I checked in and had to wait for two hours for my plane to arrive from Monterrey, everyone to get on the plane, and take off. The plane ride was about an hour, which is much better than a 10-hour bus ride. My round-trip plane ticket cost about $30 more than the round trip bus ticket.
The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane was the difference in climate from Guanajuato to Monterrey. Guanajuato is very cool. It’s cool in the mornings, warm in the afternoons, and cool in the evenings. When I left Guanajuato, it was just that, cool. I arrived in Monterrey and it was hot and dry even at 10:30 p.m.
My host sister Cristy picked me up at the airport. I live with her family second when I was in Sabinas. We went to eat tacos, I missed them, and then to Cristy’s apartment. I think she has the coolest apartment. She shares it with two other girls and it has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, kitchen, living area, and broom closet. Cristy had classes on Friday so I chilled in the apartment while she went to school. She came back with her cousin who was one of my friends from Sabinas. We went and picked up Cristy’s brother and headed back to Sabinas.
She dropped me off at Martin and Elena’s house. The kids have grown so much. They all thought I looked taller, but I’m not, I’ve been the same since I was in middle school. But they were for sure taller. Martincito isn’t as tall as Melina yet, but he’s getting there, and he’s almost as tall as his mother.
No sooner than I arrived in Sabinas from Monterrey, I turned around and went to Monterrey again for a quinceañera for Martin’s great niece. It was cool. This was a formal party, I didn’t have a very formal dress to wear. I got to see Martin’s entire family.
Mariel, me, and Melina at the quinceañera.
When I was here two years ago, I always thought Martin’s mom was indifferent to me. I went to her house every Sunday after lunch to hang out with the family. She didn’t pay any particular attention to me. I knew she loved me when I saw her at this party (she didn’t know I was going to be there) and she got excited, smiled and said, “Jane! How are you, sweetheart.” Yeah. She loves me.
Martin has a huge family, like enormous. The grandparents have 10 children, 32 grandchildren, and 8 great-grandchildren. So you can imagine the party they had.
On the way home to Sabinas, Martin told me that he would buy me a car if I married one of his nephews. Well, there’s quite a variety of nephews to choose from in my age range. This family has pretty good genes and I’d like a car…
Saturday I didn’t do a whole lot. I went to visit my second host mom Suzy and spent some time with her. We went on a few errands and went to see another Rotary family to say hello and for me to meet Jorge, who was in New Zealand when I was in Sabinas. I had never met him before.
When I got back to Martin and Elena’s house I started to get ready to go out. I never take so much time to go out, but when in Mexico, do as the Mexicans. So I was going though Mariel’s closet. We wear the same size and since she has a more awesome wardrobe than me I decided to take a gander. I tried on a bunch of clothes and it was cool.
Believe it or not, I ended up wearing this short dress with non-pants (aka-leggings). It drives me crazy when people wear leggings as pants. They aren’t pants! The fashion trend that has driven me most crazy is Ugg boots, leggings, and a long shirt. For proper non-pant use is the shirt (or dress) must have full butt and crotch coverage, then the leggings become an accessory if you need to bend over for something and you don’t need to show everything to everybody.
Point being, I used the non-pants correctly. I was nervous about wearing them because I’ve spent so much time dissing them, but I applaud people who use them correctly.
A very happy moment in my Saturday was when Elena bought tacos from the taco stand up the street. It made my day. My preferred dish from that place is a campachana which is a flour tortilla with steak, pork, and cheese. (Can you believe I was mostly vegetarian this past summer?) They were delicious.
So we went out to go to the disco, but we couldn’t go out without going around and around and around the main street. Upon arriving at the disco we saw several people that I knew. No one knew I was coming. So it was surprising for everyone.
The main reason I could go to Sabinas this weekend was because of the Independence holiday. So I got to see El Grito (The Cry) of Independence. They give out free tequila shots to everyone. To my disappointment it wasn’t really tequila; it was margarita mix. It tasted like lime juice and tequila.
I saw a lot of people I knew, some of them I had been friends with. A lot of people recognized me and I recognized them and we made small talk for a few minutes. I had known everyone who had said hello to me. Most of the time I knew their name and where I knew them from. I thought to myself, I'm happy no one has talked to me who I don't know. With that, a girl screamed my name and gave me a big hug and asked me how I was and what I was doing there. I had no idea who she was. I didn't know her name and she didn't even look remotely familiar.
I saw some girls from school. One of the girls saw me, got really excited, hugged me and then asked the girl next to her out loud what my name was. Weird.
A few pictures from the Disco.
Here I am with a few of Cristy's (far right) friends.
I'm not entirely sure who the guy on the left is, but the guy in the middle's name is Chuy. We were friends.
