anika in mexico

First day of class. Took me 30 minutes to get to the turn that usually takes me 3 minutes to get to. Sucked. But the rest of the way only took 10 minutes, so I wasn’t late.

I waited in the cold cloudy courtyard. I stared at the white painted intricate cast iron chairs that were tipped up on their front two legs, leaning against the equally detailed white cast iron tables. There were about 5 of these arrangements. In the dull gloomy light of the drizzly morining it looked like they’d all gotten really drunk the night before, but weren’t flexible enough to properly pass out, so the tilt against the table was the best they could manage.

Only one other, rather unfriendly looking girl was sitting there. She barely cracked a smile when I said, “hola!” Maybe she just didn’t understand me.

After a few minutes wait I was ushered into the office and promptly told that I was going to have an individual class which I’d have to pay a extra money to take. I did so, and I met Marta, my professor. She’s nice enough. Perhaps a bit older and a little less energetic and “fun” than my last profesora, but she seems like she’ll be a good teacher.

In one way I think the class will be good for me. My prof said we were really going to have a lot of practice with conversation in class, with the bulk of the writing for homework. Class is 2.5 hours long, so it’ll be good practice speaking which I really feel is my weakest point right now.

On the other hand, I’m the only one in class, so that means I won’t be meeting anyone new. Kind of a shame since Megan has a lot of other stuff going on, and it would have been nice to make some new friends.

I think after this 3 week session, I’ll be ready to stretch my Spanish speaking muscles and venture out to some different parts of Mexico. I have a few places to look into, and hopefully I can get some details together in the next 3 weeks.

Class was a bit slow going. It’s a lot longer than my last course which lasted only 1.5 hours daily. Now with a longer class and all the focus on me, I have the feeling it’s going to be boring. But it’s good for me! So I’ll go with it. It’s only 3 weeks after all.

After class I went to the bank and deposited yesterday’s and today’s withdrawals. I have one more left. I thought I’d have to deposit another $5,000 only, but Teocrito told me it would have to be another $6,000. I did some calculations, and I think $5,500 is a fair number. It was supposed to be an even $4,000 USD for my car, and even with the $5,500 deposit, it’ll be $4,020 USD, so I think that’s what I’ll do and see if that’s a problem. I’d rather keep the other $50 or so for myself.

I had lunch with Sigrid, and it was a bit of drama. She believed that I didn’t like the mushrooms with noodles she served which couldn’t be further from the truth. It was one of the most satisfying meals I’ve had there, but it was very filling, so I didn’t take seconds. She kept offering me more food, but I kept insisting that I was actually full. She remarked, “how sad that you didn’t like it.” When I again said that I did indeed like it, she simply commented, “but you usually eat so much.” I admit that statement stung a little. Ultimately though, I just wasn’t sure what to say to her. I didn’t know how else to convince her that I truly did enjoy the mushroom sauce with pasta. But I’m not going to eat more than I’m hungry for just to prove that I liked the meal.

I decided to go to Starbucks since I hadn’t been able to be on the internet for quite a while. I stayed there for almost 4 hours. I chatted with mum and she agreed to give me a healing at 9pm.

I got home around 8:30pm. Reina fixed me 2 tortillas in a frijole sauce which was excellent. I ate them with Sigrid in her room while we watched a movie about inter-racial marriage, old school style. The Chinese woman was actually a white girl with makeup done to try to make her look Asian, and died black hair. The dude was this older looking American and they were willing to fight for their love even if it meant abandoning her family and moving to America. Um, yeah, anyway…

I lay down just before 9pm when mum started her healing. I actually felt some interesting things going on, and I got to discuss them with her when she called me at 9:15. We talked for over an hour. We both agreed it was nice to have a conversation with someone that we could really talk to.

Afterwards I still had a bunch of homework to do. It wasn’t too hard; mostly review. I got to bed by midnight.

I’m tired tonight. Maybe because I went without my 2-3 hour nap today. Hehe.

I talked with Mum which is always a boost. She got back from Germany yesterday, and she’s quite glad to be home. I don’t want to air all the German family drama, but she had some difficulties with her sisters over there, like always. The only reason I mention it is that it is such a contrast to the family dynamic over here. Hearing the latest odd stories from the German side, makes me appreciate being part of the family community in Mexico even more.

I’m accepted here without hesitation or suspicion. While at times the family here gets a little too close for comfort (esp. for me, used to being left to my own devices most of the time), I recognize that all the minor “drama” here stems from the fact that people care about one another, are genuinely interested in one another’s lives, and only want what’s best. Since I realized this, I just kind of roll with the punches, and everything has been working out.

