Merida!

It’s the capital city of the Yucatan state and has a population of about 800,000 people. This is where I will be living while I study abroad in Mexico.  Although it shares a peninsula with Cancun, it’s about 200 miles away and not built on a beach. It does, however, share the heat. The temperature will be about 95 degrees Fahrenheit while I’m there–which should make for an interesting adjustment when I return to Chicago in January.

In browsing the internet for information before I leave, I’ve found one favorite piece of information about Merida:

“Over recent years, Mérida has been a popular place to stage events, particularly of the mathematical kind. First, the International Mathematical Olympiad was held here in 2005, then the International Olympiad in Informatics in 2006. The same year, Mérida hosted the FITA Archery World Cup Final – just for something different.”

- http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/mexico/merida

Can there be anything more exciting for a math-incompetent journalism major (been a while since I’ve picked up a bow, too)?
But I’ve also found plenty of reasons to be truly excited about my trip:

“Much of Mérida’s architecture from the Colonial period through the 18th century and 19th century is still standing in the centro historico of the city. From colonial times through the mid 19th century, Mérida was a walled city intended to protect the Peninsulare and Criollo residents from periodic revolts by the indigenous Maya. Several of the old Spanish city gates survive, but modern Mérida has expanded well beyond the old city walls.”

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9rida,_Yucat%C3%A1n

I’m going to be about 75 miles from Chichen Itza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyvw6G9Max0

“Mole Poblano
The sauce in this savory dish is made from 17 different ingredients that are ground up and blended. Ingredients include: mulato chiles, pasilla chiles, ancho chiles,, Mexican chocolate, peanuts, garlic, black pepper, cinnamon, raisins, cloves, peppercorns, almonds, anise seeds, coriander seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds. The sauce is served over either chicken or pork and is wonderful. While not a spicy hot dish, spicy-ness depends on the chilis.”

- http://www.yucatantoday.com/culture/eng-yucatecancuisine.htm

Just looking at the city makes me want to go there. Here are some good photo sites:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g150811-w3-Merida_Yucatan_Peninsula.html#1223124

http://realtravel.com/merida-rivas-photos-d5588331-7.html
http://www.mexperience.com/inmexico/photos/10merida.htm

And a map of the peninsula (should I decide to drive to a beach):

http://www.travelyucatan.com/merida_mexico_map.gif

August has been a fairly trying month so far.  I am currently on an exchange visa and its going to take a while before I can get a student visa, and therefore a job, and therefore some financial stability and more weekend trips.  Even though my exchange visa was free, I should have come with a student visa, so I would have the option to work.  But enough complaining, I got do some some very interesting things through the Australia study abroad programs.  After all, the weather here is gorgeous and Brisbane is still the best place I’ve ever lived.

Stradbroke Island has to be the coolest place I’ve visited so far: waves pounding on massive rocks, miles of surfing beaches, and a laid back community.  Coming from Indiana, I felt like I was in the country again.  Some friends and I went to a bar (probably the only one) on the island, and were welcomed by a live band, who played some American rock music in our honor, and many friendly locals!  They had the Olympics on, and we had a great time.  The first time I went to Straddie, I was part of a Marine Biology field trip, and we did research and toured the island.  We analyzed mangrove environments, did some saine-netting, and examined the coast and tidal pools.  I even got to help transport a huge sea turtle (dead and smelly) that got hit by a boat, and hold a wild python (not recommended or legal as we found out).  However, feeling like too much of a tourist during that stay, I decided to return on the mid-week holiday (Ekka)  to relax and catch some waves with the boogie board.  It was a good trip, however I should have stayed a couple of days to make it worth the 3hrs  and $20 in transport.

School is still flying by… I feel like my classes are either very difficult, or extremely elementary.  The combination of my waning cold and easy classes (that sometimes can be viewed online) has called for some very short school days.  There has been very little homework though, even in the hard classes.  Its very different than what I am used to, and it makes it even harder to sit down and study when work must be done.  I am beginning to meet more of the people in my classes though, so that’s a plus.  The field trip with Marine Biology really helped with that.  I would highly recommend field trips for any student in the Australia study abroad program.  It helped me meet a lot of new people, experience some new things, and get to do some travelling.

