Bus Rides & Bank Cards

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Today was the first day I have taken a bus here in Guadalajara! Woot woot! I was told by a few people that it's dangerous and be careful and to basically not take the bus. However, if I'm somewhere where I need to get home, and I don't have a ride home, I NEED to know how to take the bus. Sooo, today after school I went with Charly-one of the other girls doing the exchange program-and her exchange partner Martha back to their house, from which we were supposed to be taking a bus to my house to see which one to take, where to get off and which way to walk.

We waited for 2 hours in Martha's house until finally Martha and her mom said that we were going *Really though, two hours?!??! there's some stuff that happened in between, like Martha's mom wanting to drive us and getting to be what seemed like cranky when we told her we actually wanted to ride the bus-but that's not important*

The area where Charly is staying is quite a nice area, as soon as you walk outside almost all of your senses are fewdsc, there are people lining the streets talking, working, and playing. Your mouth will start to water at the wonderful smells of fresh pastries being baked, and of different kind of meats being cooked.

Just as there's an app for everything you could imagine, there's a store for it too. The streets where Charly and Martha live are lined with little shops; shops for grad dresses, shops for regular dresses, shops for handbags, shops for buying envelopes. I'm pretty sure you get the idea that there is a store for everything lol. What I still find so cool is that you'll be walking along the sidewalk and you'll see an orange tree or a lime tree, you can literally go pick one off of the tree and just eat it like that. Watch out though, because sometimes the people that live in the house with that tree in front get mad. I have never gotten yelled at directly in Spanish for doing that, mind you, I have never tried to do that either; very tempted, but never tried. One day I'm going to take an orange off an orange tree, hopefully I won't get yelled at!

But back to the bus, buses in Mexico are unreliable in the sense that they don't come at a certain time, they come when they come. Even then, sometimes they don't come! If they have to get to their final desination but the route they're supposed to take has a lot of traffic, the bus driver will take a completely different route to get to his desintation and leave behind those he left stranded on the streets he bypassed.

When we got on the bus I had no idea what to do, Martha's mom payed so I didn't have to worry about money, but I didn't know if there was some sort of courtesy or 'unwritten rules' when taking a bus. I found the nearest seat to sit down on before I was flung across the bus- The people may be nice but they are crazy drivers- and just waited until Marthas mom told us it was time to get off. We walked for about eight blocks and found the house. Not exactly the adventure I was expecting, but there will be other times that I'll take the bus.


Onto the next adventure of the day: trying to figure out my new bank card!
Half of the battle was actually trying to just find the stupid place! I called Tere and I sort of understood where I needed to go but thankfully some girls from our school noticed me and Charly walking so they stopped and offered us a ride. After some super amazing skills we found the bank lol, just our luck though, there were about 4 guys working on putting up or taking down something on the scotiabank building, first thing that popped into my head? *censored word that starts with F*

Guys here aren't rude necessarily but they aren't exactly shy about expressing how they feel about women. Now this doesn't mean that they're gonna come up to you and grab you or anything but they are very vocal. For example: they whistle, make a chh chh noise which is equivolent to a whistle, say something like 'oye guapas', or blow you a kiss. Just about anything to get your attention, the upside? None of them ever actually come up to you, just make sure you keep on walking though, as to not stir up trouble.

Charly and I get out of the car and begin to walk towards the scotiabank, and the guys quickly quiet down and just stare -______- I of course go to the other side where the guys aren't there and try to get in through that way and the guys on the other side are pointing to the stairs and saying pasate pasate, I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling but basically they were telling me and Charly to pass them on that side instead of going through the side I wanted to go through. Here was the dilema: the side I wanted to go in through was blocked because the guys had been working on taking a sign down off the side of the building. The solution: go to where they were because that was the only way in, but don't make eye contact with them and walk as fast as possible until inside the store lol.

So we're finally in the little area that has the atm and I'm trying to figure out what to do as this is the first time I've used this card. I put it in just as it appears on the little picture below the slot, put in my pin (or NIP as they call it here; the first time I heard that word I was sooo confused lol), and selected one of the options to make withdrawal from, I choose checking account cause it was the first option and I hadn't been told exactly what to press when using an ATM. It asked for the amount I wanted to take out, told me there was going to be no charge and then I thought after that I was going to get the money I had selected to withdraw but no, the Scotiabank ATM said that my SCOTIABANK CARD couldn't be used at that ATM and that I should contact my bank. I put in my card again thinking that maybe I should have choosen a different account but nope, when I choose a different account it still said my card couldn't be used at the ATM.

Getting more and more frustrated, we just decided to go home and when Tere's mom got home I was gonna ask her for help. Charly and I got dropped off at my house, had something to eat and then went back to the bank with Tere's mom and had the same problems!!!!!! Oh man was I frustrated, it had been a very long day, I was getting overly tired, and overly warm, and all these little things going wrong were starting to build up.

Turns out, it was a pretty simple solution to all of this frustration: I had to activate the card!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow was that ever a blonde moment ...

Tonight I went to the movies with Kevin, Goni, Charly, Caro, and two others that I can't remember their names (...whoops..), we went to see The Rite; we have been trying to go see it since we first got here lol. To me the movie theatres aren't that different here than they are in Canada, but I will say this; the chairs that are in the theatres here are soooo much more comfy than the ones in Canada (at least the ones in Calgary). They're like individiual big comfy couches lol.

Lots of Love;

Samantha

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Comments

[mom]

bus ride
ha ha ha....at least you finally made it to your destination! The fruit trees sound amazing! That would be so cool, to see actual lime, lemon and orange trees. I think I have only seen the okanogan fruit trees (apple, peach)...I hope you took some pictures! I wonder what lemons taste like straight from the tree? Sweeter? More tart? Hmmm...check it out for me, would ya?? lol