Re-post from Mon, 23 Jul 2001 09:32:06 -0700 (PDT)

Hi all, I am in Guadalajara. Flew through Mexico cityyesterday. luckily I met a girl from toronto whospeaks very good spanish, and she helped me navigatethrough the airport. It is wierd because they don´tknow what gate your plane is departing from untilabout 5 minutes before the flight. Then we got toGuadalajara, and no one here speaks english (which isgood for me to learn in). I split a cab with the girl(emily) to the school because she is studying at thesame school, although at a much higher level. Iarrived at my homestay, and there are 2 other peoplestaying there, they are both americanos, and they bothspeak fluent spanish. The family talks to me inSpanish even though they know that I dont understand aword, which is really cool, because it will eventuallystart to make sense. They are an awesome family, thefood is amazing , yesterday I had chicken and rice andtortillias with green and red home-made salsa, thismorning for breakfast they served me scrambled eggsmade with onions, peppers, and all sorts of goodstuff, along with tortillias, bread, and beans. Thehomestay hostess also squeezed us orange juice straitfrom the oranges, it was damn good. The homestayfamily basically told us that there are no rules,except we are not allowed to have girls sleep over. Wedon´t have to call them if we are going to miss ameal, or if we end up staying out all night.

There is a group of 40 students here from theuniversity of toronto, and they are all staying in thestudent residence. I am sure that I will be spending alot of time partying with them, but they will be moreserious about school than me because their degreedepends on them passing and getting credit for thiscourse. One girl that I was talking to this morninglives in the same building as me in toronto -- what asmall world.

I just tried to go to the pharmacy to get my picturetaken, and it took me about 10 minutes to communicateto the guy that I wanted a photograph (I need it formy student ID). I serously need to learn this languagefast.

talk to you all soon