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.