Our Mexican Adventure: Orientation Week

Hola! After a week of jet lag, it's finally orientation week and met up with all the international students. Apparently there is 120 Americans, 120 Germans and a total of 800 exchange students who are enrolled in Tec de Monterrey. The number of Asians? Countable by my 10 fingers! So.. when we saw a couple of Korean students and Vanessa, a exchange student from NTU, we felt a lot better. Oh well.. that wasn't the most depressing part. When we gathered at the Rectoria Building for our dinner with all the international students, we really felt like outcasts. No one bothered to talk to us or attempted to welcome us into their conversations. It was so demoralizing that we almost wanted to slip out of the place and go back to our flat. Thank god we didn't. Cos.. we really enjoyed ourselves at the dinner! Got to know 2 funny swedish guys, 1 snobbish and disgusting american guy, 1 german girl, 1 very nice and genuine texas girl and another girl from holland. We even went out for drinks with them after that and got to know more exchange students. I'll not elaborate on their nationality since there are just too many of them! haha... So yup, our very 1st night walking along the quiet streets, shivering under our thick jackets in the chilly weather. It was actually quite nice.

The next 2 days was registration and settling our insurance. Boy, the insurance lady sure stick to the mexican timing well. She told us to reach at 10, we woke up late, reach at 11 and she was not there until 1230. Fortunately for us, we just started mingling around and got to know another girl from d.c. She has a very special name - Jewel - and a very nice personality. After that, we went for another round of groceries shopping at Sorianas so that Pamela can buy all her necessities. We also took a cab to Barrios Antiguo, the night scene in the downtown that afternoon. The place was a lot more livlier, with more cars and people walking along the roads. So we just explored around and took some pictures. Oh yes, we finally got our Mexican numbers too! That pretty much ends our day.

We started off thurs morning with the academics policies talk in one of the auditoriums. One of the key emphasis was on the management of absences. For every module, we will be allowed 2 weeks absence. Ironically, punctuality is also another important thing that determines if we are absent from class (kinda contradicts with the mexican timing culture here). We have to be 10mins early before class and if we are late for 2 times, it equates to 1 absence. Well.. i guess we just have to start adjusting since we wouldn't want to screw up any of our available absences because we are late for class. Subsequently, there was a general information talk where the highlight is to tell us about the shipping of items to Mexico. Horrible stories were told about how items will be inspected at the US custom and the possible high tax charges especially for items made in Asia. So the packages will probably take months or never arrive at all. Argh! Who the hell wants to ship anything now man! Disgusting customs. After all the long talks, everyone gathered at the welcome tent arranged by the school. There was this reaaalllyyy cute mascot walking around and we just couldn't resist acting like some idiot tourists and started taking pictures with him. I don't exactly know what is the mascot but it looks like a tomato to me. Wahaha! And what's the welcome tent all about? A mini gambling den! So we just went on to gamble with the fake dollar notes given to us. The night ended off with an auction, seeing every flipping their fake money trying to win all the different prizes which includes ipod, dinner vouchers, free air tickets and many Tec shirts and bottles. What was amazing was the fact that even the Tec shirts were popular among both the international and mexican students. They really love their school, don't they? I think SMU were to auction off their shirts, we'll just sit there and laugh it off. Lol..

Last day of orientation and the start of the weekend!! Immigration talk was boring so let's not go into the details. Oh.. we saw a deer along the way in campus too! A hyperactive deer with really beautiful spots and it attacked one of the international students when she went a bit too close to it. It was quite scary.. Nyan managed to capture it on video though.. haha.. The CCA talks was the interesting part though. There were so many activities and excursions planned for us that we were wondering if we are going to study at all!! No wonder they wanted us to organize our absences well. Haha.. So what's next? Friday night is the start of the fiesta! So we were welcomed into a cocktail party set up in the auditorium, with vibrant mexican music, traditional mexican cuisines and dances. I love all the different Mexican dances and their mexican and cowboy hats! Salsa in singapore is in no way comparable to the ones here man. It's so much more fun here!! Everyone had a lot of fun, dancing, eating and mingling around. House party was next on the agenda! Booze, smoke, loud music and people squeezing in and out of the house. It was really fun! The only sad part was that we didn't know that we had to bring our own alcohol so it got kinda boring after a while. Since it was Friday night, we decided to head down to Barrios Antiguo to check things out. And oh boy, that's where all our bad luck started. Firstly, we couldn't find the 2 swedish guys and subsequently found out that they were going to another place that is some distance from Barrios. Then we saw Marianne along the road and she invited us to join them. When we finally reached the pub, we didn't manage to go in as her friend didn't know we were part of them and the bouncer didn't allow us in. So we just had to wait. The suckiest thing was that the bouncer lets people in on the basis of whether they know the people. A couple of us were queuing for really long and he just refuses to let us in. We got really sick and tired, hop onto the taxi and try our luck to find the Swedes. As the saying goes, bad luck sometimes come in a streak. That was what happened to us. The idiotic cab driver didn't know where the place was and when we told him to drive us back to our place, he took a long time to find it. What's worse was that he doesn't have change for a 200 peso note!! What kinda of taxi driver is that?! Argh.. so ya.. that kinda ended our fiesta night. Oh well.. i guess it's ok to bump around sometimes.. we have 7 months here to fiesta anyway.. Haha..

Adios,
Yvonne

Photos!

Japanese curry rice!

Nyan frying the drumsticks. Me? Behind the scenes, cooking rice, boiling veg and preparing the curry sauce.

Nyan and the 2 funny swedish guys.

Dinner with the international students.

Lov Pub located opposite school.

(From left) Marianne from Germany, Marjolene from Holland and me from Singapore!

The alcohol was dirt cheap! 20 pesos (~S$2.6) for a bottle of beer and 65pesos (~S$6.8) for a big styrofoam cup of coke and rum! The styrofoam cup is really huge.. maybe the next time i will remind Nyan to take a picture of it to show u people.. haha..

The streets of Barrios Antiguo in the day. Decent, isn't it? Well.. when the people comes out to play at night, the streets are totally different! Fiesta! haha..

Huge cathedral beside the pubs and clubs.

Trying to climb our way into the cathedral! The SMUX spirit! haha..

Parque (park) opposite Barrios Antiguo. I swear it was really embarrassing doing the pose. Everyone in the park was staring. Haha.. but who cares, i'm a tourist! hee..