Bienvenidos a UDLA

  Cholula, Puebla, Mexico
Sunday, May 20, 2007

After a really long day of airplanes and buses, I finally arrived in Puebla. I didn't really get nervous about not being fluent in spanish until I got to the airport in Mexico City and couldn't find my way around. Becky, the other girl from CMU staying in the dorms, and I pretty much did laps around the arrival part of the airport trying to find the consejeros (advisors) and get to the bus. Eventually we did and got to UDLA. The campus here is beautiful. There are so many gardens and all of the buildings are really old and pretty.
See:
It puts CMU to shame...but then again, few places don't. My dorm is great and is huge. Each dorm room has its own entrance and has a nice park in the middle of the dorm with soccer nets and patio tables.





My roommate Ashleigh is really nice, she's from North Carolina. I'm not sure when our other roommates are moving in, probably next week when regular classes start. Ashleigh, Becky, and I are going to Acapulco and Coyoacan together but I'm going to Teotihuacan with another group. Earlier today, we wandered around off campus for a while and walked into this bar called "La Clamateria" and ordered some chequileras (a supercombination of tequila, beer, and hot sauce) which I thought were really fabulous. They had ice in them but I decided to think that it was not the bad ice until Becky found some unidentifiable gross thing frozen in an ice cube. So, I hope that I don't get sick... Also had fun trying to take cabs around the city. Went grocery shopping at walmart (yuck - but didn't know of many other options) and stopped at a mall and bought some cheap cell phones to call places around here. We couldn't get ahold of the cab company that UDLA has a deal with so we took one from off the street which wasn't so great an idea. We nearly ran into or got hit by another car at least five times on the way back to the dorms, but that happens when you're going 80 through the city. There's also a Shakira concert here tomorrow that I'm going to with some people. Normally, this would not sound like much fun at home but now I am really excited. So that and touring downtown Puebla are happening tomorrow and classes start Monday. Everyday there's a lot of activities going on, like local trips and other things like a concert from a well known Mexican band called La Bola Suriana along with classes and workshops (I'm in cooking and art). So I'm looking forward to a really great six weeks in Mexico.