Guadalajara #2

Hi mom, hi dad,

Sorry I haven't been writing much lately... It seems I have fallen into my usual pattern of putting social activities above all else, even keeping up with my precious blog.
Highlights since I last wrote:

My (other) new best friend

1) I just finished my week of Spanish lessons, where I learned a lot about different ways to ask for favors, the subjunctive, and most importantly, how to administer and evaluate a wide range of personality tests.  The language school was actually really cool- it was both an English and Spanish language school, so everyone there was really excited to meet and talk to each other for the opportunity to practice their language skills.

2) I met my first Mexican vegetarian in Mexico, and she introduced me to a vegetarian restaurant around the corner from where I'm staying. The company was great, and the food was... fine. I had a "hamburger" made out of gluten.  Let's just say it helped squash any ideas I may have had about going back to vegetarianism.




3) Thursday night I went to Trin (a close friend of the family's)'s family's house for a birthday party. It was lovely, and can be summed up with this picture:

The awesome lady-Fin

4) So far, I have only met one person who will be in my program, and she's a super cool lady! She's from Santa Cruz and we've more or less become partners in crime. First, she introduced me to delicious beer. Then, she introduced me to her new mortician friend from Mexico City. I'm pretty sure this guy is a genius; he speaks English fluently without ever having taken a class, and he just completed an intensive course in embalming human corpses. He had a little to much fun watching us squirm while he described exactly what his work entailed; how he would make each incision  how he would extract various organs, and how this was made all the more difficult when the bodies had already begun to rot.

Otherwise there isn't a lot more to report back... There's a heavy metal band that likes to practice across the street from 1230-130am on Wednesdays and Thursdays. On a related note, I started relapsing back into my coffee addiction... Here's to staying strong.
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In the meantime, crazy shit is going down in politics here. I encourage you to read up on it (google "Gordillo," "education reform mexico," and "pemex") but I might write a post about some of it soon.
Ok! Lots of love,
Emma

Delicious Beer