¡cuernavaca!

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wow. so, here i am, studying abroad.

there´s no better way to do this than to just dive in and explain what´s going on and how i got here!

yesterday morning, leslee and i left our hotel in charlotte and headed to the airport. we met up with our group and got on the plane to mexico city!! as soon as we got there, it was a lot of hurry up and wait, as most trips are.. we went through immigration fine, but in customs, i pushed the button and got a red screen, which means they had to go through my bag. it was a little confusing, but everything went fine.

for the rest of the day, i battled my luggage (and lost, most of the time)... but you need a bunch of stuff when you´re traveling for a month and a half! anyway.. finding something to eat at the airport was a challenge for leslee and me. there was an abundance of hamburgers.. but we were determined to not have our first meal in mexico be from mcdonald´s or subway. we eventually found a place, and i decided to get a ¨gringa¨ which literally means a white girl. hah. oh well. i got a gringa del pollo (chicken) and it was just basically a quesadilla with chicken in it. it was amazing, and i bought a banana, too. i was pretty scared about mexican food, but so far its been just fine!

we took a really long bus ride through the mountains to get to cuernavaca from mexico city, then onward in a taxi to the universidad internacional to meet our families. leslee, me, and another girl named lauren are living in the same house with married couple, ignacio and ernestina. they are precious! they are grandparents, and are so excited to have kids in the house again. we each have a separate room, which is amazing. their house is really nice.

they also have a doggie! i forget his name in spanish, but it means something like ¨big cheeks¨... i´m not really sure. anyway, he lives on the roof. its true. their house is kind of on the side of a mountain, (you have to walk down a flight of stairs to get to the main level... that was fun with our gigantic suitcases!) so, the dog lives on the roof. he likes to poke his head into my window. he´s pretty great 😊

the food that our mexican mother cooks is wonderful. and she loves talking to us. neither of our mexican parents know english, so we struggle through our spanish, and they help us out by talking slowly and supplying words. its tough, but fun 😊

life is a little different here - a lot more simple, as leslee said. it gives us a lot of time to just talk in spanish and relax, a little. when we´re not whisked away on excursions or in tons of class!! they also eat at different times. breakfast at 7 (before class at 8).. ¨la comida¨which is a big meal, between 2 and 4, then dinner at 8 or 9. also.. so far our showers have not been exactly warm, so that´s tough hehe. oh well.

i am not sure how often i´ll be able to write on here. there is an internet café near our home, but there´s only 3 computers there so its doubtful that we can get one. i assume i´ll be able to do so when i´m at the universidad (which is where i am, now)... but PLEASE leave me comments, facebook wallposts, and all sorts of stuff. a huge challenge so far has been trying to figure out the phone system. i can recieve calls on my cell phone but i can´t make them. and phone cards aren´t working.

so yes. life in mexico is tough, simple, and very different. but i think its gonna be good 😊

this weekend we´re going to take a bus tour of cuernavaca, and go to taxco and tepoztlán, which our mexican mom has described as being ¨typical cities¨. so that´ll be fun 😊

hope you are all having wonderful summers so far!

love, gray

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Comments

[Mom M]

Bus rides
The little I have heard about travel in other countries is that we really appreciate the roads, interstates and the availability of automobiles in the U.S. When we were in London, England and rode with our host in the "roundabouts," the only thing that gave you comfort was that very few cars had dents. So, it would seem that everyone managed to stay out of other drivers way. Maybe you'll come home with some ideas for great Mexican meals. Love you!