Ok not sure why but the picture uploader has decided to not work anymore... I'll try again tomorrow but no guarantees.

hey sorry for the delay on the pictures. Here they are...

Settling In

Hey guys.

So today I officially finished my first week here. I must say that we really packed in a lot of interesting and new experiences into just a few days, and the best part is that most of them were within walking distance. I actually just got back from one of the uncle's birthday parties. It looked exactly like I would have imagined a "fiesta" to look like: tons of family members, lots of food, outdoor lighting, and loud music. The music here, of course, consists of pretty much all "Banda". Basically imagine Mexican Polka and that's essentially what Banda is. When I explain it like that, it sounds pretty terrible... but it's actually very cheery and catchy. But when I'm not listening to Banda or just trying to keep cool, Diego and I usually are out walking around town and running various errands. And since I recently found out that shorts are completely acceptable (although uncommon), I decided that I would try to buy some while we were downtown. Before today, I thought that clothes were expensive here judging from the prices I saw at the mall. As Diego walked me into a nearby store, I immediately thought it would be way out of my price range due to the fact that the store seemed very trendy. To my pleasant surprise, shirts (high quality and very colorful) cost something like $5 here. Plus, jeans cost around $10. I ended up leaving the store with 8 shirts and no shorts because they didn't sell shorts there.. The best part about the shirts here is that about a quarter of them use foul language in English, and I'm not talking about things like "damn"... One shirt actually said "I Don't Care. **** That ****." Just use your imagination for that one. Another popular object on the shirts are American rappers. I saw shirts with Lil Wayne, Tupac, and Eazy E, but when I asked Diego if he listened to any of them, he told me he had never even heard of any of them haha. One of the best parts about Mexico is the quality of the malls and movie theaters. The mall near our house is roughly twice as big as the one back home because it has two stories. However, the malls are nothing compared to the movie theaters. The first one I went to blew my mind. It had a food court and a hair salon! Not to mention the waiting rooms with very nice furniture for you to sit in while you wait for your showtime. My host dad even told me that there's a premier theater room where waiters will bring food (including sushi) to your huge reclining seat. Even though this theater was of the highest caliber, tickets only cost about $5. Finally, I got to ride a zipcord across a river this week. 4 times. $2. But for now I'm gonna go because we have church tomorrow and then my host aunt's pool :] Pictures of this week will probably be up sometime tomorrow.

See ya.

Hey I just want to add on to my earlier post because I got cut a bit short because we had to leave. Earlier today we walked over to my host brother's grandma's house and she had chickens in the backyard. It was really surprising but also very funny to see his little cousin chasing them around. We just got back from my host family's aunt's house. It was extremely nice. They had a pool there that was straight out of an episode of Cribs. It had a rock waterfall and an artificial river with two little bridges. Plus the pool itself had a bar built in as well a nearby grill. The entire thing was surrounded by thatch roof huts and all kinds of trees with fruit growing on them. One thing that's much different here is the size of the bugs. I ran into a moth that must have been six inches long. And when I was walking into the house tonight, I noticed a yellow and black bug that was a little over three inches long if you include its pincers... And while we were at the pool, some kind of bug fell into the back of my shirt and it made me jump a lot. Ok that's all I have to report for today. I'm going to post all the pictures I've taken so far on the exchange including a few of the pool.

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!

Getting Started

Hey everyone, this is my first post so there isn't much to say right now. Just make sure you check back every now and then to see what I'm doing on my trip. I'll try to post once a week while I'm on my exchange. If you have any questions, just email me: amunoz919@gmail.com. Bye guys!