Lluvia, lluvia, lluvia, sol

I came back from my trip this weekend to the nueva casa.

We haven’t quite settled in and things are still everywhere. I’m now sharing a bathroom with two guys, which is something new for me. Last week when we came to the house, mis padres told me that I was going to pick my room first (after they had picked their room). I told them I didn’t want to choose first (because the other two people that live with us have lived there longer, they’re more permanent than I am, and they pay to live there). They told me that I’m the girl, and as their daughter, I get to pick first. I thought to myself, “geez, this must be what it feels like to be the favorite…” ;-) Anyway, I chose the room with the long vertical window facing the street. When I arrived back from my trip, they told me that I was going to be in a different room. The next day Ricardo told me that the two twin beds in my room wouldn’t fit in the room that I wanted, and that mi padre said that because I’m the daughter I should get the biggest room anyway, so that’s where I ended up. It still smelled like new paint the first few days, but other than that, I was surprised by the fact that the house was all ready. Well, almost. The TV wasn’t installed yet, which was certainly a change for mis padres. We didn’t have internet right away, so I became a frequent customer at the Starbucks down the street because of their wireless. Also, the (hot) water heaters weren’t installed yet, so we were supposed to walk back to the old house to shower. By the time I had gotten home from Veracruz, the water heater for mis padres' shower had been set up. It was cute, I got back one night around 10 at night, and I asked it I could have keys for the old house to shower, and mi padre said “go tell your mom you’re going to shower in our bathroom.”
It was a nice week, as I didn’t have class Monday because of the commemoration of the constitution, I only have one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Wednesday I went to Mexico City with one of my classes.
Wednesday, mi padre offered to drive me to la UAQ, which was lovely of him because I had to be there at 6:30 in the morning, which would have meant a lot of time out in the dark. Plus, it turned out to be extra lovely because it was raining like crazy! We went to el museo nacional de antropología. It’s a huge museum, and mis padres say it would take a few días to see everything. We only saw one exhibit, about the Romans because I was there with my European literature class.
National Anthropology Museum:


After the museum, we drove to el centro of la Ciudad de México. We passed a lot of pretty fountains. The city is muy grande.
Government building:

It was a lot dirtier than Querétaro, which is probably largely due to the fact that there are a lot more people. However, I also noticed that there's a lack of trashcans, so I don’t know where they expect the people to put their garbage. It was already 9:30 by the time we returned to la UAQ, so I decided to take a taxi home. The taxi driver started talking to me, and he would speak in English and I would speak in Spanish, so that was kind of cool. Then we got a little lost, as he came into my neighborhood from a different direction, and since I had never been to that part, I didn’t know where we were. No worries, we figured it out.
Thursday, the sixth day in a row of rain, was really cold. I took the bus to school, and some of the roads were like lakes. No joke, the water comes up a third of the height of the tires! I feel like that’s newsworthy in the US.
Here, the sun had already been out for a full day, so it wasn’t as bad:

Friday I spent running errands and trying to figure out stuff for my visa. It’s still freezing inside the house, but the sun was finally out, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and it was warmer outside! Also we finally got the internet figured out, so I was pretty excited about that. I watched a really important bull fight that night with mis padres and my aunt and uncle, but I really just don’t enjoy that kind of thing. It makes me sad to watch them. Later that night Ricardo and I stayed up talking in the kitchen for a while. We talked about me learning Spanish, and how I can’t be afraid to ask when I don’t understand things. He said that mis padres are very patient, and that I can trust that when I ask him or mis padres something, they wont get frustrated with me, and that they want to help me. We talked about having a positive attitude, both in life and in business (he is a manager of a business here in Querétaro). Also, I was happy to hear that he won’t be moving, at least for now, as he is having trouble finding a different place to live that is closer to his work.
Saturday night I went out with Ali, the guy who took me to Tequisquiapan/Bernal last Friday, and his friends, and I brought mi amiga Laurel. They were all really really friendly. They all speak English pretty well, but we spoke in Spanish. We went for food and then we went to Barra Habana, but a different one than I went to on Thursday. This one had a bigger dance floor and a bigger band. The band was great and it was a lot of fun, as Ali tried to teach us to salsa.
I got made fun of a lot here this week, but all in good fun, of course. Mi padre says “ommmm” like he’s meditating every time that I say um, which is a lot. Also on Saturday mis padres made fun of me for not eating enough, even though I feel like I eat SO MUCH here. They relentlessly picked on me for at least 15 minutes about how I’m going to be too skinny and my dad is going to be mad.
Mis padres talked to me again about boys this week, and the difference between how boys think and how girls think, as well as the difference between going out with someone and having relations with someone. It’s kinda endearing, cause mi padre was being all fatherly. He also told me that the boys in the US must be blind if I don’t have a boyfriend. This is when I told him that my dad always asks me if I fell out of the ugly tree. Try explaining that in Spanish…
Speaking of boys, though, a lot of people warned me before I came here to be careful with the boys here, they’re going to be obnoxious, and all of that, but I really haven’t had a problem so far. I think a lot of that has to do with the kind of city that Querétaro is. Well, this week was certainly different. My taxi driver started asking me if my boyfriend was in the US, how old I was, and if my sister was as pretty as I am. That wasn’t too bad.
The next day, however, as I was waiting for the bus, this guy came up and started talking to me, and was very persistent, asking if my boyfriend was in the US (I find it weird to have the question phrased like that, instead of just asking if I have a boyfriend. Either way, I think from now on I’m just going to tell them that yes, my boyfriend is in the US, he’s a black belt in karate, and we’re getting married this summer). Anyway, he wanted to accompany me to wherever I was going and wanted to know if I wanted to see him sometime. Not knowing Spanish sometimes comes in handy in these situations though, cause when he would hit on me, I would just say “what? I don’t understand.” I ended up taking a taxi home because my bus wasn’t coming and this guy was still talking to me. Later that night we went to a salsa bar, and at the end the waiter told me “me encanta tu nombre como me encanata a ti,” translated like “I love your name like I love you.” Then he started asking for my number and if I would come back and everything. Apparently I’m going to have to learn how to deal with these situations.
New foods: Taquitos arabes. The outside is grape leaves and I don’t really know what’s inside, but I didn’t care for them. I also had a tamale verde, which I thought was kind of spicy, even though mis padres told me it wasn’t spicy at all. Mis padres make atole, which is a hot chocolate drink but a lot thicker than what we have in the US, it has some sort of flour in it, I believe. It’s delicious though, especially on the cold days we’ve been having here. Saturday night I had a pastor sandwich, which I’m going to say was the best sandwich I have ever eaten. Pastor is a form of pork that has been marinated in sauce. The sandwich had cheese, beans, and avocado (they put avocado on a lot of things here, I like it. It’s also common to have beans on their sandwiches). Then, on the table, there were limes and pineapple to put on the sandwich. So good!
Sunday I watched the superbowl with two of the other students from Michigan.
I updated two of my albums, so check them out if you’d like to see more pics.
Queretaro
Mexico City