This Aint News

I arrived in mehico on august the seventh, at UDLA the day after. After 4 days the dorm room had already been surprise searched due to some 'lost laptop'. 
Orientation week was interesting, 2 groups of 30 or so internationals sheparded through the induction process by 'Amigos Internacionales' a collection of super friendly, to the point of it being weird, local students who were also amazingly well dressed.. i didn't know what the words 'malinche' or 'fresa' meant at the time. I was also worried about how i'd cope with classes in Spanish.

Anyways, after a week, I got a call from Synth, he was in Texas, bored shitless and wanted to come to mex.. we met up and proceeded to get shitfaced on a sleepy Sunday afternoon. after we started a fight or two, and were kicked out of everywhere in town, we parted ways for the week and went to Acapulco the next weekend. Acapulco is a beautiful inlet, surrounded by green mountains and in filled by a shithole of a city full of short, greasy bowling ball shaped people. (there's a very good reason why all the actors on Mexican TV are Mexican whites.) after Acapulco, we parted ways and I continued with my semester abroad. 

My fears about not coping with the engineering classes in Spanish were completely unfounded. they were childishly simple, at a level below that of my high school in Australia, let alone my university.  this is supposed to be the best school in mexico??  As I took more exams, it became apparent that academically, UDLA is a sad pathetic joke. in one class the teacher hadn't written a new exam in 10 years... needless to say my grades in that one were 100%.. in all the other exams there are kids texting each other the answers, photos of their work, even browsing the internet for the answers.. and that was when the teacher was in the room.. when he walked outside for his inevitable 5 phone calls it was a free for all. the only class with any kind of academic cred was the Spanish one, full of internationals. In this joke environment, I was less and less able to take this school seriously, and after a while I stopped trying.

as the semester rolled on, I found that I really liked the Mexican countryside, and natural beauty but it's cities are more or less the same, sewers with a zocalo, and a bunch of really ornate churches. unless they were touristy, then there were shitloads of big hotels. the cenotes and underground caves found in mexico are awesome. so awesome I am seriously considering learning to scuba and coming back. flying in and out of Cancun of course.  My writing ability doesn't do them any justice, and neither do these photos, but i'll post them anyway. 





It turns out, that most conventional stereotypes are mostly true, just like anywhere else. for example the stereotype aboot Mexicans and religion. more Mexicans go to church every Sunday than can read and write. something I didn't expect though was how procedural and rigid a lot of people are. you know when you need something and it's not quite allowed but the employee bends the rules a little in the name of customer service, and that is encouraged by management? not in mexico. I found that most people were unable, or afraid to deviate one iota from the set path, with anything. for this I place the blame wholly and solely on the catholic church.

Anyway, after my last exam, I went to California. My god. I'd forgotten how damn awesome it is.  and how much I missed my friends and relatives. I rented a car for the duration, and drove around visiting. I consumed IPA and real weed. I went sailing to Santa Barbara's channel islands. I went on a steetbike ride.. a realization slowly dawned on me: I didn't want to go back. so when I got an email from them saying that I hadn't filled out some form from the library and had to submit it by hand before the 5th of January to study there this semseter,
I shrugged, and enrolled in my university, back in Australia. I didn't want to go back that soon. I only needed to show up a day or two before the first set of exams anyway, and and had no intention of being there before then. 

Of course I still had to hand in the damn form to get my transcripts sent to my school, so I flew down there for a week to go take care of shit. having accomplished it all in a day, I went to Veracruz (true cross) to kill time before my return flight. A nice Mexican girl sat next to me at one of the stops on the way, and I proceeded to pour on the charm...(i usually try to contain my darker nature to the world of TAN) We spent a fun few days by the beach and in my hotel room, and it was naice..
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but inevitably (it's the latina way) she got super attached and clingy. I'm usually not opposed to this if I feel the same way, but I was in it for a bit of fun before I had to leave. she was kinda dull.. pretty enough, nice ass, but no hobbies, no wild side, and not much in the way of a razor wit. just a baby making machine. but that's the beauty of travelling. you get to leave all your baggage behind when you leave.  well.. next blog coming in march sometime.