Home sweet home

I wrote this last Tuesday… only a week and a half delay in posting it but hey, I haven’t had internet

So I made it safely back to Guadalajara. After a very full weekend Alejandro and I got in the car for the drive back around 4pm San Diego time. After nice long 11 hour drive (only stopping for gas/bathroom) and a 1 hour time change we made it into Guaymas at 4am. My friend Chelta from the teachers training program got a job at a school there and let us crash at her place for the night. We got a whole 4 or so hours of sleep, woke up at 9 made breakfast and some pb n j sandwiches for the road and took off around 9 45 and were back on the highway around 10 after stopping for gas. From there it was about a 12 hour drive plus a one hour time change (and a few more stops than the first day) to put us back in Guadalajara at midnight. Everything went according to plan, except for one minor scare. And of course by minor scare I was more afraid than I think I have ever been in my life while driving a car. You know how in the united states if you are driving along in the middle of no where and you pass the last gas station for the next 150 miles there will be a sign notifying you of the lack of gas: “No Gas for 150 miles” or something along those lines…. Well in Mexico those signs don’t exactly exist, and when you have just slightly under a half tank of gas you don’t think you need to fill up yet. Anyways, as we were a good 60 kilometers (40 miles) away from the next town and the hope of a gas station my trusty gas light decided to enlighten us with the fact that we were basically screwed. I knew that once the gas light went on I could drive for 30 miles, but I never imagined we could squeeze out 40. After the longest 40 miles of my life, complete with a good amount of sweat, a desperate holding of hands, and a whole bunch of Hail Marys we were somehow able to coast down every hill in neutral and make it up every hill with the least amount of gas possible with just enough gas to get us to the gas station. As we were turning into the gas station I could hear the engine sucking up every last drop of gas and if the station was just a half a mile farther down the road we wouldn’t have made it. The whole time I was thinking of the feeding of the five thousand and was asking God just to multiply my gas just enough to get us to the gas station, seriously, it was a miracle.

On a less stressful note, this morning I successfully drove to work for the first time. I only got lost once and was somehow able to find my way back to the street I was supposed to be on and got to work only 5 mins late, luckily all my students were even more late than I was so it was all good. Driving in Guadalajara is like a suspenseful movie, you honestly never know what is going to happen next. Is the car to your right going to cut you off to make a left turn? Maybe. Is the car to your left going to go straight from the left turn lane that he is in? Perhaps. Is the car behind you going to honk if you delay for a tenth of a second at a green light? Definitely. Luckily I have had about 6 months to observe the driving styles in Guadalajara so I can now better predict what the other cars are going to do. In the words of Flor, one of the teachers I work with “You have to try to be psychic and guess what everyone is going to do.” And in the words of my boyfriend “you have to be a bad driver in order to be a good driver.” Basically its true, if you sit at a stop sign and actually take the time to thoroughly evaluate the intersection the cars behind you will attempt to go around because you are taking too long, thus creating a dangerous situation. Also if you sit in your lane with the blinker on and expect everyone to know you are going to turn and let said turn take place you are out of luck, you have to push down the pedal and get in front of the car next to you to get where you want to go. You have to cut people off because like I said, people will go straight from turn lanes or turn from straight lanes, so if you expect everyone else to respect you and your space you have got another thing coming.

So I’m almost all moved in, I still don’t have internet yet but hopefully that will be fixed this week. There are still a few key things I need to get for my apartment, such as a microwave, silverware (which I forgot to pack from san diego) and some other random stuff. I was really organized and even had a list of everything I needed to bring, however it would have been helpful if I had remembered to look at it before leaving my house. But it’s all good, I have the necessities plus a few extras. I can now say that I have everything I need to actually feel at home here in Guadalajara.

Moving out and going home

I finally moved into my new apartment! After 2 weeks of trying to figure out who we could get to be my fiador and sign for me on the contract saying that if I messed anything up they would be responsible we instead turned to a lawyer to draw up a more official contract that doesn’t require a fiador, it only requires a fee of 1500 pesos and my first born child, but luckily im not going to be in this apartment 10 years from now when that time comes. The apartment is small, but I don’t need much space so its perfect, not like I’m going to be throwing any crazy parties or having people over. When you enter the apartment you step into my bedroom, which came furnished with a bed, little night stand, bookshelf/dresser and most importantly, a fan. Maybe equally important is the amount of closet space provided, in my room one of the walls is mostly closet, then in the hallway that leads to the kitchen there is another small closet perfect for hanging coats and such. But that’s not all folks, step into the kitchen and next to the pantry there is yet another closet. There is supposed to be a washer there, thus the closet space, however they didn’t install one and I don’t exactly remember why. The kitchen is small with a half size fridge but honestly, how much food do I need to keep in there? I have a stove but no oven, but really I don’t see myself doing that much baking, and most Mexican food is prepared on the stove top anyways. There is a small table and two little stools and a really neat wall with seven little cut outs, I just need to find cool things to put in them. I am really excited about the apartment, the only things is it’s a little plain right now, with all the white walls and such, but that will soon be fixed and I’ll have more things than I can find a space for probably. Whys that you ask…. Because I’m going home,

That’s right, I’m going home to San Diego and will be returning by car, a nice 23 hour car ride with a stop over in guaymas to sleep for about 6 hours. The main thing we are going to get is my car, living here without a car isn’t horrible, I just don’t like it. I’m used to my freedom and not being dependent on the bus to get to work on time or to simply go to the grocery store. So this Thursday we are peacing out of Guadalajara around noon and wont be back till late Monday night. Its weird thinking about going back, because in my mind I had it set that I wasn’t going to be back in the states until Christmas. But I’m really excited, not only because I will have my car and pictures and things from home, but because I miss San Diego. That’s right mom, I actually miss home so don’t you be getting all worried that I’m gonna run away and never come back.

I got my first paycheck this week, however it was only for one week of work, and not even a full week because I hadn’t fully been worked into the schedule yet. But still, a paycheck is a paycheck and I was excited to get my first one. Don’t tell the Mexican government but I still haven’t gotten my work visa… I’m kinda being paid under the table right now, or under water as its called in Spanish. Not that I need to be paid under the table or that it would be any problem to get my work visa, its just that I started working before I was even done with my teachers training class and it was forgotten about. I reminded my boss that I needed to get it and she was like, oh yeah, we need to look into how we go about getting you that. Basically no one really cares. Another exciting thing about my paycheck is that I was actually paid the amount I earned, nothing taken out for good ol uncle sam.

The only thing that I’m not so happy about with regards to moving into my apartment is that I currently don’t have internet or tv. I can bring my tv back from San Diego, thus no point going out and buying one here. As for the internet hopefully they can install it soon. There is a wireless network that I pick up in my apartment, unfortunately they have it password protected and when I tried to hack it it told me that the server had a list of computers allowed to access the network and my computer was not on the list. But once I get internet and bring my car and things from San Diego I can officially say that I am living in Guadalajara.