Bernal

Readers, its seems like it has been a little while since I last posted. There is obviously more than one interpretation as to why. Maybe I got hooked on a new website that shows me random sites that I am interested in. Or maybe I have simply had a full plate and didn't have the time to post.

On Saturday, I went on a trip with a group of students from Tec (many many foreign exchange students), to the 3rd largest rock in the world. It is only an hour north of Queretaro. At the base of the rock, there is a town. Obviously, the town was there before the rock. No wait, that the other way around. I was thinking about someone from Bernal giving someone directions to their place--"Just go north until you see the big rock, you can't miss it." How handy.

Obviously we were at the site of the world's 3rd largest rock. The only logical thing to do is to climb it. Ismael and myself were the first to reach the first point that we stopped at. Give it up for team America! (I should have taken the French guys up on their bet.)

Obviously, we weren't going to simply stop, we had to push the limits a bit. If you look in this picture, you can see Jirka (half human from Czeck Republic, half mountain goat). This picture gives you some perspective of how much higher this rock is. I decided to live to die another day and just chilled for a bit.

We got back down, walked into town, and ate black corn gorditas. A gordita is kind of like a tortilla in the shape of a pita bread. They are hollow and then you put whatever you want inside. They were way to delicious. I could have stayed and continued eating gorditas, but service was a little slow and I wanted to see the rest of the town.

We walked around and there was a cool church, a really cool garden, and some cool shops. I have some pictures and actually thought I had uploaded at least one. Looks like I failed. After we got done, we hopped on the bus and headed back home. Bernal conquered!

January 26th

My plan is to have these pictures in more or less chronological order. I have progressed in my blogging skills to maybe being able to get this done.

I started out the day by sleeping in a little late. I stayed up late so I got around 9 hours of sleep. I ate some cheerios, had a banana, etc. We got to school at around 11:20 and I worked on some stuff/talked with some people until a 12:15 meeting with a professor.

After I got done with that, I decided to go for a stroll outside of the Tec de Monterrey perimeter. The whole idea was to look for tacos but I didn't really find what I wanted. The street tacos are usually the best at night. I kept walking around, got slightly disoriented, self-corrected, talked with a couple cashiers at a Super Q about whether or not I am still young, etc.

I made it back to school in plenty of time for my 4:00 class. After class got over, I went with a couple friends to a local taco stand. It was awesome. We parted ways and I bought myself a coke. My plan was to try to catch a bus back to the house for the first time. I asked a security guard where to wait for the bus I needed. He told me one place so I went their. I kept asking people which bus they were waiting for but they were never waiting for the same one. I was directed to a couple of other bus stops before finding a guy headed somewhat in the same direction. I ended up taking his bus, riding until the end of the route, and being (I found out later) very far from home.

I didn't exactly have any idea of where buses would be and I didn't really want to pay for a taxi, so against all the wishes of everyone who has told me about Mexico, I began to walk home. I would walk in a direction for a while, ask someone if they knew where I was going, get new directions, do that for a while, ask again, etc. By the end, I found a road I was familiar with and made it back. The whole fiasco of getting home took close to an hour and a half. Next time I am getting on the correct bus. That is, if I figure out where it stops.

I made it back home and I found this banner on my mirror, and this little cake on my dresser. I proceeded to get ready for bed, slightly sad that my day was going to end. However, I got into a Facebook chat with some of my friends, which turned into a Skype chat. I couldn't always here what they were saying but via Skype, hand motions, head shakes, and yet more Facebook chat, I feel like we had a decent conversation. I ended up ending my day less than a half hour short of 12:00. I am now a little tired but it was definitely worth it.

Thanks everybody and I look forward to getting late birthday hugs from all of you.

Birthday Party

I'm not entirely sure what day's I'm dealing with here. I believe that these pictures are from Saturday evening. Anyway, it is the day following the first go-kart adventure. I threw in some new go-kart footage for viewing pleasure.

Bottom line, all of us ended up in the house again. Carla's sisters Gina and Claudia, and this time her brother came up from Mexico (the state but also the city) with his family to celebrate birthdays and collect their dog. Yes, Pixi is now gone from this household and has returned to live with her true owners.

We all kind of chilled for a while until someone decided it was time to dig into the deserts. Franco was really pushing hard to get something done because he wanted to go karting again. The candle on my cake says "veinte y tantos". This just means twenty and some. It is a joke to be used on much older people but I like it.

I more or less got my face pushed into the cake. But only marred a small piece of it. I ate the marred piece even though someone had taken a bite out of it. I threw in a picture of the flan as well. It was delicious too.

