took us about 30 minutes to get to the bus station. The city busses are not exactly in the best condition, and people don’t exactly drive safely, at least not by American standards. This seems to be the norm anywhere outside of the country though; I noticed the same thing in Peru and Spain. Another strange thing about the busses here is that the drivers let vendors and such on the busses. At one stop, first we had a guy asking for donations for some kind of alcoholism support organization, then there was a guy selling chocolates, then a man selling peanuts. It’s kind of irritating, especially because Saturday we just wanted to get to León.
From the bus station, we bought tickets to León, and then waited for about a half hour. The city of León is about 45 minutes away. This trip was better because they use what are essentially charter buses for inter-city travel and it was basically all highway. I wouldn’t say the ride was comfortable though because it was hot and the bus just seemed really dirty; none of us wanted to lean back against the seats. I talked a bit with the lady next to me. She had a three month old baby who was very interested in my necklace. She gave us some advice on where to shop when we arrived.
Right across the street from the bus station in León is a huge market with people hawking leather goods like boots and (faux-mark) purses. All the vendors kept yelling at us—Amigas, come in, come see our goods, try this on, etc. It really got pretty old after about a minute and a half, especially since every booth seemed to have the same things. We walked for a little bit and then found the Plaza de Zapatos, which is an entire shopping mall with only shoe stores in it. By this point we were more than a little overwhelmed. We finally figured out that we really had wanted to go to a mall called the Plaza Mayor, so we took a taxi across time and shopped there. I bought a few pairs of earrings, a dress, and a white pullover. It was super difficult to find any kind of sweater or sweatshirt or anything because León is a lot hotter than Guanajuato (because it is at a lower altitude).. it figures. I did find the pullover at Sears on our way out though so I was pretty happy about that. There were all sorts of American stores in León: Sears, Wal-Mart, even Sam’s Club. It’s just strange to see them down here.
We need to go to the Mega, which is the big supermarket here, within the next couple of days. We need to buy laundry detergent. That’s one big difference between our homestays in Spain and our homestay here—in Spain they did our laundry for us. Luckily the school has washing machines we can (pay to) use, so we don’t have to go to the laundromat, which would entail dropping our clothes off (something I am definitely not comfortable with!)
Anyway, back to the weekend. Saturday night we got back around 9, which was a lot later than we’d planned. After we changed and ate, we walked to the Centro and met Gonzálo to go to his party… which turned out to not actually be his party, nor a 4th of July party. It was more a party for Saturday, which just happened to be the 4th of July, which just happened to have a bunch of Americans at it. It was okay though. All of us were complemented on our Spanish, which was nice to hear. I also got to speak a bit of Portuguese with someone there, which was cool. I really miss taking Portuguese; I am going to look into being the teaching assistant again this fall for the introductory class. It will be a lot different without Susan. I do know Milton though; he actually took over teaching our Portuguese class for part of the semester my freshman year. So, hopefully being the TA for him will work out. Anyway. We were able to get to know some of the students from our school better, which was nice. We don’t really have much time between classes or anything, and what with taking six hours of class per day we have a more rigorous schedule than everyone else.
Sunday was election day here, and everything was closed. We thought that was interesting, given that things don’t close in the U.S. for elections. Additionally, Mexico prohibits the sale of alcohol from something like 10pm (?) the night before and during the entire day of elections. It’s kind of sad that that seems to be necessary here. I guess voter turnout is pretty low, and they think that shutting everything down makes it more likely for people to vote. So, Jaime, Amber and I basically did nothing all day. We ate breakfast, then Jaime and Amber napped while I talked to Charles for a while online. Luckily we have internet here (most of the time) so we’ve all been able to keep in pretty much daily contact with our boyfriends. Otherwise there would probably be some grouchy girls in this casita! We had lunch around 3:30, which was tortas—sandwiches made of nice fresh rolls (bolillos), pork, salsa, and avocado. They use avocado a lot here; I am really beginning to like it, even plain. Oh, and the guacamole is excellent! We made some last week in our cooking class; I’ll post the recipe one of these days (after I translate it!). Our house mom always tries to feed us way more than we want to eat; she usually tries (and sometimes succeeds) in guilting us into having seconds. She told us Sunday that she was NOT going to send us back to our families looking like mummies: “¡Aquí no hay momias!” She then told us that mummies belonged in the museum, not in her house, and that she was going to send us home muy cachetonas… that is, very fat-cheeked. Just what I need.
After lunch I fell asleep for a couple of hours, then we went for a walk because we were kind of bored. We didn’t really do much the rest of the night… although, my mother will be happy to learn that I ate a banana. I still don’t really like the texture, but I am getting used to them. I still think they ruin fruit salad, though!
This morning we started our second week of classes. This week we have grammar, two conversation classes, pronunciation and diction, medical terminology, and salsa dancing. I think we are also going to take salsa lessons at El Bar, which is the salsa place we went to last week. Going 3 nights per week for the next month is 320 pesos, which is about $25 USD. The exchange rate is pretty ridiculous—right now it’s about 13 pesos to one U.S. dollar. We finally managed to exchange the rest of our money today. We were so pissed by the time everything was said and done. The office manager for the school told us to bring traveler’s checks, that they were the safest and most convenient way to bring money, etc etc. Well, he was totally wrong. They have been nothing but a giant pain in the ass. We had to skip a class to go to the bank (Banamex) last week because of it’s hours, and then we could only exchange part of our money because of some limit. This weekend we found an HSBC in the Centro that is open until 5pm. So, after classes today we took a bus there (a clown got on our bus, by the way), we waited in line forever, and they wouldn’t change them. You’d think being a “global” bank (which we have in the U.S.) they would exchange American Express traveler’s checks, but noooo. So, then we walked a bit til we found Bancomer, waited in line forever, and they wouldn’t change them either. Apparently, they only exchange traveler’s checks between 9am and 2pm, even though they are open until 4pm. We finally found a place to change them (casa de cambio), so we did, even though the exchange rate was crappy. But, we needed to pay Rosario, so we really didn’t have much choice.
After that we came back here, ate, I fell asleep for a while, read a chapter in a book that one of the guys from school had loaned me (Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell) and then we went on a walk. We were going to go to salsa lessons but Jaime and Amber didn’t feel too great and I fell asleep so that didn’t happen. Annnddd then we just kind of bummed around. We had a little bit of homework, I talked to Charles and some friends from NMU for a while online, and then I wrote this monster entry. I probably ought to blog more frequently so that my posts are shorter.