So here’s the section where I leave you with some feelings…  It has been interesting to observe myself following the exact emotional trend outlined in out orientation.  The first month is like vacation: new and exiting, and the second month you wonder why your even here.  As I reach my second month, I have definitely had some down days, days of missing home and wanting to talk to people that actually know me, and days of wondering why I committed to stay here for a whole year.  I have found that minimizing my stress can be a worthy antidote for this time.  If I don’t stay on top of my classes, my schedule, and my budget, I tend to get really frustrated – and that’s when I miss home.  Its a very strange feeling, being in such a  beautiful, lively city, yet wanting to be somewhere else.

GO USA OLYMPIC TEAM!!!

(…ketchup…catchup…catch-up)  anyway,

I have so much to say!  I’m here in Peru, and have been for almost two weeks now, although sometimes it feels like months.  So why haven’t I posted anything?  Well, first of all, I thought I did.  Last Monday I wrote a fairly long and detailed entry about the first few days, hit post, and logged off the computer, in a hurry to meet the whole group for lunch.  Somehow I did it wrong, so that entry is lost in cyberspace.

Speaking of things that are lost, the other reason I haven’t posted is that until last night I did not have a laptop.  “But Kristen,” you ask, “what about that funny-looking compaq you brought with you and vigilantly kept safe under your bed in the DR all summer?”  And the answer is that it was stolen.  I arrived in Peru after a long day of traveling (and sitting in the Miami airport) and successfully met up with three other students and the resident director (backpack present and accounted for).  We sat around for a while waiting for one more student (backpack on floor between feet), and then went to the cafeteria in the airport to get drinks and wait (backpack on floor in center of laaaarge pile of luggage, approximately 3 feet from our table).  I was served a huge glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice, and we all happily chatted (backpack’s presence assumed but unverified).  Then I went to get my ATM card from my wallet, and found myself frantically looking through the pile of luggage and coming up empty every time.  (Aghhhh!)

So my backpack and the large hiking-type bag belonging to one of the other students had apparently been stolen while we sat just 3 feet away enjoying our drinks.  Erin (of the large backpack), Laura (the resident director), and I talked to airport security, who were very helpful in telling us that in airports you have to be careful and always watch your luggage.  Then we went to the police station to file a report, where the officers were also full of sage advice about airports and the dangers of theft.

Seriously though, it was pretty stressful, and I was hugely glad that Laura and Erin were there with me at the airport and police station.  My Spanish pretty much had bottomed out from confusion and anger and general sleepiness, so Laura translated and talked to the police for us, and was generally wonderful.  Also, we met a friendly and soft dog that wandered in to where we were sitting and decided it was her job to entertain and cheer us up.  All-in-all it wasn’t a horrible experience, for what it was, and I went to sleep that night relatively positive about how things were going.

The next morning I woke up, realized I had no money and no way to get any and no computer and no camera and no any-numer-of-other-things, and freaked out a bit.  But I met the rest of the group and we spent the day doing logistical things and getting to know each other, and I realized that I really would be fine and things would work out.

And they did!  No one stole my identity or used my credit cards or made long-distance calls on my phone, my dad wired me money, and it looks like insurance might cover some of what I lost. 

So that’s the beginning of my ´study abroad experience.´  The rest is much less dramatic.  We spent two nights with our host families in Lima and then jetted off to Cuzco for five days.  We spent time exploring the ruins around the city and the city itself, and then went to Machu Picchu on Tuesday.  It was beautiful and really fun to walk around the ruins, but my favorite thing was climbing Waynupicchu, which is the mountain looming behind Machu Picchu in all the photos.  Most of our group woke up at 4:45 am to take a 5:30 bus to the site, waited in line for a Waynupicchu ticket, and then reunited at 10 to wait in line again for our turn to climb.  It was a strenuous hour-or-so of stair/rock climbing to reach the top, but the view and the feeling at the tope made the waking up early and waiting in line and sore muscles worth it.  Phenomenal. 

We returned to Lima last Wednesday, and since then we’ve been busy orientating ourselves: trying out combis and getting lost and finding good places to eat lunch and having charlas at the office about Peruvian culture.  Also, today we started our one-week Spanish class at the university, which is three hours every morning.  So we’ve been pretty busy, and will certainly become more busy when classes start next Monday.  I can’t wait!

