Coursework, Cinco de Mayo?!

I can’t decide if my classes here are more difficult than at home. I’m leaning towards easier but, frankly, its hard to say. Here's why: because next Monday is Cinco de Mayo – and even though I’m told Cinco de Mayo is a relatively minor holiday here, more akin to Memorial Day than Independence Day* - we have a four-day weekend. Only we don’t exactly, because instead of canceling classes (normally I have one class a day), they’ve moved them all up. Which means two, four-hour classes a day and that’s the kind of thing that skews survey data, right? So the jury is still out on that.

On the bright side, though, I think I’ll be heading to central Mexico with some friends for the holiday weekend. For the moment only Guanajuanto is on the itinerary but hopefully I can sell them on a little more exploring. :)
On the subject of exploration, here is Dora the Explorer, a la Saltillo:

Rainy Days on Saturdays [Math & Physics Club-style]

Just a quick note for today, and its actually about yesterday. After I made that post yesterday the rain started to slow and, well, the clouds waltzed with the mountains. I sat on my balcony for a few hours watching it resolve and you can see a few of the pictures I took below.
I love it here.

Today was a day for the mountains.

As you may know, I haven’t left Monterrey since arriving in town a couple of weeks ago. Which is kind of a shame, but between finding an apartment, starting classes, and getting settled in, I just haven’t had the time. To be honest I’m not quite sure I have it now, but fortunately it doesn’t matter. Today was a day for the mountains and I didn’t even have to leave the city! I only needed to go to southwestern Monterrey* to visit the Chipinque Ecological Park. I know it sounds pretty mundane, but trust me, it’s part of the Sierra Madres and a great deal more impressive than it sounds. Also more secluded. My limited experience with Monterrey has taught be that crowds are its most consistent feature. Crowds of people, cars, buildings… and mountains. [If it’s beginning to sound like I’m fascinated with this whole “mountain” concept it’s because I am. I mean, I come from Florida, a state that – for all its beauty – is wholly devoid of the concept and here I am in a city named for them.] So yes, crowds everywhere and everywhen – except for today. The reason for this will no doubt be clear once you look at the pictures below, but how was I supposed to know it was going to rain?! More often than not even the weather report is pointless. Honest! I’m fully convinced that there isn’t a television station in town with a meteorologist on staff – they just are necessary. Every day is just “hot” or “sunny” or both. In the morning there are clouds but by the afternoon the wind gets rid of them. It’s nice in a rhythmic sort of what, and very consistent. Or so I though. So, yeah, to make a short story long, my decision to head out was bit spontaneous and yeah, it rained for the first since I arrived - but it was still great. There were so few people that more often then not I could pretend I was the only one there, the only one who had ever been there, in some amazing but forgotten piece of real estate. I was still pretty high up when the rain started but even if it killed the view it allowed me to meet a nice regio by the name of Alejandro who was patient enough with my Spanish.** [Here’s hoping this means I have a hiking companion now, because for all their friendliness none of the extranjeros seem to want to climb a mountain anytime soon.] So, despite the rain I can’t help but find this city to be so immensely redeeming that it hurts.

* Quite close to my apartment, as the crow flies, but impossibly far the way the roads are set up.
** Oh, and yes, despite my statements to the contrary my Spanish still needs a great
deal of patience.



Nothing inspires hiking confidence like the heavy cloud cover and the Virgin Mary!

The Fates with me, or Muchas Gracias Pacho!

The most amazing thing just happened. No, really, amazing - but before I can tell you about you need to know a few things:

1) I take a taxi to and from school everyday. It’s not exactly cheap – maybe three dollars [MXN$32] each way – but there isn’t any public transportation that goes directly from my neighborhood to EGADE or even remotely close, so I generally just ignore my skinflint tendencies and go for it. It helps that Monterrey, as a city of some 3.5 million people, has more than enough taxis to go around.* So common are they that in all the time I’ve been in Monterrey I have never had to call a taxi; no matter where I am, given five minutes or so I can almost undoubtedly grab one off the street. The unfortunately downside of this process is that even if I like a driver [not just their driving; I try to talk to all of them to improve my Spanish] I don’t expect to ever see him again.

2) Last week I lost my glasses case. That means I lost both my emergency pair and my clip-on sunglasses for the main pair. (I have had this case for almost two years and have only misplaced it once before because I am deathly afraid of the US$200+ replacement cost.) For three days I searched frantically, scouring both my apartment and EGADE from floor to ceiling to no avail. Eventually the sad truth became all too obvious: I must have left it in a taxi. It was the remaining possibility but a practically impossible one: even if I could figure out the right day I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of the driver. So, flummoxed, I kind of gave up.

