One week has passed!

June 30, 2009 Tuesday 9:28 PM

I’m so frustrated right now. Two nights in a row I have had an epic bus saga. Well, I think that both nights I did the same wrong thing, but both nights I blamed them on something else. In both cases, I missed my stop, and took an extra hour to go through the whole route. You see, there are two buses that I take downtown and back. They approach my neighborhood from different locations so the place where I get off looks different than when I take the other bus. To make a long story short, I am looking for my stop on the wrong bus both times. Last night was more epic because the driver went all the way out to the gas station! Tonight, I was just frustrated for making the exact same mistake twice. I just feel so dumb when I do that!

I think my least favorite thing about Mexico is looking different than anyone else. The diversity of races makes me appreciate America. But here, I have never seen a black person or an asian person, and pretty much all the white people I see are tourists. I feel like when I walk around or ride the bus or anything every one just stares at me like they’ve never seen a white person in their life! The people here are all reeeeeally nice, and if I’m ever lost or something, or ask something to a stranger they are always really helpful, but when they just see me on the street, I catch people staring at me! I wish I didn’t look different so I wouldn’t feel like an alien.

Today we had our second day of Spanish class. We only have ecology on Mondays and Wednesdays so we had a free afternoon so about 8 of us found out how to take the bus to the beach in Progresso. It was pretty fun, and figuring out how to get there was an adventure! It was five of us Eco kids, and 4 Anthro kids. It was fun to integrate a little bit more for sure! The only group who is alienated is the Lombardi’s, but they give us something entertaining to joke about.

Spanish is Spanish. It’s all in Spanish. It’s going to be harder than my last Spanish class I think. I didn’t understand what my teacher said yesterday so I didn’t do all of my homework, so now I have even more for tonight. It’s not like it’s a ton or anything, but I’m just tired and don’t want to think. That class is so draining, like calculus or something because I have to think so hard and the teacher speaks less English than I speak Spanish I think. She’s nice, but in the echo-y room it’s hard to hear what she’s saying and I just zone out sometimes.

I will not be surprised if I have lost a lot of weight when I get back home. I rarely feel hungry here, and when I do eat, it’s not a lot. Usually breakfast is something like a sandwich and fruit or something. Lunch is the biggest meal. Like chicken with tortillas and black beans or some other meat instead of chicken. If I have dinner, it is usually something small, like a sandwich or a bowl of cereal or fruit or something. All the food is good, but I guess maybe because of the heat or something I never have much of an appetite.

I think I’ve gotten used to no A/C. Even last night in my hammock, I was actually cold and had to turn the fan down!

I love the Señora and the maid! They are so sweet and patient listening to my Spanish and helping me with my bus issues.

July 1, 2009 Wednesday 2:26 PM

Siesta time! Today I got home from class, and the maid had made soup, watermelon juice, and a whole fish for me. They feel like I never eat enough, and that I’ll get home and mom will ask if they starved me or something. So anyways, the maid made this piece of fish that was fried and was the size of an entire fish. It was really delicious, but by the 23423234th pound, I was just sick of eating it and they were watching me, chanting for me to eat it all. So now I lay in my hammock stuffed with the entire left half of a whale probably.

Spanish class was better today. I had done all my assignments and we did a play of Cinderella, which was entertaining.

In a little bit I have ecology class. I’ve missed the six of us being together! Yesterday Joe didn’t come to the beach because he was sick and we felt off balance. Like too many girls or not enough macho or something. Haha.

Tonight a bunch of people want to go to this club called Mambo Café. I think I’ll go if everyone else is going, but I feel like I haven’t had any downtime. That’s OK though, but it’s just tiring, especially on the days where I spend an extra unnecessary hour on the bus, ha. Also, tomorrow we leave early for our excursion so if I’m out late I’ll be tired. I shouldn’t be complaining though, I should just be trying to get the most out of everything I guess.

Tomorrow we leave for our first over night excursion. The anthro kids said that last week they stayed at a luxury resort during their trip, so we’ll see if Mark has us camping in the huts of local tribes or something. It is a very Mark thing to do, plus it would be really cool even though I doubt we would do that.

Let me explain Mark. Any other professor would be called Dr. Brenner, but he’s Mark. Every day he wears light knaki pants, a white long sleeve button down shirt, a huge brimmed safari hat with a tie under his chin. He accessorizes with a fanny pack, knife on his belt, camera on his belt, and a safety pin on his left pocket- to prevent pickpocketers of course. Huge glasses and he used to have huge hair but today he got a Mexican hair cut. He has a little earing on his left ear. We all adore him! He is CONSTANTLY smiling and never has anything negative to say, and no matter what he tells us about ecology, we just believe him.

9:35 PM

I’m so tired on not being able to take the bus from downtown to home! Tonight was saw the bus that I usually get on incorrectly and I asked the driver if he was going to my neighborhood and he said no, made me pay him the fare and get off! There was this little old lady that tried to direct me to where I needed to go, but I was on this road I was not familiar with and I was just like, whatever I’m done. So I waved down a taxi like a coward and gave up. Monday afternoon there is a celebration for the 25 years of the UADY program with UF, and la Señora will be there, so afterwards we can ride home together, and then I will know.

I just got an e-mail from some friends of the Stephens aka Olivia, and we are going to meet up on Sunday, that should be cool. I bet they know a lot of people from church from the good ol’ days.

Eco class was entertaining. Ripped up a lot of papers and put them on Addison. We all tried not to laugh.

Went to a guitar concert for a little bit.

Tomorrow at 7:30 we are leaving for 3 days and we are going to see some stuff in the south of the state. I’m told we are going to see home gardens and tomorrow night we are going to be staying in a traditional mayan house. But of Friday night we are staying in a hotel with air conditioning! What a treat! Haha. We’re all looking forward to it.

One kids said the transportation situation perfectly in his facebook status: "is back in middle school, no car, no phone, one hour bus ride, cant stand any of my classmates." (completely sarcastic about the last part of course!) Besides getting mad at myself for not being intelligent enough to use public transportation, everything is awesometasmic!