First days and impressions

"Hola wei!"

Those are the words I always hear walking down the street and through our beautiful campus. Mexicans really are some of the most friendly people I've ever run into, and it has made my transition here in Guadalajara much easier!

I'm all moved into the dorm now, which is located right across the street from campus. All of my roommates will be Mexican (they haven't moved in yet, I had to arrive early for orientation), so I'll have plenty of opportunities to practice Spanish in my apartment.

Here are some of my first impressions of Guadalajara: it's HUGE, has a lot of soul, but is still in a state of development. There is an interesting mix of beautiful colonial architecture and newer, but sometimes just dirtier, buildings in between. Here are some of the beauties:

Palacio de Gobierno de Guadalajara 

Teatro Degollado

There's also a ton of street art, here's a lil sample:

So all in all, despite a bit of culture shock (the city is much more crowded and LOUD than I'm used to), things are going well! The international students are all good cookies. Most of them are from Europe, Southeast Asia, or Australia, which I guess makes sense, but I was very surprised to find out that Alex (my friend from USC studying here) and I are the only Americans! Kind of cool... This is the first time in my life when it's felt special to be from the US. But for whatever reason, everyone I meet thinks I'm German! Tall and blonde hair, that's all it takes.

Something that I found interesting: Tec de Monterrey conducts random drug tests for all students throughout the semester. I've never heard of a university doing something like that before, but I guess given Mexico's struggle with drug trafficking, it makes sense. 

More to come! Stay tuned folks.

Pre-departure

I leave for Guadalajara in less than three days. I started thinking about packing tonight. What am I doing...

Apparently feeling way under-prepared is pretty standard for students about to study abroad. I feel that, no doubt about it. But for now the excitement outweighs the panic and the nerves, like a benevolent sedative. Hope to keep that going for a while!

I'll start with a little intro to get you warmed up to me: I'm Ben Youngblood, a Junior International Business and Accounting major at USC. I want to be an Immigration Lawyer eventually though, if that shines any light on my decision to study abroad at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Guadalajara.

Here's where I'll be spending most of my class time.

Since this is a pre-departure post, I figured I would write about some of my expectations for the coming semester. Maybe I'll revisit this post towards the end, and reflect on all of my profound changes in perspective about our southern neighbor. But that will come later.

First off, everyone I've talked to from the university seems extremely friendly! That's something I'm really looking forward to: Mexican hospitality.

Obviously the food is gonna be good, no doubt in my mind.

Lemme talk tacos.

I'm taking five of my six classes in Spanish, so I expect to be very confused for the first couple weeks.

I expect to make more international student friends than Mexican friends. I've heard from other students who've studied abroad that it can actually be very difficult to make friends with the local people. But I'm gonna try!

Apparently Guadalajara is a very gay city, so I'm interested to see how that culture fits in with the Roman Catholicism that dominates most of the country.

I imagine I'll have many more opportunities to travel in Mexico than I might in Europe because of the lower costs, so I hope to see a lot of the country.

Thanks for reading my blog. I hope to keep you entertained, and maybe inspire some of your own future travels to Mexico.

-Ben