Adam Gilbertson Study Abroad: Enjoying every moment here.

Things have been very busy and exciting lately. I have made some friends at school, attended incredible work-related events and really adjusted to the city. The nightlife, culture, food and overall experiences I have had make me want to stay here for a long time. I however, am still in what psychologists call the Honeymoon stage of culture shock, but some people never leave this period.

WORK:

As I stated I am working for the office of the governor of Texas. Last week there were two major events in which I served as the typical intern. My jobs were to welcome guests to the hotel, organized customer portfolios, translating speaker's biographies - Which can be quite nerve racking as one translation mistake can ruin a presentation-. I also had to help tranport all the supplies for the events and stuff folders. The work was basic intern stuff but I enjoy it.

One of the events was for a Texas trade forum in which reps from various energy companies such as exon mobile came to speak about business possibilities on Mexico. The other event was with about 150 Mexican companies that attended seminars about investment in Texas. Both events went well and I had to speak so much Spanish at the Mexican event it was incredible. I have to use the formal tenses which don't exist in English so it pushes the brain a lot.

The perks of the events were free food, great networking opportunities, free drinks and an invitation to the embassador's residence. All of the food at the events was free for the office workers. I met several people from the embassy, some uber rich real estate people who kind of made me become their personal assistant "go get this" also I met the texas secretary of state and the former US Ambassador. Lots of contacts and business cards were passed. A woman who works for the City of San Antonio told me "if you ever need a job just come to San Antonio." Such a great opportunity, too bad Texas isn't Minnesota.

I had to listen to lots of Texas bragging, but the state is the best place for business in the entire nation and like 60 percent of jobs created in the US last year where created there. I could go on for hours on all the stuff I learned at these Pro texas seminars. The reception at the embassy was incredible, tons of delicous food like shrimp and salmon and wine and tequila. They walk around with shots of tequila at events here, kind of a cultural thing. They even had a live mariachi band. Most of the Texans were pretty loaded by the end but us workers had to babysit everyone in the big city.

The next day was a closing lunch and they took me to this old ranch that was recreated into a restaurant with live mariachi again and according to my guide book it costs over 50 dollars to eat lunch there, but it was free. My roomates hate me because of all the free food and events I get to attend. I am very grateful though. I love who I work with and we spent a good hour talking and eating tamales the other day while on the clock, but that is Mexican culture.

There aren't any events for a while, but I may get to travel over Mexico for them. Hopefully I get invited again, a lot of the business owners I will see again so it will be nice to see familiar faces.

SCHOOL AND FRIENDS:

I only have two classes and they are both in English. The reason being is that I need these classses to graduate on time. I have met several people in class and plan to go out with them next weekend. I was registering to use the school gym and I met my old EPAL. My freshman year in my Spanish class we had to write emails in Spanish to someone from this university and while at the gym I met Oscar my old epal. It was funny, and as we knew eachother he invited me to go paintballing with his friends yesterday. It was a blast, but hard to see in the dark and running around in the rain. I'd never gone before, but I only have one welt from being shot at, ha.

We all went out for our friend Bridget's birthday on Friday and celebrated the Mexican way. In Mexico at most places you can't buy drinks, but you buy an entire bottle and they give you mixers and what not to make your own drinks. Mexico is a collectivist society and everyone shares everything. They are often horrified by our individualist american ways, such as having two temperature controls in the car, or how we want to leave the nest at age 18; but it is just culture. At this event we met some people's friends from work and it was a great time. Again, only after meeting someone for the first time they invite you to tons of other events. The whole Mexican expression "Mi casa es su casa" is entirely true.

EXCURSIONS:

Today we went to the Frida Kahlo museum, she is a very famous Mexican painter. It was a nice trip but it was raining. It rains here usually at 5 or 6 o clock until at least 10 pm. It is the rainy season so people can usually set their watch to the rain.

WE have visited tons of museums so far and even the zoo. The zoo here is free and they have tons of animals. I have never seen pandas and rhinos and some of the native animals that they have there. It was a nice time, but so many people. Mexico has so many people. When i take the bus to work everyday I sometimes have to stand in the doorway because there are so many people on the bus. Mexi packing exhists, which is why Swime flu can reek havoc down here so easily.

All of 8 of us from Concordia went to this place called Xochiomoco. The native words here are so hard to read in Spanish. It is basically a place where you rent a little decorated wooden boat and float through these gardens. All along the way there at floating mariachis, floating bars, floating handcraft venders and floating corn venders. We all ended up getting so corn on a stick that was cooked over a fire and covered in mayonaise and a chili powder. It was delicous and the fire cooked method made it OK to eat. It was basically the Venice of Mexico City and was really relaxing except for the 2 hour metro ride it took to get there.

The city is massive and you could ride the subway from one end to the other and it would take over 2 hours. The other morning three buses passed my bus stop because there were maxed out with people. It only costs a quarter to ride the bus, and the metro costs less than 15 cents.

Many excursions are to be planned aswell as some weekend trips to the beach. The pyramids outside the city and next on the list and a soccer game.

OTHER RANDOM:

The food- If you get stomach aches easily don't come here. After eating sometimes I get this stomach pain that lasts a few minutes. It gets better every week but my body is still adjusting. I love the spicy food here, and my host mom Elena always loves it that I can eat all the spicy homade salsa she makes. The juice here is delicous, and Horchata is this delicious rice cinnamon drink that is served all over.

Poverty- People beg everywhere and the other day on the metro this little girl kept poking me for money and touching my bare hand. It made me mad because not everyone here is sanitary and I do not want to get any sort of sickness here.

A lot of people have random street jobs, like window washers are at almost every traffic light, some people bring a scale to this huge plaza and will weigh you for money. Also people always enter the metro with a handful of illegal CD;s and turn on these speakers located in their backpack and try to get you to buy CD's. It can be nice to listen to sometimes, but if you ride the train for more than ten minutes it gets sickening.

There is so much to say about life down here. So many people so much to do and see. I really like living in a city but I have never really appreciated peace and quiet so much. At home I always play music on my computer when I get home, but here silence is highly prefered after all the noise.

I love it here so much. Mexican slang is brutal though, and so hard to understand slang. Especially at the University. They say the word guey (pronounced way) at least three times a sentence. If you have any questions about anything just leave a comment of facebook me. I love to talk about this place.

Paintballing