I got my car today! Teocrito dropped it off for me on his way out of town. I was on my own! It was a great feeling of liberation, sitting by myself in my car in the little driveway. I sat there for a minute or two, soaking up the feeling of independence. How I’d missed it. I drove to school with no problems. In fact I think it’s kind of fun to drive here. You can ignore certain rules at certain times and you just have to kind of nudge yourself into traffic where and when you want to go. I parked at the Gigante (supermarket that has everything from socks to auto parts to cactus fruit). I bought a few things I needed anyway so I could get my parking validated. Less than $1.50 to park for about 3 hours. I think I’m going to try the school’s parking lot tomorrow. It costs a little more, but I can park for up to 8 hours for the same amount.

After school and shopping, I followed my nose to get to the bank section, and I completed my little complicated transaction, getting closer to a paid off car.

I then drove to Starbucks and parked with the help of a “viene, viene” (”come, come”). A “viene, viene” is an unofficial parking attendant. You find them in all popular locations that have street parking. They claim a few spots on the street as “theirs” and then they help drivers who want to park to get into the space. They also help you exit safely, stopping traffic if necessary. While the driver is off on whatever important errand, they keep an eye on the car to make sure it stays safe. When you leave you give them maybe $5 or $10 pesos (50 cents to a dollar) for their help.

Something great happened today which has nothing to do with Mexico. Indeed I could have been anywhere in the world with internet access to get the news. I got a message on myspace from a friend I have not seen in maybe 17 years. She lived 2 houses down from me until I was 10 or 11 when she and her twin sister and the rest of the family moved to Michigan. I never heard from or saw her after that. I’d done an internet search a few times over the years for either her or her sister, but with no luck.

But now she’s back in touch! It’s weird to have this connection with someone that really I don’t even know at all but also really fun and exciting. I’m so curious about what she’s up to these days.

Anyway, after Starbucks where I drank my usual capuccino and indulged in a pan de chocolate, I headed back home for dinner. Again, not much in the mood for homework, I decided to call mum. That’s when I got the update about her trip to Germany, and had the chance to fill her in on everything that I’ve been up to. She seemed really happy that I’m having such a good time here.

I was in a good mood after my conversation, so I went downstairs and read to Sigrid from our book for a while. We were almost finished with the chapter when her friend, Lolita showed up to play cards. She invited me to play also, but I opted out and headed upstairs to my room.

Still not in the mood for homework, I continued my creative pursuits. I dragged my comfy chair out onto the terrace and made myself a hot cup of black tea with milk and sugar. While reposing outside in my chair with my tea by my side, I drew a really cool weird flower. Not quite finished yet (stippling can be a bitch), but I think it’s going to look really cool.

Finally I reluctantly turned to my homework, but luckily Anna was back home by then to distract me a bit. I didn’t quite know what I was in for, as I ended up serving as a sounding board for all her frustrations.

It wasn’t under amicable terms that she left the last place she was staying to come here. It was Anna’s friend’s aunt’s place that she had to leave because the aunt decided she didn’t like Anna’s attitude or something (which is odd because Anna is the most friendly gregarious person I’ve met here so far). So Anna’s still rather intwined in the situation since her friend is still in the picture, even if the aunt would prefer that they went their separate ways altogether. She’s having a hard time with the whole situation, and she doesn’t really have anyone else to talk to in Mexico, plus I think she needed some reassurance that it really was ok for her to be here–that she wasn’t a nuisance etc. I could provide a sympathetic ear, so I let her talk.

I managed to get her to come downstairs with me so I could eat some supper while she continued talking, so all in all it wasn’t too bad, just long.

So when I finally got to my homework, I really wanted it to just be quick and mindless, but I guess that goes against the point of trying to learn a language, right? I did the basic exercises easily enough, but my professor assigned 2 different writings to do. I did one, but I’ve decided to blow off the other one for tonight. Bad student. Bad.

Mum arrives in Maryland from Germany today. She’s been there for a bit over three weeks. That means that I’ve been here for 3 weeks tomorrow! Time’s flying! I can’t believe that we only have one more week of the class when this one’s over. I guess three week classes would tend to zoom by.

I talked a bit with Teocrito about some of the places where I’d like to travel. I like talking with him about that stuff, because he’s only supportive. He never says that it’s not a good idea. He only offers good suggestions. He told me that I could quite easily drive my car to Villa Hermosa which is about 8 hours away. From there I can make a long day trip to Palenque, one of the places where I really want to go.

Today was the “dia de los bancos” for me. Teocrito picked me up at school and I drove my new car (which I still don’t have posession of just yet) to the first bank to see if they could withdraw $4,000 USD off my atm card. They discovered that they couldn’t but were sure that Banamex could. After much waiting and heated discussion at Banamex, we discovered the problem: mine is a debit card, not a credit card, so they couldn’t do make the transaction. To me that seems a little odd since I can use it both ways, but I decided to agree with them so I wouldn’t have to wait around any more for more negative answers.

