My First Day in Puebla!

Disclaimer!: There are a lot of descriptions/details but it should die down with time

I know I've only been here for 24 hours, but I'm pretty sure I want to live here forever. I don't even want to think about the U.S. Yesterday was full of ups and downs, literally. Flying into Mexico City was absolutely amazing, every way I looked all I could see was city city city city houses buildings more buildings city. Coming into immigration/customs was a little iffy and I wasn't sure if I was sopposed to pick up my luggage or not so I asked someone (in Spanish) and they said to wait for it, so I did, but it wasn't there. So I just figured they'd get it to me anyway but right now I really need to make the next plane on time. I went through the doors and a crowd of people were standing there, some with signs, flowers, etc. This man with an airport ID came up to me and was like, "connecting flight?" So I said yes, and I followed him up to where the entrance to the gates was and he said "tip?". I thought to myself Ughhh...I'm not even there and I'm already being harassed for money? But I just politely said "no, I'm sorry" and kept walking. Next stop was Monterrey, which was completely different than what I expected. Granted I only saw it from 20,000 feet or so, but it was a lot more barren than I thought. When I got to Puebla, getting off the plane and walking outside through the tunnel-ish thing, there were piñatas hanging and signs that said "Bienvenidos! Welcome!". I waited near the baggage claim for just a few minutes for my luggage and thankfully it was there. I wasn’t sure where the group flight was coming in so I went to ask someone at the information desk and apparently my Spanish was so bad she just said (in English) “what are you asking?”. So I just waited for them, and this man asked if I needed a ride to the University and I said “I don’t know, are you Ignacio?”. It wasn’t him, but he was very nice and we talked for a few minutes. Finally, Ignacio came in and saw me and we introduced ourselves, I met his assistant Leti and we just spoke in English (thankfully) for a while until Liz and Stephanie came off the plane, then we waited on the others to get there, we put our luggage in the school’s van and got in another one. I was super excited to meet everyone and everyone was so nice and after a while, we all got a lot more comfortable because we were all in the same boat. We were all a little nervous, worried we didn’t know enough Spanish, curious if Puebla was going to be okay or not, if the program was going to be anything like we expected. We soon realized we all knew about the same thing: same insecurities, same levels of Spanish, etc. etc. So the whole way to the school (about 30 min) Ignacio explained every possible thing that we had doubts about and if we had any questions. After all the questions were answered I asked him what his favorite color was (it was blue) and then we started talking about soccer.
When we got further into town it was so exciting, there were street vendors selling food, lights, buildings connected and colorful. I was going on pure adrenaline by then, and when we arrived at the dorms we went through a gate, and up to our rooms. My roommate was already in the room. Her name is Kayla, and she’s an American from Idaho. The room is just like any other dorm in the world. Two beds, two desks, two closets, one window, but the nice thing here is we have our own bathroom, medicine cabinet and everything. And the linens were a lot better than I was thinking. Everything is white and either tile or plastic (even the walls) inside and out. There are doors that lock to every floor, a huge kitchen/living room when you first walk in with everything you need. Our view isn’t the best in town, but it’s not important, I won’t be in it very much this semester, I can feel it. The dorms are surrounded by a high voltage fence, and 24 hour security guards (who now know us all by face, name and room number). I was so excited to talk to everyone and there are 6 other American girls in the dorm, 4 on my floor, and 2 below.
It feels like I’ve been here so much longer than I really have, I almost said “in the morning”, rather than “this morning”. THIS morning we met in the common room to go to breakfast at the cafeteria a cars length away from the dorm, but they were closed, so we went across the street to campus. We found an ATM and for the first time I felt rich. Taking out 1,000 sure feels better than 100. Then we had orientation and we told Ignacio we were hungry so he had people bring us breakfast and COFFEE! (Proving how nice he is). We had to take a placement test to make sure we signed up for the right level of Spanish and at first I felt pretty good about it, but as I was approaching the third page, that feeling went away. Then there was an oral portion which I failed miserably. Whatever. It turns out that everyone wants to go to the same places I do (Veracruz, Acapulco, Palenque, etc.) and we have two three-day weekends, one five-day weekend, and spring break, so hopefully we’ll make it everywhere! The buses are really cheap too, so that’ll help.
