Rheana's Travels

Hello!

So I made it to Mexico, which in itself is a pretty cool fact. It was a super long day traveling, but everything went pretty smooth. I didn't sit next to anybody either flight and so spent the time making up for the fact I had only slept two hours the night before (and not much more the two nights before that). Since I left at 6am I got to see the coolest sunrise I've ever seen (and yes, I have seen a few sunrises). We were above a layer of clouds that looked like snow, there were mountain tops sticking up all over the place and the entire sky was this bright pink/orange color. I watched it for as long as I could before I passed out and slept for over 3hrs out of the 3hr 37min flight.

Once I got into Morelia there were two people in bright green shirts standing outside of the Burger King to pick me and three other girls up. The six of us piled into a van for a three hour drive. It was a nice way to get to know the other girls (Emily, Jessica, and Della). The scenery was SO pretty, and a lot of it reminded me of Oregon. I definitely regretted leaving my camera in the back of Kes's car more than once.

I was the first one to get dropped off, and as soon as I buy a new camera I’ll put up pictures of my house. I have my own room that is mostly bed, and a freshly-painted headboard that smelt pretty strong but is getting better. My host mom, dad, and sister were there to meet me, though my host sister (Daniella) and her friend left pretty quickly to go to a birthday party. My HD (host dad) and HM (host mom) are both super nice, though my HM talks incredibly fast, in the opinion of someone who doesn’t really understand Spanish at all. I’ve been doing the “smile and nod” with her a lot. I think she just plans to talk at her normal speed with me until I catch up. I think that’ll help me with my Spanish in the long run, but makes for some pretty one-sided conversations in the short-term. She is really nice though. My HD talks a lot slower and uses more gestures and stuff to help me out. Daniella is really friendly as well. She speaks English, but has only been talking it to me when needed. It’s nice though, because I know that I can use random English words in my very terrible Spanish sentences and she’ll understand what I’m saying. She walked with me to the store today so I could get toiletries and we had a good time. My brother (they don’t call him Francisco, I’m pretty sure they’re saying “Paco") is much nicer than he looked in his picture, but then again, that’s not saying much. We haven’t really talked at all and he’s leaving for Canada soon, I won't really get to know him too well till he gets back.

I went with my fam to my host uncle and aunt’s house. They do a Sunday get-together like we do, only no waffles. The food was really good, and my HM’s three sisters talk just as much as she does, so it was pretty funny to watch. It’s interesting what you notice when you have no idea what everybody’s talking about. I spent half the time trying to comprehend what was going on and the other just watching.

Introduction for school is tomorrow, so I’m super excited about that... wish me luck! I miss everybody at home, but can already tell that I'll have a really fun time these next three months.