Until last night that is. On a whim I stayed late at EGADE; I didn’t have anything in particular to do but I wanted to head over to a party closer to campus than my house. Around nine I left campus and flagged down a taxi, as per usual. The driver and I didn’t talk very much until we’re about half-way to my friend’s place when suddenly he asks [in Spanish]:

“Hey, did you lose your glasses the other day?”**
I replied, incredulously, “yeah - how did you know?”
With a grin he said, "because I have them in my house.”
“No way!”
“It's true – they’re in a grey case, right?”

Well, to make a short story long, he was right and we exchanged numbers and names (his was Pacho, hence the title) and I agreed to call him the next day to make arrangements. So I did and, lo and behold, only a few short minutes ago I got my glasses back! Just when I thought I was getting lost in this faceless metropolis I discovered a brand new face – and a nice, smiling one at that!

* I’m not the only person ill-served by public transportation it would seem, and capitalism has worked to fill the void.
** Okay, in the interest of full disclosure it took me about two full minutes to realize that is what he asked, but I got there eventually. [Estoy un poco tonto.]

[Coda: Pacho, too, finds it incredible that we ran into each other again so quickly - I hailed him from two different spots at two different times on two different days – and is almost as incredulous as me.]

About Spanish, or [barely] Swimming!

It would appear that at least one part of my plan is working: after three weeks in Monterrey my Spanish is certainly improving. I say “improving” because I cannot, in good conscience, call it “good” or even “passable” – I use que? a bit too much for that – and truth be told I’m more than happy with that. After three weeks I’m not learning new words as quickly as I was at first but I am learning to use more of them correctly, which is a welcome change to say the least. After a couple of weeks with my roommates – who have been overwhelmingly patient about the whole thing – and their helpful tips, for example, I have started to pause between each sentence (waiting for the inevitable corrections). Only now I’ve noticed that although I still pause, more often than not I don’t need to. Strangers have even begun to understand me! I was at a party last night, for example, with some of my friends from school and the room was abuzz with only Spanish and French and I found myself actually able to express myself clearly to [patient] people. All of this comes as a wonderful surprise, let me tell you, because it would appear as though Operation Move to Mexico: Sink or Swim has resulted in something resembling a doggy paddle!

Egads, EGADE!

You know how it goes – as soon as you’ve commended yourself for your regularity (in this case, me for posting daily) you’ve gone and blown it. I do have a good excuse, though: classes have finally begun! So the reason [ostensibly] that I am in Mexico is finally underway and by and far it’s going pretty. I have now attended all of my classes* at least once and, well, they don’t seem so different from my classes at UF, just more expensive. I have three classes, all in English: Cross-Cultural Management, Doing Business in Mexico, and International Marketing. The first two have about twenty five people each but the last (thus far my favorite) has only seven. Because all of my classe are in English but most of the students (French, German, Dutch, Guatemalan, Colombian, Ecuadoran, etc.) speak English as a second language I am a highly sought-after commodity when it comes to group projects – and that suits me just fine. Here’s hoping for a [pleasantly] eventful semester!

Oh, and as a quick side note, here are a couple of pictures of EGADE. Although the school is said to be one of the best business schools in the world it’s hardly Ivy League – much to the contrary, it was built (with, as you can see, some more achingly modern architecture) in 1995.

My Life Really Is Beginning To Border On Surreal

So it would appear that I'm finally getting into the habit of updating this thing daily. [Whether that is a good thing or not remains to be seen.] Unfortunately for today I have nothing terribly exciting to report.
Well, except this:
I just spent the last forty-five minutes trading tongue twisters with my roommate Sergio. You just haven't lived until you've seen two grown men repeat over and over - with growing intensity! - "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck - if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

Added bonus: thank heavens there is no video of me going "Pepe Pecas pica papas con un pico. Con un pico Pepe Pecas pica papas." Such things are better left to the imagination, anyway...

A Word or Two About American Companies in Mexico

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been here that long – today is my one week anniversary in Monterrey! – but that’s besides the point. No, wait, actually it isn’t; I’ve been here a week and I’m looking for a familiar face to make the transition easier. There, I’ve said it. In lieu of actual Americans, then, I’ll take American companies. Capitalism is just another way to say camaraderie, no? So today I went searching for the corporate representatives of my not-so-distant nation in the form of Citibank and H.E.B. Grocery Company. Well, I’m still searching. Despite the fact that both companies have “Store Locator” functions – and scores of locations in Monterrey and elsewhere in Mexico – everything south of the Rio Grande is a mystery. No really. Take Citibank: it lists over 20 locations in Monterrey but offers nothing in the way of an address or even a map. In fact, I’ve been here for a week now and seen a fair bit of the town but not one Citibank. Oh, and I’ve been looking, trust me – they have a lot of my money at the moment. Maybe they’re on vacation in Cancun.

So I never found H.E.B. or Citibank but I did find a grocer and a Laundromat and I got everything I wanted and more. So, it’s hard to get too worked up about this, because, well, life is good. I don’t need American companies anymore.* I’m no longer homeless, I genuinely like the roommates,** and the wind is blowing steadily through the mountains.

