¿Elena, Xalapeña?

Hola there everybody! I thought a blog would be a good way to keep everyone posted on my encounters with our friends to the south, so here goes! I'll try to keep it updated, so check back for more posts at your leisure.

So far, so good! I traveled here and am living with a friend from school, Laura. We left Sunday morning (Minneapolis ->Dallas -> Mexico City -> Veracruz) and arrived that evening without unnecessary excitement. Someone picked us up from the airport in Veracruz and brought us to our house in Xalapa, just over an hour drive. It was a pretty quiet ride, a lot of looking out the window and trying to piece together coherent sentences in Spanish. So rusty! Still though, it was amazing how quickly my Spanish has improved these last few days! I could feel it coming back to me more with each moment, and already I think I am as confident as when I was in the depths of Spanish courses at UW-L.

Anyway, back to Sunday. Our host parents came out to greet us in the street. Their names are Patricia (yes, mom!) and Alejandro. They are very nice and Patricia especially is very easy to understand, because she's had so many students stay with her in the past. Also living with us in the house are twin girls (18 yrs), Dani and Gabi, and a son, also Alejandro (Alex) that is 22 and whom we haven't met yet because he is working for the government and is currently in another city. Oh, and there is a dog, Tequila, and a recently discovered, ostensibly semi-alive turtle. Not sure about the name yet, but I'll ask and get back to you.

Monday was orientation (SO much information). We walked to the Center, where orientation was, with our mom on a route that took us past our school so we would see how to get there. It is about a 1/2 hour walk from home to school. After orientation we went on a bus tour of the city. There are some really neat parks with lots of green and trees! I can see one from here, just across the street.

Then today was our first day of class, and our mom took us on the bus to show us how to conquer that Mexican standby (No sweat). We're at the EEE (Escuela para Estudiantes Extranjeros, or School for Foreign Students) at the University of Veracruz at Xalapa, the main university in the state of Veracruz (of which, by the way, Xalapa is the capital). I'm still getting my classes figured out because the ones I signed up for all pretty much overlap or are scheduled at the same time as other classes that I'm in. Also, I'd like to take a class at the Universidad Veracruzana with real Mexican students instead of just foreigners like me, so I have some hoops to jump through still to make that happen. So basically my classes will probably change infinite times in the next week-ish.

Sidenote: I'm at a weird place in my Spanish where some of the time I have to really plan out and conciously translate what I want to say, and other times it just kindof jumps out of my mouth. Still other times it almost feels like I am thinking in Spanish, but really at this point I think I am just quickly translating everything by habit.

Right now we are at a coffeeshop partway between home and school. The weather here changes pretty quickly, it can be warm one minute and chilly the next. Nothing like WI winter though!

That's all for now, but I will have pictures soon, so visit me again! Love you all mucho!
Elena

Ooh, also: Feel free to post comments on here if you want or shoot me an email if that is too fancy/complicated. Bye!