On the Road

Okay, so the road ahead of me may not look quite like this, but I could think of few better roadtrip films that Thelma and Louise.* That have been said, this is my official notice to the world: I'm on hiatus (from my hiatus). I'll keep in touch as much as possible and update when I can, but as of today I'm on a whole new trajectory.

* Here's hoping my own personal travels end better than theirs, clearly!

My word, it really is a global village...

... and a very, very strange village at that.
Allow me to (try and) explain. I just received two of the most disparate messages possible within five minutes of each other and both of them solely because I'm living in Monterrey. Here's the first one:


(I'm sure Nigeria is glad to be off the hook here, actually, so that's perhaps some kind of progress...)

But, as if presumably fraudulent Israelis trying to sell me on undoubtedly fraudulent business schemes wasn't enough, I then received this:



No, your eyes didn't deceive you: in less than twenty-four hours Electric Light Orchestra will be here in Monterrey.

In 2008, not 1978.

Good heavens, what is the Internet doing to the world?

Classes, or a lack thereof

I know that no one wants to here about my coursework, but there´s something you should know: I have less and less of it all of the time. One of the three courses I started the last week of April is already over, meaning that I only have classes 10-6 on Mondays and 6-9 on Wednesday. Hello five day weekends! Well, four, but buses at odd hours will make them five when necessary, trust me. :)
May the hijinx ensue - news at eleven!

PS Oh, and about that class that I just finished... 100%.

Stranger in a Stranger Land pt. II: Campus (wild)life

Monterrey’s outlying territories may a haven for the ecotourist, but most of the rest is decidedly urban sprawl. There city government is finally beginning to set aside some green spaces but this is the desert, so those spaces are not only few and far between but well protected. Do not walk signs are more common than the grass itself. The ITESM campus is an exception, though. Over the years it has designed itself to be a place apart from Monterrey, and generally speaking it has succeeded. Among the things you’ll wandering around on campus, in order of strangeness:

i) Ducks
ii) Geese
iii) Peacocks.
iv) Deer.

No, really. Deer. I was sitting in the library yesterday and I totally saw a deer walking around out the window. One assumes this is common place because I was the only one in the library excitedly asking his neighbors if they saw it, too. Judging by the responses I got, one also assumes that this line of questions is a bit unusual. Still – deer!

Sometimes I really do feel like a stranger in a strange land.

So I’m settled in here, more or less, but there are still certain things that surprise me. Take, for example, wine:



At the beginning of the semester I did a brief study for one of my classes on beverage consumption in Mexico. Unsurprisingly, water comes in a distant third behind beer and soda (which is consumed, on average, more than any of the other six categories combined). But do you know what doesn’t even chart? You guessed it – wine.* Which is a shame, really, because, well, I like wine. Do you know what I also like? Buying bottles of wine as small thank you gifts, like I did for my roommates in honor of our first month together. They were, I think, touched, except they (we) don’t own a corkscrew. Nor do our neighbors, or anyone else in the building. They don’t even sell them at the grocery store.

I can’t tell if this is funny or tragic, but on the bright side, the apartment has a lovely new decorative piece!

* The actual statistic, I kid you not, is 300ml per capita per year and is no doubt mostly from Catholic Mass. [I conferred with Britton and he agrees.]

Cerro de la Silla

As anyone who knows me can easily attest, when I travel I look for two things: bodies of water and big, tall things to climb. I’m kind of simple like that, but it’s the kind of simplicity that has kept exceptionally happy on the road. In Monterrey, though, a good half of the equation – namely the water – is missing. This desert city does have its share of mountains, however, and as part of my wanderings I decided yesterday to try and climb the most famous of these: Cerro de la Silla. I learned my lesson from my aforementioned Chipinque misadventure – actually, now that I think about it, it actually rains a lot here – and checked the weather report carefully before setting out. I even brought a map, of sorts, and a couple of friends.
Unfortunately, even if my Spanish is improving, my ability to use the metric system remains questionable. Actually, that’s not a hundred percent true. I use it with accuracy and ease – I don’t really have a choice do I? – but I also use it to lie to myself. So yes, I knew when I checked the weather report that 40 Centigrade is the same as 104 Fahrenheit. But it seems so much lower in Celsius, right?! Completely bearable and everything. [By the way, the same thing works in reverse with distances: the ten kilometers to the top and back seemed impossibly further than the six or so miles it actually was.]

So, to make a short story long (as per usual), it did not rain. Much the contrary, actually, and although we started with six people at 7:30am the heat stopped half of them dead in their tracks before we even made it halfway to the aptly named Antenna Peak. I persevered with two francesa - Julie and Ervyn, who, I kid you not, sang La Marseillaise intermittently the entire way up [adorable!] – and together we finally made it to the 1820 m (5970 ft) summit and back after about seven hours. The view was stunning, and the few pictures I have of trek don’t do it justice. As you face south atop the mountain, to your right is civilization in the form of Monterrey’s urban sprawl.

To the left, though, are the Sierra Madres in their full glory. The mountain’s four peak usually hide this backdrop so well that I had no idea this ecosystem even existed. Beautiful, serene, and replete with bids of all kinds this was a side of Monterrey I had never seen before and it was breathtaking.

I’m beginning to think I could just about live here.





As always, more pictures at: http://www.picasaweb.google.com/littlefrankel

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!