A really long day

This is my Guanajuato, Mexico host family.


Jessie, Emily (semester student), and me waiting for the bus.

We left Guanajuato a little after 11 p.m. for our destination of Mexico City. This will be my 5th time to the Mexico City airport. The first time I was 16 and with Mr. Pearson’s group and we arrived and left from the Mexico City airport. The third time was when I was in Mexico for my exchange year and I was taking a plane from Monterrey to Merida. I was under the impression it was a direct flight. I fell asleep before the plane took off in Monterrey and woke up after we landed. When I realized that most of the plane had left, I had a little panic and got up to leave and the guy sitting across from me said, “No te preocupes, señorita. No estamos en Merida todavia. Estamos en la Ciudad de Mexico.” (Don’t worry miss. We’re not in Merida yet. We’re in Mexico City.) It was an interesting experience. My fourth and fifth time in Mexico City were for this study abroad.
The bus ride is about five hours. I was hoping to sleep, which is the reason I bought the pillow and it was a lifesaver. I was able to sleep semi-comfortably and for a majority of the time.
We arrived in Mexico City and got off the bus and gathered our luggage. My two suitcases weighed 50 pounds. One was full of my things and the other was a an eighth filled with my things and then other people’s thing. This was a mistake on many levels. I thought my arms were going to fall off the distance we had to walk from the bus to the check-in gate. I don’t know why we were dropped so far, but I survived.
We got through security and we sat for two hours. I was so tired, but I didn’t want to sleep. We boarded the plane and I was asleep like that. I slept for the whole flight. At one point my feet were in the middle of the aisle and the flight attendants were bringing the drinks and breakfasts through and one of them woke me up to move and I opened my eyes and I told them I didn’t want anything, that I wanted to sleep. He didn’t say anything because I switched positions anyway. I did wake up for a little bit to eat and drink. I had a ham and cheese sandwich and then a chocolate pastry. It was actually pretty good.
We landed in San Salvador, El Salvador and I was so tired, I could barely keep my eyes open. So we found a place to hang out for the next five hours. I put my stuff on the floor, put my pillow down and I was out like a light. I woke up a few times but rolled over and fell asleep. The floor was pretty hard, like really hard. Apparently while I was sleeping there was a bat in the airport. It was swooping around and everyone was pretty much ignoring it, even the people who worked at the airport. Kimberly said that it flew into the corner where she was sitting and chilled on the floor for a while and then got up and started swooping again. But I missed all this excitement.


Circled in red is me sleeping on the comfortable floor at the airport.

When I woke up at 12 I was really hungry and decided to trek for Subway. When I got there, I thought it was relatively inexpensive until I found out that the prices were in American dollars. Then I thought it was expensive. My 6-inch sub, drink, and cookie cost $8.
The plane ride from San Salvador to Lima was 4 hours. I didn’t sleep at all, but I tried to do a crossword puzzle, watched a movie, watched a T.V. show, and ate. We arrived in Lima around 7 and were met by ISA representatives.
They took us from the airport to the University where our host families picked us up.
Jessie and I don’t live together in Perú. We’re next-door neighbors. We both live with single women in their 50s. My Señora’s name is Austry. She works as a publicist for a casino. Austry and Jessie’s host mom are good friends.
The ladies picked us up and we went by taxi to our houses. We dropped our stuff off and Austry gave me a full tour of the house. I feel much more at home here than I did in Mexico. Austry’s house is about ¼ of the size of my house in Mexico, but I only saw about 1/8 of my house in Mexico. Right after the house tour we went food shopping. It was really nice because I could be right there when she was buying food and I could tell her right then and there what I liked and didn’t like. I feel very much at home here.
Then the four of us went to a restaurant that specializes in chicken. It was good; I had a ¼ of a chicken and fries. They didn’t have bottles of ketchup, but I used like 10 little packets. Is that embarrassing?