My latest letter from IFSA-Butler Mexico study aboad program included a pink piece of paper scrawled with the loopy cursive of my host mother.  From what I can decipher, between my limited Spanish vocabulary and the difficulty of reading her handwriting, she likes to embroider, but most of all to sing.  I have two host brothers who are 15 and 21. They like boxing and, depending on how you read the cursive, either baseball (beisbol) or basketball (basquetbol) or drumsticks (basquetas). I am to either hug my family here or maybe to send a hug from them to my family here (whichever it is, I think the sentiments were well-wishing).

This information at first unleashed the excitement that had been building up since I applied to study abroad.  I imagined myself embroidering with my host mother, setting the table for my family, and tossing a baseball–basketball?… drumstick?–with my brothers.

Then, wait–oh my god!  I’m actually leaving the country in a couple of weeks!  I don’t know how to embroider, should I learn?  I can’t believe I haven’t started packing yet!  What happened to those Spanish textbooks I was going to read over the summer?  All my classes…in Spanish.  Uh-oh. And is it too late to make a dentist appointment before I leave?

Although getting the letter was exciting, it also made my future study abroad adventure a reality and sent me into frenzy of preparation.

A couple of weeks later, I’m happy to report that I’ve recovered from the initial shock and reduced my rate of preparation from frenzy to rational. Having decided that actually beginning to pack more than a week before I leave for the program isn’t productive, I’ve started mentally sorting my belongings into “going to Mexico” and “staying here” piles. I’ve decided on T-shirts from my home university as gifts for my host brothers, but I’m still stuck on what to bring the woman who will be my Mexican mother (any ideas are welcome, by the way). And I look ridiculous during my train commute every morning as I scrunch my eyebrows in concentration over a lime-green, third-grade-level book that has dragons flying all over the cover. It’s in Spanish. But that’s hard for the people giving me funny looks to notice.

What I’ve found most helpful in preparing to leave is to e-mail people who have participated in the Mexico study abroad program previously when I have questions. My university’s study abroad office provides a list of such people, and their help has been invaluable.

Maybe I’m preparing too much, but it’s just what I do when I’m looking forward to something. And I’m learning a lot by it. For instance, without my preparation strategy, I would have no idea that the land of dragons can only be entered through a bonfire. See, totally worth the weird looks on the train.

The last two weeks:

Surfer’s Paradise has made for a couple of great day trips! Its very cheap to get there and back, and the beaches and waves are well worth it. One night in Surfer’s was spent in a hostel, my first; It was very convenient, and they took us too a local club for a free drink. The hostile was in easy walking distance to the beach too, so we could come and go, and shop in the town whenever we liked. However, it felt a little strange walking around with a group of a dozen Americans from study abroad Australia programs (not recommended), as we clearly did not fit in quite yet (see picture: “Seppos stuck on median”).

Recently I joined our college’s soccer team, and have had a lot of fun with that so far. Its been a great way for me to get to know some Aussies and to earn a little respect at my dorm college. Our dorms are called colleges if anyone is confused; I live at King’s College, one of the three all male residences, and study at University of Queensland. Speaking of – life is pretty good here! I have made friends with my Australian suitemate, David, and some of the faculty also; they have been very helpful. David gave me a job lead, and the cleaning ladies will gladly get me anything I need. It is also a very active dorm, and its easy to find others that have similar interests, especially since they’re all guys. Getting to know the people around me has really helped me out and taken a lot of weight off my back.

As far as school goes, classes have either been very easy, or very difficult. Because of the teaching styles and curriculum for each class, it is difficult to find classes that fit my level. It has also been a bit confusing recently as classes are still being rearranged or relocated on short notice. However, the more difficult of my four classes both require a tutorial, which is basically an organized small group of classmates for the purpose of homework help and tutoring. These have been very useful, and are also a great way to make friends.

It has been slow few weeks, trudging through the logistics of living and studying. If it weren’t for the warm sunny days, I might be a little stressed out by now. Many people I know, including me, have gotten sick recently, which is never fun. However, It really helps you to realize what you have placed your trust and joy in, when your feeling weak and worthless. I would have to say that I miss home a little. Frequent email is just not going to cut it after a while.

some advice:

Organization has always been a struggle for me. However, I am learning that it is an essential when it comes traveling and studying in a foreign place. It is always important to have both cash and credit with you at all times, and you can save heaps of money by purchasing things like 10 trip bus tickets and sports passes. Ideally you could spend around seven hundred dollars your first week abroad, and then live off your small investments for a while.

I will sign out with the feelings of:

struggle – being responsible and making every hour of the day count.

peace – things happen, just gotta keep a good perspective and free yourself of the negative!