Siempre, La Cuidad de Mexico

Well, here we are! We’re all well and good here in Mexico City, although we’re all quite exhausted, some of us having been awake since 1 am this morning (Portland time). But as tired as we are, we can’t close our eyes. Everything is already way too exciting.

I have never been to Mexico. Ever. Not even on vacation. So of course I’d HEARD about Mexico being a huge city and how it’s completely overwhelming. Yeah, totally underestimated how big Mexico City is. And so will you if I try and explain it as you’ve never been there. It’s expansive and never-ending. Quite a few minutes of our flight was simply flying over the metropolitan area, looking for the airport. It’s so huge! And it’s incredibly smashed together and yet still enormous. Its hills of houses and neighborhoods and cityscape as far as the eye can see – and that’s from the air! I was truly in awe.

So we landed in the Mexico City airport and had a bit of trouble finding the immigration counter. Some man kindly pointed us in the direction of a gigantic line and we were on our way into Mexico. Immigration was fine and easy. Customs was where it got a bit tricky.

At the Customs counter they request that all your luggage go through a second scan while a man who doesn’t speak English interrogates you. Its not a very fruitful process, as I’m sure you guessed, because I barely understood the man, he barely understood me, and therefore any questions of importance that he was asking went right over my head. Its ok, he didn’t seem too serious about his job anyways.

So I’m in the back of the line for Customs. Tiffany, Ashley, Erin, and Alayna have already had their stuff scans and are on the other side of security by the time I get my stuff off the scanner. Interestingly enough, the man checking the out the baggage was also checking me out and when I had loaded my stuff onto a cart to leave, he insisted he do a baggage inspection. I’m alone. Everyone in my group has already outside. What could I do? So while he opens up all my stuff and loosely inspected the contents, he also tries to make friendly conversation and really doesn’t look through my stuff at all. I’m fairly certain he just wanted to see my lingerie. So bad.

When I get outside, we’re met by Javier, who works for Universal (from what I’ve guessed). He’s a nice man who doesn’t speak English but is still very interested in all of us. We had a sweet van with AC, so we had the hookups on the way to Cuernavaca. Its about 70 degrees here and looks like it could rain at any moment. Everything is very green, but Javier says that’s only because its been raining a ton. Apparently everything is usually dead. He’s a very optimistic man.

Mexico City. Wow. Everything is pink or orange or purple or green or red and nothing (and I mean NOTHING) is NOT adorned with graffiti. Literally everywhere you look, there is graffiti covering the walls like wallpaper and some of it is really good! I wish I could have taken more pictures, but it’s hard to do that from a moving van. People and shops and markets are everywhere. Everything is bustling and alive. Its almost like Singapore in that everything is city and everyone has somewhere to go and something to do very quickly. It’s not like Singapore in that it’s Mexico, and all the plants and people and signs and architecture are very different and Latin.

So right now I’m in Cuernavaca at my host family’s home in my room (which has two beds for some reason. Apparently that isn’t uncommon, as Ashley has two as well). My host mom is very nice and she speaks slow enough that I can understand a lot of what she is saying. We had dinner together and she asked so many questions and talked so much I could barely eat. We talked about Mexican culture, George Fox, my family, my ancestry (which was weird), the sights to see in Cuernavaca, the weather, and Universal (the language school I’ll be attending here). Apparently, she’s hosted lots of students in the past, some from Germany and parts of Asia. I think she also won an award from Universal for being a good host mom. I hope I don’t accidentally offend her in some way…that would be horrible.

So I’m all unpacked, I’m safe, and severely homesick and on the verge of tears, but I’m pretty sure that just from this whole thing being a very long, very overwhelming day. Ashley and I have already agreed we’re gonna own this trip, so no more homesickness…although I miss you all way too much.

Love,
Kelsey
This is the outside of my home.
And this is looking down the street.