The Arrival Story

At last! The much-anticipated "I-got-here-safe-this-is-what-I've-been-doing-these-past-few-days" story!!!! (Quick, run to the bathroom before you can't contain your excitement and have an accident. Back? Okay great. Let's proceed.)

Soooo. Let's begin at the beginning, seems logical, right?

Well, Monday morning August 8th, the lovely Cassandra Corbett graciously drove me and my 3 overstuffed HEAVY suitcases to Logan Aiport. (Once I get the photo from Cassie I'll put it here.) Waiting in line to check in, the woman in front of me made a comment something to the tune of, "Wow, you have a lot of baggage." and I pretty much burst into tears and definitely made her uncomfortable until I explained that I was going to Mexico and wouldn't be back til Christmas, and then she launched into a schpeel (sp?) about how tough it was for her husband to be in Kuwait and she totally stole my thunder so I stopped crying. Once I managed to drag my suitcases to the counter and check in, the woman told me that my bags were checked all the way through to Puebla, so that made me happy cuz I was worried I'd have to maneuver them around Dallas and re-check them with the other airline. So anyway, in a nutshell, I flew from Boston to Pittsburg to Houston to Puebla.
(Sidenote: since I was starving in Pittsburgh, during my layover I purchased and consumed a turkey sub. By the time I made it to Houston, I was hungry again, and the only things in my section of the airport were hamburgers and sandwiches...so again I purchased and consumed a turkey sub. Unbeknownst to me, they would feed us on the flight from Houston to Puebla. What were we served? Turkey subs... Comedy.)
After sitting on the runway for over an hour because of rain, I flew to Puebla, got in around 10:00 central time, waited with these girls I met during my layover while they filled out forms because the airline lost their bags, then took a taxi to the UDLA. Soo, because I had so much luggage, I had to take my own taxi, which is fine I'm comfortable with that. However, I wasn't comfortable with the fact that he took "the back way"...And by "back way" he meant he was going to try to drive his little 95 Nissan Sentra taxi through the most giant mud puddle I have ever seen in my entire life. I really thought we were just gonna sink in and never be found again. But obviously that didn't happen.

So then I get to UDLA and go to check into my dorm in Colegio Gaos (where I lived when I was here for the summer), and they're like "um well, you're sharing a room with the RA right now, but tomorrow you'll have to switch to a different shared room in Gaos." And I certainly didn't sign up for that crap. So basically I spent the night in that room with Samy the RA who was a total sweetheart and helped me out like whoa, and the next day threw a hissy fit with the administration in the midst of orientation bullshit, and in the end I ended up moving to a totally different dorm where I have a single. :) Go me.

Tuesday (besides the hissy fit) was just administrative things and "Welcome" meetings and a lunch that was gross and whatnot. Pretty much lame, if you ask me. So then in the afternoon, I had my episode and moved over here to Colegio Taylor into my single and chatted with my new roommates and unpacked for the whole night. (If I ever clean my room I'll put a picture of it in here.) I have a suspicion that this is a mostly freshman/international dorm because there's us "estranjeros" and a bunch of loud, rowdy Mexicans who blare music late at night and totally reminds me of stuff that happens in freshman dorms, haha, plus the First year students and International students are the only ones who have moved in so far). Anywho, I'm living in a suite/apartment that has 12 single bedrooms, 4 toilets/sinks/showers, FREE LAUNDRY!!!!, a kitchen with fridge and microwave and stovetop, but no dishwasher or oven so that means washing dishes and no baking :( I've met a few of the girls in my suite - the foreigners like me who got hear a week early. One is French (her name is something complicated in French so she just said to call her Bebe. And I will.) and doesn't know very much English so we've been chatting in Spanish A LOT and although its tough, I'm so happy to be doing it (I feel so bad for her, Delta lost her luggage and now she has barely anything, she said pretty much everything she owns was in that luggage: her camera, jewelry, clothes, family photos, money -- I'm not sure why she packed jewelry and money in her suitcase that just seems like a bad idea to me, but hey maybe the French have more trust in airlines than I do...But no one from Delta has responded to her calls and even if she does file a claim there's no way the reimbursement money can buy her similar items from here, the poor thing, I'd be a complete mess if I were her). Emma and Corrinne (sp?) are from England and have cool British accents and I think may be fluent in Spanish. Valerie (I think her name is Valerie at least...) is from North Carolina and she's really sweet too. One Mexican is the RA (moderadora in Espanol) her name is Liliana, and she's very sweet but we haven't talked too much, and the other Mexican girl Pilar I think, just moved her stuff in and isn't here yet. So there's a potential for 6 more Mexican girls to move in here...I'm hoping for the best that they're all nice and friendly and not loud and rowdy. So, in summation, my current roommates are cool.