Campus doesn’t even feel like a school. It feels like a resort. Or like in the movies when they show a California high school and the locker are all outside. We kept the door open during orientation because the weather was like a warm spring day. There are cylinder-shaped trees, flowers, swans swimming in the lake (which has a small island and a few bridges), peacocks that walk right in front of you like they’re just another person or something, everything is built to be open, bright, and breezy. We had a tour of the library (very nice, and very modern), and campus. Then we had lunch, which Ignacio “cooked” (aka-got from Costco). Which reminds me, there is a huge shopping complex behind the school equipped with Wal-Mart, Costco, Sears, and a ton of other stores. Next, we hopped on the bus to go downtown. It’s nice because the school has its own bus system that picks you up and drops you off at the main gate basically every hour on the hour M-F and a taxi service that picks you up at either the dorms or the main gate to the school.
Leti took us from where the bus dropped us off and walked with us to the Zocalo (main square) of Puebla. I was skipping and whistling in my head because every single thing I looked at was way cooler than anything else I’ve seen. The signs, the buildings, the houses/apartments, the streets, the colors, everything. There was so much going on! When we got to the Zocalo I thought my heart was going to explode. Some of my favorite types of trees filled this huge square right next to a huge 16th century cathedral with fountains everywhere, people selling the most balloons I’ve ever seen one person carry in my life, everyone seemed to be either holding hands, kissing, or linking arms with their friends. School must have just gotten out because a lot of kids were in uniforms, but like the cute Japanese kind, not the American kind. We took a double-decker bus tour of the city where I took a ton a pictures.
8 of us decided to stay downtown instead of heading back to campus, so we went to this little restaurant while a man sang un cancion to us/me. He asked my name then incorporated it into the song. Erica is fluent in Spanish which was sooooo helpful because otherwise, we would have been screwed. Then we went on a hunt for sheets, because a few people didn’t have anything to sleep on last night (which would have been me). We were all just hoping around the city as it began to get dark and all the lights came on. There are definitely not as many people walking around and in stores etc. as I thought there would be. We went to a drug store to buy food for tomorrow morning. We finally found sheets which was interesting because Josh doesn’t speak any Spanish whatsoever so Erica was translating everything and he didn’t have enough so Sean chipped in to cover the rest. The stores here don’t really have doors, I mean they do, but not like in America. Everything is open and some kind of remind me of a storage shed or a garage. Then we gathered up money for the bus to go back to school, and Erica paid my fare because I didn’t have change (it was only 5 pesos which isn’t even 50 cents). We were heading to the bus station and saw bus #29, the one we needed speeding past us and stopping at a bus stop far ahead of us, so we all started running trying to catch up with it, but it was a lost cause. Then we saw another bus #29 and walked right onto it without even waiting a full minute. The bus ride back was entertaining and we made it back to campus pretty much by luck.
When we were walking through the parking lot I said “I would call today a success”. I mean, we got to eat breakfast for free, it wasn’t boring for even a minute, none of us got sick from the restaurant, Ana got into the right cab safely, we got off on the right bus stop, we didn’t miss the bus, we didn’t get lost or mugged, everyone was so patient and helpful we had Erica to translate when needed (which was most of the time), and nothing could have turned out any better.
I’m in an exciting, culturally and historically rich city, a new country, surrounded by a new language but at the same time everyone in this program speaks English. We all get along really really well and we were planning on all hanging out together tonight after we unpacked but the boy’s dorm is locked and we have no way of contacting them. It doesn’t really matter because I’m exhausted and could have/should have gone to sleep two hours ago, but I don’t want to forget a single thing that has happened so far so I had to write a much as I could tonight! Well, I have class at 9 tomorrow morning so BUENAS NOCHES! Hasta pronto.