Day One

Hey everyone- I just got to my city last night! My trip went very smoothly aside from getting half-lost in the mexico city airport. I got to meet a girl from Slovakia who was also headed to Culiacan with the rotary club. Luckily she spoke some English so we were able to talk with each other for a while. My host family's house is only about 15 minutes from the airport. The house reminds me a lot of my grandparents' house in Puerto Rico. Also, the house is walking distance from the main downtown area. Diego (my host brother) and I walked downtown and saw some of the city. The cars were mostly the same although I hadn't seen some of them before. But it isn't so much the cars that are different- it's the way that people drive. My parents warned me about crossing the street before I left. I thought they were joking... It can get pretty dangerous just walking around. The streets are about the same width as at home but there are cars parked everywhere which makes them much more narrow. Plus, only a few streets have any kind of pedestrian signal which means that sometimes you have to peek out onto a street from behind a van and hope you don't get clipped by oncoming traffic. One thing I noticed was that I couldn't find a single speed limit sign (not that it would matter if there was a speed limit). But aside from the uncertainty of being a pedestrian, Mexico is turning out to be really awesome! I can't wait to see what's in store for me here!