Wednesday was more administrative things, like registering for classes. Thursday was the same. Since it was pretty much a disaster and frustrated the hell out of me, I'd rather not go into detail. But everything is fine now and I'm all registered for my 6 classes. Wednesday night, me, Anna, Keith, Liz and her Mexican friend Cristian (who is sooooo nice and like 28 or something) we all went to Angelopolis (the mall) and had dinner at Italianni's this amazing Italian restaurant in the mall and then went to see a movie because the movies are 2x1 on Wednesday nights. We saw "The Island." It was cool and interesting for the first hour...The following hour and a half, not so much.

Thursday, after the registration fiasco was resolved (Liz and I actually ended up taking the exact same 6 classes, so like she said, we basically can't get into a fight because we're going to see each other every day in class.) I needed to go to Walmart to pick up some stuff and get food, so Liz and I went and did that. Afterwards, I came back here, hung up my clothes with the new hangers I had just purchased, and just chilled out for a while. Then at 8:30, Liz and Anna came over to get ready to go out, aka wear my clothes/shoes/jewelry/makeup. haha. This club Mandragora (pronounced "man-DRA-gor-uh" - I always have trouble pronouncing it) a ways down the street was having its grand re-opening that night so we had plans to go to that with Cristian and Keith and Pat. So we all met up at Bombay at 915-ish and had a drink or two, and then Cristian drove us like 7 blocks down the street to the club, and since this guy knows literally EVERYONE in the Cholula/Puebla area, we barely had to wait to get in, and basically cut about 100 people in line and went in and got a table and ordered a bottle of vodka. But since it was the grand re-opening, bottles were 2 for 1. So we got two. And mixed it with pineapple juice. And it was pretty good. OH, also! Jack Daniels must have been a sponsor or something, because they were promoting that night, and had free cups of Jack and Coke at the door. But most important were the 2 promoters. The girl was this skinny blonde thing with a boob job wearing a skiiiiiiin tight black leather halter catsuit-type thing with cutouts on the thighs and a very low back, with a large JD decal and studs on the front. And a cowboy hat also black, studded with a large JD decal. But in my opinion, the guy was more impressive and I wish I had gotten a picture. He also was wearing skiiiin tight leather....pants and a muscle tank top thing. The top was studded of course and had the same decal, and he was wearing the same hat as the girl. You kind of had to see them to get the full impact here. But they were ablazing.

So yeah, we drank a lot and danced a lot and it was fun, except I hadn't eaten since lunch so I was STARVING, so Anna and I walked home around 2 with Keith and Kevin and Pat (I think, I can't remember, haha) and then when I got back to my place, I binge ate spaghetti and mushrooms with sauce and went to bed. And woke up at 9am, feeling like complete crap, and was dry heaving til about 2. I didn't even think I was that drunk! Note to self: don't binge eat pasta and mushrooms at 2am while semi-inebriated, you will feel like shit the next day.

Friday, after I recovered from the "sickness" thanks to some awesome French alka-seltzer-ish product the darling Bebe gave me, I just dicked around my room for a while til Anna came online and I went to go meet her and Cristian at the Centro Social on campus. We chatted for a while, and then went to dinner at Bombay around 530. Food was excellent and cheap, as always! And we just hung out there and chatted for a few hours. Then we went back to his house to pick up Liz because she was staying with him til she found an apartment, but she didn't want to go out cuz she had been in Mexico City all day picking up her baggage that Delta lost. So the 3 of us went into Cholula and had a drink at this little hole in the wall place where I saw my first Mexican drag queen. How exciting! And then Cristian drove me home and I went to bed.

Okay kids, that's about all for now! Thanks for reading this far to the end! I'll update again soon.
Besos y Abrazos,
Sarah