Hola peeps! :) Today was exciting; it was the first day at the university! Well, it only kinda was the first day. My classes are going to be held for the next few weeks at the Universitario Modelo, and today was simply an orientation for it. Our host moms went with us to show us how to use the buses to actually get to the university. The buses are really cheap per ride - only 6 pesos a ride! Considering that 100 pesos is approximately 10 US dollars, 6 pesos is super great. I just hope I can remember which buses I need to take when riding it without the host moms in the future. Oh, and another cool thing is that, unlike buses I've ridden back home, you don't have to have exact change for bus fare - you can use whatever you have and they'll give back change. That's amazing in my opinion.
Anyways, moving on to the orientation... Well, there's not a lot to say about that, either. Our program director gave us all syllabi for the classes and the curricula vitae for the professors, and the professors introduced themselves. We also took a brief tour around the school; an interesting part of that was the mini-store where we could get pens/pencils/binders/etc. if needed. My camera was acting wonky during the orientation so I wasn't able to take pictures of the building or anything like that, but I'll have a chance to do so tomorrow.
The most exciting part of today was a group mini-excursion down to el centro de Merida (literally "the center of Merida"; it's the downtown area). A huge group of us took a bus down there and explored around.
Brad and Laura as we're walking to the bus stop
Kaitlyn and Rachel walking
Me and Natalie (Yeah, this might become a trend of mine during the entire trip to take bus pics of us)
A cool window shutter I saw from the bus. Merida houses are full of intricate metal items like this on the outside, so I've seen
Me riding the bus and sporting my awesome wrap skirt/dress/shirt thing
The biggest building in the area was a Catholic cathedral, which is super nice for large groups that split off into smaller groups to have as a meeting point. The cathedral was also very beautiful, inside and out. I'll put up more pictures of it from the outside (I plan on grabbing some of those from others in my group).
Me standing by the cathedral doors - those doors are huge!
Both Lauras (the dark-haired Laura with glasses is called "Laurita" by us), Kaitlyn, and other girls whose names I forget right now all taking pictures of and admiring the cathedral. We totally looked like stereotypical tourists while taking those pictures, LOL!
One view of the little park in the center of "el centro". It's nicely situated in a square-like perimeter.
The first thing we did in el centro was try to get more pesos for buying. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a place to exchange my U.S. dollars, so I simply withdrew pesos from a nearby ATM. Then, after splitting up to withdraw cash and coming back together, we wandered around and looked inside various stores that caught our interest. All of the stores are open to the air, meaning that the doors aren't opened and closed regularly. This actually makes walking by and quickly browsing items a LOT easier, plus it was easy to enter and exit without a door to quickly become cumbersome. One store called "Maya Mundo" or something close to it had cool handmade wallets/bags/etc with traditional Mayan colored weavings on the outside. I totally plan on going back there to get a darling Mayan doll for my doll collection at home, and once I get it I'm showing it off to everyone! (I'm such a kid at heart XD)
I did get a couple of belts from a girl walking around selling them. She was selling woven goods like bags, bracelets, belts, etc. They look really pretty, and honestly even though I know such mobile vendors are common in Merida and that I need to learn to say "no" to them so I don't spend too much, in this case I couldn't say that. I liked the woven items too much. Even though one belt was 55 pesos, the girl let me buy 2 for 100 pesos when I started to hand her a 100 peso bill. Since this post is getting pretty long I'll show off my belts later. One girl in my group, Brooke, got a bag from her with tiny dolls attached to the outside, and it's so cute I think I'll get one for myself later on.
There's this cool little ice cream/sorbet place called "El Colon" in el centro that our group went into; it was hot enough that sorbets sounded really good. Not only does El Colon have typical flavors like fresa (strawberry), chocolate, and vainilla (vanilla), but they have more exotic flavors like platano (banana), guanabana (a green/white fruit that doesn't have an English name), and mamey (again, no English name for this red fruit with a taste that kinda reminded me of papaya). It's also kind of like a sit-down restaurant because the waiter came by and gave us a menu of the flavors after we sat down. For 35 pesos per sorbet (or 40 for a sorbet con leche [with milk]), it was so worth it. We also sampled each other's sorbets, which will be great for when I come back (I definitely want to come back to this place at least once or twice).
While we were waiting, the waiter let us try a small amount of the corn-flavored sorbet. It sounds weird, but it was really sweet and actually tasted good once I got past the sensation of corn kernels mixed in with a sweet melty sorbet.
Ryan, Ethan, and Laura (aka "Laurita")
Laurita and me at "El Colon"
One view of "El Colon" with Cody listening to an interesting conversation
Our sorbets - mine was the guanabana flavor closest to the camera sitting next to the red mamey sorbet. Ethan there got strawberry and the flavors in the cups were mango con leche (mango with milk poured in) and coco con leche (coconut with milk poured in.
The guanabana flavor was very delicious! I want to try the banana sorbet next time I go back.
Candid camera shot of Ryan, Ethan and Laurita
Cody drinking some water as Kaitlyn and Alannah join us at our table
A random guitarist comes up and talks to part of our group sitting at a different table from me, including (from right to left) Brad, Aaron, Lauren, and the other Kaitlyn.
(from left to right) Aaron, Brad, two girls whose names I know I'll remember later (I'm getting better, right?), Kaitlyn, and Laura - all enjoying their sorbets (even if Laura doesn't look like she is, lol!)
(from left to right) Kaitlyn, Laura, and Natalie
(from left to right) Alannah, Ryan, Ethan... and a random hand that looks like it's gonna shoot something. No idea why that was part of the wall decor, but it was.
The only unfinished sorbet was the mamey over at the top left corner - Laurita said it tasted too much like stale Lucky Charms marshmallows for her to figure out if she actually liked it. The others were too good to leave any behind.
The front of the Governor's Palace. William, Cody, a kid whose name I can't remember, Thomas, Bradley, and Natalie from our group are visible here.
One angle of the inside courtyard of the Governor's Palace
Laura and Kaitlyn from the second floor
This was one of my favorite murals, so I just had to get a picture of myself by it. It's a picture of Salvador Alvarado (I need to look up who that is... silly me for not doing that already XD)
The San Alvarado mural from another angle
Taylor standing near one of the cool murals
We stayed until it got fairly close to eight, which is when most of the girls in our group promised to be back at the houses for dinner. Quite a few of the guys stayed behind to go grab tacos for dinner, but I really enjoyed going back home and enjoying a delicious dinner of waffles and toasted bagels with jam (lunch is the big meal for people in Merida instead of dinner).
A picture of the inside of the cathedral as we were leaving for the bus. I felt bad for taking pictures as people were inside worshiping silently so I stopped after two. The second one I left out of this post.
One view of the sunset as we walked home from the bus stop.
The sunsets I've seen thus far are so much more gorgeous in person than in picture
Hasta la vista, ya'll!
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