I’m not sure if he didn’t understand, but Teocrito seemed to brush off my suggestion that maybe they had a way to transfer money directly from my checking account since I had the account number and also the routing number. He didn’t even ask the bank people about it. So as it stands, everyday after school, I have to drive (assuming I have my car) to Bancomer where Teocrito has his account, withdraw the maximum allowed daily: $5,000 Pesos from the atm, then go inside the bank and deposit the money into his “cuenta” or account and then somehow he is going to pay for the car. He showed me my daily process at yet another bank before we went back to where we’d parked the car, where he dodged into the first bank one more time, but at least that time I could wait in the car.

It’s complicated and confusing, but hopefully it’ll work. After the whole process which lasted about 3 hours, I was utterly exhausted and starving, arriving home just in time to take advantage of lunch.

After an incredibly delicious lunch of carrot soup, quesadillas, rice and salad, I read a bit about CSS then snoozed for a while. I made a playlist of all the things I want to listen to while in Mexico; some new stuff from Nic, and a lot of stuff I already know, but it makes me happy.

I tried to sit down and do my homework, but I think last night’s must have scarred me since it took me 2 hours. I didn’t want to start. I just finished tonight’s (it’s about 10 pm) and it took me all of 10 minutes.

Earlier this evening I was itching to do something creative. So I blew of the homework for the moment, and instead I worked on my weird sea creature composition, my pattern page (I’m actually working on 2. For the first one I’m drawing a different motif in each square on the page, using the size of the grid paper squares; they are tiny and the effect I’m getting as the page gets filled is really neat looking. The second is the same deal, but I increased the scale, using 4 grid squares for each motif.), and a new large sea creature that’s turning out to look like a decorative sea urchin.

I did all this out on the terrace, enjoying the cloudy, windy, yet warm evening. After a while I heard a little knock from the end of my room with the bathroom (the bathroom opens into my room and also into the hallway) and I poked my head in to see Anna and Leoni (the German girls)! There were rumors that Anna would be moving here for the remainder of her stay (they are leaving the 10th or 13th of September), and I guess the rumors were true. Apparently there was a bit of trouble at Maya’s place. Maya is Leoni’s aunt. Originally Anna was supposed to stay at another place, arranged by Maya, but the arrangement fell through. Maya’s apartment was pretty crowded with both girls living there, and Maya was none-to-pleased that it might be a long-term situation.

It works out well for her to stay here though. We already have the extra room that’s unused at this point, and she’s a friendly girl, so I’m sure it’ll work out fine.

She leaves pretty early in the morning to get to her internship at 8am. I was willing to get an earlier start if it would work for me to take her to a metro stop, but I’m not interested in getting up quite that much earlier. Her internship only goes until 1pm, so it seems like some afternoons maybe we can go do some stuff together which would be fun.

I showed her around the joint, pointing out all the necessary things to know. I made a list of important phone numbers, and gave her our address here. Most importantly, I translated some of what Reina said to her about how to catch the bus in the morning. I felt very proud, acting like a translator. I hope I got everything right. Haha.

I just killed a cockroach that was in my room. *shudder* I’d seen a few in the kitchen at night, but oh, no, not in my room. I don’t like cockroaches.

Wednesay I went with Sigrid to her College. It’s very big, and she says there is never enough parking when school is in session. With registration still going on, we didn’t have a problem finding a spot. I was able to check my email and check my favorite sites for a long time while Siggy took care of some things at her work and with her professors. She was worried I would get bored, but really I can keep myself occupied as long as I need to on the internet.

She let me drive her car back to her house. I was a little nervous just because, you know, it’s Mexico City, but it really wasn’t too bad, even when it got a little “crazy”. People don’t follow the traffic rules most of the time, but everyone on the road doesn’t follow the rules, so in a way there’s this collective unconscious that makes things flow pretty smoothly. Everyone’s almost expecting you to pull some crazy maneuver to get where you need to go, and even if they get upset by it, it’s very fleeting. Horns aren’t used as a way to actually alert others, but instead are a great way to relieve some stress when you are in a hurry and things aren’t moving.

After the drive home we ate lunch at Siggy’s parent’s place. I really wasn’t much in the mood for food, but I ate it anyway. It was good, but then I was pretty tired, so Siggy let me go to her room to take a nap. I slept for 2 hours.

We then fought traffic to get to this really beautifully designed mall that has all the really high end stores. They also have a movie theater and we were going to meet Siggy’s friends to see Harry Potter. I really thought it was going to be dubbed in Spanish, but it wasn’t: just subtitles. I actually really enjoyed watching it. Afterwards her friends wanted to go somewhere else and eat. Still not so much of an appetite, but I agreed to go along. I tried an empanada con jamon y queso, but the filling tasted a bit too much like cat food for my palate, so I gave half of it to Fernando, Siggy’s maybe gay friend. He agreed that it tasted a bit odd. Then I nibbled on the left over bread from the fondue that Pancho and Fernando ordered, but didn’t order anything else.