I share my birthday with Paulina. We put in her candle for her picture but put them both in to blow out the candles. We each only had one candle so it was much easier to put out than any sort of spacing of 21 candles. Even a 21 candle torch would have been much harder to put out than my one candle. My wish should be coming true this year. Finally!

After we got done karting, Ale told me that I'm the "Peor". That is to say that I am the worst. My interpretation is that I am actually the best and she is simply awed by my dominance on the go-kart track.

I met two more cousins, Elisa and Estafania. I was coming up behind Elisa on the track and she promptly tried to ramp the tire wall out of the track. It must have really been cramping her style and she simply wanted some freedom by driving in the parking lot. She didn't make it that far. (For those of you who are pointing fingers, I didn't touch her kart at all.)

My Characticture

Last night we went to a small restaurant and I ate one of Queretaro's specialties, Enchiladas Queretanos. They were very good. I had some the first week but they had a much more bitter taste. I am definitely a fan.

Ale was tired and was venting by being silly. Her and Hugo got into a huge drawing battle and it was actually really impressive. (I was in the corner drawing misshaped cubes.)

One of the products of this madness was a characticture (I am not sure if this is a word) representing my life in Queretaro. It is actually quite impressive the amount of subtle details that went into this picture. On the left side of the picture, you see me saying that I'm a ninja. I do so enjoy speaking very bad Spanish every now and then to get a reaction so I've become a "Merican". Say it to yourself in a southern accent. Soy Merican.

You may notice three girls peaking out from behind my head (they must be back some distance). The overall reaction is extremely positive to my appearance from the girls.

On the left side of the picture by my legs, I have been labeled as "El Coqueton". The flirt.

Obviously this is the artists interpretation of my life.

Skype

Due to the fact that I have no idea what it would cost to call home with my loaned Mexican sell phone, and having the information that Skype is completely free, I have been getting more and more familiar and comfortable with talking with my loved ones via Skype.

This is a screen shot of what I believe was last Saturday morning. This has to rank in my top ten for good communication (I am a very poor communicator). I have since forgotten how to take a screen shot. If anyone wants to chat via Skype, just look for Jay Fiechter, I believe I'm the only one. Give me a call if you catch me on. This goes for everyone except for my stalkers--you know who you are.

Night out with Cousins

I had just gotten back from school last night and was very tired. I was actually supposed to be sleeping but I hadn't quite gotten there yet. Carla's sister showed up with her kids and so I went down to see what was up.

I was promptly invited to go go-karting. Like a good American, I accepted the invitation. How could I refuse go-karting?

After waiting a while to leave (and talking with the family on Skype while supposedly getting my wallet, we headed out. We had to go to Claudia's house to change. Her kids were still in their school uniforms. After a while, we finally made it to the karts.

In the first picture, you can see most of the crew. Paulina was still driving in this picture. The girl in front of Franco is Miriam, Paulina's friend. This was the first time that Paulina was big enough to drive a kart by herself. Miriam was too small and they thought Giancarlo would drive too crazy.

Carlo rode with me and Miriam rode with Franco. Oh, Franco thought it was important that I had a hat so I borrowed one from him. He has hundreds. I introduced the family to almost 21-year-old-male-American go-karting.

Before leaving to go karting, I had asked Franco if we were allowed to bump. He said that we weren't technically allowed to (frowned upon). Needless to say, I may have gotten a little too bumpy on the track. I came up behind Paulina (in first) and Franco (in second) and was trying to pass Franco. I tapped him in a corner and he proceeded to crush Paulina into the corner. She hit the wall of tires hard enough to move half of the track. It was hilarious!

Everyone thought it was funny except for the track owners. Carlo loved going fast. We got done and he ran back onto the track and hopped into another kart. It was a riot.

We proceeded to go to a night market and I sampled some of Mexico's delicacies. Everything was fried and sugared heavily. How can you go wrong?

You have to love Mariachi

So. Last Friday, the International Programs office hosted a big welcome lunch. We did have to buy tickets but they were only 20 pesos. I ate a lot more than 20 pesos worth.

They had been telling us that there was going to be a big surprise for us if we went. We were pretty much done eating when low and behold, in comes a complete Mariachi band!

It was awesome. There may be a video of us all dancing on stage instead of this picture. We'll save that for a later post.



Chad, they are singing Guadalajara in this clip. I had to stop filming to join the massive train that is getting started in the end of this clip. After the train, we all got on stage and danced (pictured above).