This is Adolfo, this was Lieke's first host brother. He spent an exchange year in New York while I was in Sabinas. Actually, the guy in the hat in the background was in my class.
Sunday I didn’t do so much yet again. I slept late, ate, and watched T.V. It started to rain in the early afternoon. It rained a lot and hard for a long time. I took Elena’s car (because I am no longer an exchange student, I can drive here!) to visit some people. I was driving along and by this time it was sprinkling. As I was driving I went over little puddles, but as I went along the little puddle turned into one big puddle. I couldn’t go back and I couldn’t stop, I was afraid to go forward because what if it got deeper?
Well, I did get to my destination, without problems. I didn’t flood the car and I didn’t get wet. It was nice.
I went to visit my third host mom. We were sitting there chatting when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was a mouse, but it was just a miniature chiwawa. It was four months old, less than a pound, didn’t really have any hair, and big-beady black eyes. It can only eat 10 pellets of food, twice a day. I’m not sure the dog will get much bigger.
Monday I woke up early to go to Monterrey with Elena. She had to take her mom to the doctor and I was going to stay there for the night. Elena dropped me off at Martin’s sister’s house at 10:30 a.m. Amalia (the sister) was up, but none of her children were. So I talked with Amalia and watched T.V. until 2 when we ate lunch. We sat around some more and then, at my request, we went to Dairy Queen for a blizzard. Ice cream here is so different than the U.S. It’s base is water, not cream taking away from caloric and fat intake, which makes it not as good. (The other day Jessie and I went out to a café and they had Blue Bunny ice cream milk shakes. I got really excited and ordered one forgetting that milk shakes here are more like one scoop of ice cream with milk blended together making it more like thick milk. Needless to say, I was disappointed.)
So anyway, I got a medium (I normally get a small) blizzard with Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and Snickers with a hint of hot fudge. I wolfed it down. It was so good. I was tempted to get another.
I went out that night with Martin’s niece, Arelley, and her boyfriend, Edwin, and a bunch of their friends. It was really fun. I wore some high heels that I only wore for two hours before I thought I was going to die. Luckily Arelley suggested I bring my flat shoes just in case.
We went to a disco called La Puerta and it was a lot of fun. I danced and got to see El Grito again.
Arelley and me celebrating the Mexican independence in Monterrey.
We danced until 3:30 and went in search to fulfill our hunger with tacos. It was difficult to find them, but we eventually did.
I began Tuesday with a sneeze. Then another. Then another. I knew this was a looming pre-curser of what was to come. I took a bus back to Sabinas and went grocery shopping for cookie supplies. I made peanut butter cookies, by request, and they were a hit. They were delicious, if I do say so myself.
At 11 p.m. my (real, not imaginary) friend Vanessa called me and wanted to know if I wanted to do something. We ended up going to the taco stand up the street and getting campachanas. They were just as delicious as they had been the Saturday before. We talked until 1 when I decided I was going to take cold medicine and sleep.
I slept from 1:30-5 and then watched T.V. until 7, then slept until 8, then watched T.V. until 9, and then slept until 10. It was an awful night.
I spent Wednesday getting ready for my 8 p.m. flight. I woke and up and felt pretty miserable, I didn’t take any cold medicine because I didn’t want to be in a trance saying goodbye to people.
I went with Vanessa to buy a piece of cake for breakfast (very healthy, it was Milky Way cake!). We had one of my favorite lunches: tostadas! Tostadas are a hardened flour or corn tortilla with lime, beans, guacamole, chicken, cheese, cream, and salsa. They were really delicious.
To show how some of us have changed over the past two years, here are some examples.
Martin and me, Sept. 2008
Elena, me, and Martin, February 2007
Elena and me, Sept. 2008
Martincito, Miranda, me, and Melina, Sept. 2008
Christmas 2006
Martin and Elena took me back to the airport and it was fun to have some one on one (or two, I guess) time with them.
I got through security in about 5 minutes so I had almost two hours to kill. I felt worse and worse. I noticed that one of the stores had orange juice. I don’t really like orange juice and I shouldn’t drink it because it has a lot of acid and can cause problems with my gastritis. I was so desperate and thought that the vitamin C would make me feel better so I paid $3 for a glass of orange juice (expensive, right?) and didn’t feel better at all.
I arrived in Guanajuato and was picked up by family of someone I know in Galena. They were extremely nice and didn’t take any money for driving me.
I was really tired when I got to the house and just decided to take two night time cold pills and called it a night.
Well, I woke up Thursday morning and felt awful, I felt groggy, tired, and bad. I got up and ready for school and went to eat breakfast. I hardly ate and couldn’t keep my eyes open. So I missed school and slept, I felt pretty awful all day long.
No comments:
Post a Comment