I got home fairly late considering that I had to be up kind of early to get to the school to take my placement test and register for my class. The bottom lock was totally stuck, but luckily Siggy’s friend Santiago was there. He’s quite spry and in no time he hopped the fence and let me in. I went right to bed, but morning still came too soon.

I rolled myself out of bed and was ready promptly at 9 when Siggy told me she would call. She didn’t call until 9:30, and then it was to say that instead of her taking me, her father would drop me off and then I could take the bus or a taxi home. In retrospect, it’s really not a big deal, but for some reason, at the time, it really threw me.

If I’d known that the day before, I could have easily gotten all the information and felt confident about finding my way. But I didn’t. I was not feeling well and then also totally overwhelmed by the task in front of me.

Finally it was decided that Teocrito would indeed pick me up and take me to get the little photos taken that I needed to bring with me in order to register, then drop me at the school where I’d just have to figure things out.

Teocrito showed up earlier than I expected, and it took me several minutes to gather all my stuff and myself together, but I was soon out the door as quickly as I could have been. Perhaps he was a bit annoyed that I kept him waiting, but soon he warmed up, and I eventually kind of snapped out of my weird mood.

Teocrito was actually a great help. He didn’t just dump me on the sidewalk, but instead he asked the security guard where I should go, which was not on the main campus, but down a block to the right at La Casa Rosa. It was literally a pink house. He then parked and walked inside with me. He even sat and waited while I had a conversation in Spanish with the profesora. When we were going to start the written test, I asked him if he wanted to leave, and he came over and asked the lady a bunch of questions until he felt satisfied, and then he left.

I was really feeling kind of out of it, but I managed to get through 3 pages of the test confidently. Then my confidence swayed, and after struggling to remember irregular past-tense conjugations of verbs I finally said that I didn’t want to finish. So I placed somewhere between the 1st and second levels. Because of that, I’m going to take the semi-intensive course rather than the intensive course in which I’d have to start from the very beginning with numbers and the alphabet and all.

I’ll be starting class this Monday, and so I’ll be here for at least another 3 weeks.

After the placement test I had to pay $2,700 pesos (about $270 USD). I literally had $2,600 pesos, so I went to the atm, but when I was there I realized I’d left my atm card in my desk rather than toting it around with me everywhere, as my guide book suggested. So I called Siggy and she had to bring me $100 pesos which she did within a half hour, also picking me up. Santiago was with her since he had borrowed the car overnight and needed a lift to Polanco.

After dropping him off we went to buy me a spanish-english dictionary and a map of mexico city (which I now see is practically useless for me because the magnified maps of the two parts of the city where I’ll be spending the most time cut off right at my street, or right at my school). While at Sanborn’s we got a call from her mom and we had to walk (what seemed a long way in my weakend condition) to buy a kilo of limones and a cake. We stopped at some point and got a Chai Latte which really didn’t agree with me. By the end of our excursion I was feeling really terrible, so I had Siggy drop me off at home rather than go to her house for more food which I so didn’t want to eat at that point.

I got home and just slept. Somehow I managed to pull myself together for Karin’s party but I was not feeling 100% at all. I wrapped her purse in tissue paper and made these really cute little flowers also out of tissue paper. I was very proud of my wrapping job. When I handed it to her she said, “oh, well this must be a purse” and then unceremoniously unwrapped the thing and said, “oh yes, it’s very nice”. I suppose it’s her gift and she can do with it what she wants, but I would have appreciated a little more tact if not ceremony.

The party was ok, but I didn’t eat anything; just water and a bit of tea at the end of the night. I met these 2 girls from Germany. I think one of their names was Anna, but don’t remember the other. One was really friendly and I talked with her a lot. The other also seemed friendly but didn’t say much. I think she understood everything I said in English but wasn’t comfortable speaking it, like I am with Spanish. After 11:30 I finally got the chance to sneak off and lie down for a bit in Siggy’s bed. We left by around midnight, and by then I felt really quite out of it.

Today I’ve just been sick and taking it easy. Karin came in at about 10:30 and gave me some kind of tonic that I am to gargle and drink 3x a day. It’s ok and very mediciney tasting, but I don’t think it’s working any magic. I played some solitaire while Sigrid went to the garden to tell the gardener what to do. I made some more tissue paper flowers, this time with more variations that the ones I made for Karin’s presents. I read some in my text book, and looked up some spanish words, but mostly just took it easy and rested. Tomorrow I’m supposed to go to Metepec with Sigrid and then go look for a car with Teocrito, but we’ll see how I feel. I don’t want to push it.