I could used to this.

* Although I’ll keep my American friends, thank you.
* Oh! I made them brownies today because I’m so happy to have a kitchen again and I’m adorably domestic like that.

Finally, a Day In the Life

Let me be the first to tell you I am incredulous. Now that I am no longer homeless is, at times, almost impossible to believe – after so many months of planning, of pining – that I am where I am, exactly where I want to be.* So incredulous am I, in fact, that I routinely take pictures of my surroundings as if to prove to myself in retrospect the reality of my wonderful situation. Unfortunately, a few of the pictures I have taken of late [below] have been of no use in this regard.

It will take some getting used to before I can believe this to be my reality. In the meantime, I plan to spend as much time as possible lost in the dream.

*Yet I am and am incomparably grateful to The Fates for this boon they have granted me.



From a bench I was reading on the other day in EGADE. Que vista, no?


From my bed this afternoon. The whole mountains thing is still new to me!

Ups and Downs, or A New Apartment!

Today was a day that began with a low but ended on a high. The low is low, but hardly disastrous: I broke my camera this morning. Actually, to be completely fair, I broke my camera’s viewscreen* so although the rest of the camera seems to be working just fine, from here on out all of my photos will be quite literally of the “point-and-click” variety. On the bright side, while I may not be winning a Pulitzer any time soon I can still keep something of a photolog as I go.

Which is good, really, because today’s high point really deserves a picture or two. :) After a couple of days as a vagabond in the big city** I lucked into a lovely apartment on the southside of Monterrey. It's a situation eerily similar to the one I left and, frankly, I love it. I’m staying with a “local” couple – they’re actually from Sonora and would shoot me if they knew I called them local – named Sergio and Erika. They know a little English (Erika is actually just now beginning to study it formally) and I know a little Spanish. In theory, we're going to be teaching each other but so far it’s been a lot of smiles and charades. The place is a great as they are (only 2000 pesos [or $190] a month!) and man do I wish you could see my view. I live on the top of a hill, the last hill before the Sierra Madres. From my balcony it’s mountains until the horizon. It's, like, amazing.
Until you all come to visit me, though, a couple of scattered photos will have to do.

EGADE Orientation

In an effort to keep a better travelogue, here I am, in my room, sitting down to write about my day. This is soooo Sex and the City. Which reminds me, actually; when I was in Torreon the other day I saw Sex and the City. [That explains the picture, above.] But I digress because this entry is for today, my first day at EGADE – Orientation.

First of all, let me tell you that my Spanish remains terrible but I’ll live. I’m not the worst person in my class (by far) and I remain confident that I will improve.* That having been said, it is important to note that the entirety of my five hour orientation – replete with guided tour – was in Spanish. General amusement by all attendees – thirty-five or so extranjeros, mostly from Europe and featuring a surprisingly large contingent of Frechmen – ensued. As it turns out, I like my classmates could follow the vast majority of it (primarily because the vast majority of it was either redundant or inconsequential) but no one is an expert, so I can sleep well with that. The lingua franca alternates between English, Spanish, and French** and the topics run from European Politics to Electronica Music. Much to my delight, everyone has been quite friendly although I’d be hard pressed to name more than a half dozen of my new classmates. Still, it’s nice to know that I’m not the only stranger in a strange land.


* Today I even used the future tense, which I was never formally taught!
** The upside of this being that I might, strangely, pick up some French while here. Tres bien!

On The Way In

I am now officially in Mexico - in fact I have been for nearly a week. Wow, thaA lot has (understandably) happened since I last posted, but here are the salient details:
- After no less than five long-distance bus rides in as many days, I can honestly say I prefer to travel at night. You may see less but you certainly sleep more. ^^
- Mexico in general is unbelievably spectacular and more than a little overwhelming. I think I'm quietly falling in love with it.

- A large factor in my love affair is Saltillo, a smallish city about an hour to the west of Monterrey. Apart from border control and a bus change in Monterrey, it was my first real taste of Mexico - and what a taste it was!




- Torreon was also lovely, if less "classically" beautiful. Still, it's hard to resist a giant Jesus. I mean, it's no Cristo Redentor but the again what is?




- Regardless, Monterrey is worlds apart from either of them or anything I have ever seen before. It is truly a modern, world-class city but (and this is the clincher) with history. I cannot wait to get lost in it!




With that, though, my time at the cafe is almost up and I still need to find an apartment - with any luck I can find a place before orientation on Tuesday!

On The Way Out

So, having said my long and tearful goodbyes, I now have a ticket to ride!

The plan is as follows:

- I, along with my friend Sopagna, will fly from Jacksonville to San Antonio Tuesday night.
- When we land, we'll catch the overnight bus from San Antonio to Monterrey, arriving sometime early Monday morning.
- After that its onto a little taste of Mexico before classes start back in Monterrey. On the agenda: Saltillo and Torreon, Coahuila.