Nachos with a side of AK-47s

So. Last night I had my first Mexican movie experience. Some weird kids Christmas movie called Unaccompanied Minors... at least I think thats what it was called. It had that little black dude from that TV show on channel 10 in it. But yeah... I didn't really understand much, but it was a pretty straightforward movie. Easy to follow. It had Fez from That 70s Show in it... but he wasn't very funny this time.

At the movies I tried authentic Mexican nachos... and they were absolutely disgusting. Its corn chips in this really gross melted cheese that is so runny its practically soup. They put chilis on the side, but they're way too hot for me. Nyeah. I like Australian nachos better. Although these were from the movies, so maybe restaurant nachos would be nicer.

I have come up with a theory on why there seems to be a sever lacking in laws/law enforcement in Mexico. I figure that the government want people to die. I mean think about it... Mexico City is the most densely populated place on earth and Mexico's population is out of control, even though its population is steadily declining. And thats where my theory comes in. I think that all this lack of rules etc is a way of trying to kill off as many people as possible to get the population under control. By making drugs legal the government is encouraging drug abuse, hence encouraging lethal overdoses. Also, the teenage smoking epidemic... Get all the young people to smoke so that in 30-40 years time they all get cancer and die or go sterile. And the reason for no seatbelts and the allowance of drink driving? They don't care if people die. Hell, they want them to die.

I'm pretty sure that you all know not to take my paranoid conspiracy ravings seriously by now, but think about it... Its plausible. Oh... please keep in mind that I just read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which is full of paranoid ramblings and possible inspiration for that last paragraph.

Hmmm what else? Um today I saw a cop. Like I have seen lots of cops around, but they've all been driving. Today I saw a few cops standing around having a chat and a smoke and guess what they were packing? Not only your standard handcuffs, baton, pistol etc. but an AK-47. I'm pretty sure that these days most people know what an AK-47 is, but if any of you don't know its one of these. It was pretty scary. They must be expecting some pretty heavy stuff if normal cops are carrying those things around.

Yeah. Mexico is a pretty awesome place... But its very different. And kind of scary... But yeah. Awesome. I wonder I there is anyone I can sue if i get lung cancer while I'm over here, because I think theres a high probability that I'll catch some sort of sickness from all this people smoking...

El Camión

So... picking up where i left off I got semi-lost in the city the other day. I caught the bus on the wrong side of the road and it took me to the slums. So I re-caught the bus and it took me to the right part of town, but for some reason it didn't stop where it picked me up in the morning and I had no idea where I was so I had to navigate me way back to Burger King [not because I needed a burger, but because that is where my stop is] and find my way home. When I did get home Lety and Jorge were really angry that I didn't call and it was very hard to explain why I didn't let them know where I was and what happened seeing as they don't speak English very well. So yeah. That was exciting.

What other adventures have I had? Yesterday I ate at El Pollo Loco, which roughly translates to 'The Crazy Chicken' and is basically a Mexican version of KFC. It was pretty damn gross, but I ate my disgusting fried chicken like a good girl. I just hope they don't take me there again.

After that we went to Jorge's dead sister's house. I'm not entirely sure what we were doing there, but it felt really weird poking around some dead person's home looking for whatever they were looking for. It was a really nice house though. Probably nicer than Jorge and Lety's. And it looked like she had a lot of expensive stuff in there. So I'm guessing she was well-off before she died.

Also, I went clubbing at Señor Frogs, which, apparently, is a famous Mexican icon that people in the states go crazy for. Its basically just like any other dingy club you would go to though. I had a lot of fun, although I am now officially know as the 'weird Australian kid' because I don't drink alcohol.

Mexicans are so weird. I swear they have like... now laws. You don't have to wear seatbelts. In fact Lety's car doesn't even have seatbelts in the back seats. Well it does, but there is nowhere to plug them in. Also we squeezed 7 people into a tiny car last night and apparently the police don't care if you do it. Apparently its normal. Also, there is no blood alcohol limit.. you can drink drive if you want. And it is absolutely crazy at 2-5 in the morning with all these drunken idiots driving around town. And oh yeah, marijuana is legal as well as cocaine and an assortment of other dangerous recreational drugs. I think its because the government couldn't stop the drug cartels so they decided to make it legal and tax it hardcore.

Another weird Mexican thing is that when someone blows out the candles on their birthday cake someone always pushes the birthday person's face into it. What a waste of perfectly good cake. Last night only a little bit of the cake got squished, so people could still eat some of it, but I seriously don't get why people would go to the trouble of making a really nice cake and then ruining it. apparently they do it at weddings too, which means people could waste up to like... $500 or something. Prices for wedding cakse can be pretty obscene from what I've heard.

Yeah well, thats about all I have to say for awhile. If there are any Mexicans reading this please correct me if I'm wrong about anything and tell me why you shove people's head into cakes.

Fotos.

[That is how we spell 'photos' in Spanish]

I put some of my photos on flickr. They didn't work very well, but I think most of that is due to the poor editing software here. When I acquire better programs I shall re-post everything so they look better.

And now... some photos...

Somewhere in Mexico...

First glimpse of America

Leaving New Zealand

And thats all I have for you today. I was going to write about my scary as bus experience today, but that can wait until tomorrow.

La escuela.

I had my first day of school yesterday. Contrary to what I was told by the other exchange students everyone was really, really nice. I think that might be because we (Greg, the other Australian exchange student, and I) are a bit of a novelty at this stage because we don't speak Spanish, but there were a few people who were genuinely interested in helping me, which was good.

School in México is very different to school in Australia. For one thing it starts at 7am and finishes around 1-2pm, so you have the whole afternoon to go and do stuff. Another huge difference is how it is actually run. There are no school bells... you just have to know what time it is (which is hard seeing as there are no clocks in the classrooms). And the teachers are so not strict. Kids walk around all the time and yell and do no work and no one cares. They use their mobile phones all the time in class and if their phone rings they just answer it and start chatting away. And everyone smokes. Its so gross. At recess 90% of the class went out and had a cigarette. Yuck!

Spanish lessons were pretty fun too. Our teacher is very nice, but we are going very fast... its a bit hard, but its do-able as long as we do our homework... which i am going to start very soon.

I´ve loaded my photos onto the computer... but I have to convert them from RAW format and then edit them first, which might take a while. But as soon as I've finished I will post the photos from the flight over.

Anyway... dinner is soon so I must go. (I guess you've figured out that I generally use the computer before dinner ;-))

Mazatlán, Sinaloa, México.

I arrived in Mazatlán, México two days ago at around 3pm. Our flight was delayed a little at LA. Yes, I was in Los Angeles! I took a photo of the HOLLYWOOD sign as we flew into the airport, but it was too far away, so it didn´t really work.

My family is very nice. Jorge (pronounced Hore-hey) is the name of both my 'father' and 'little brother,' which can be quite confusing, but at the moment I just call them Jorge grande y Jorge poqueño (big and little). Luckily for me Jorge grande speaks pretty good English, because I speak no Spanish. Although that will hopefully change very soon. I actually have my first Spanish lesson today, so that should be good.

Tomorrow I start school at the Universided de Techmilenio, Mazatlán,which looks pretty nice. Greg, the other Australian exchange student, and I are the first International students at the school and neither of us speak Spanish, so it should be interesting... and hard.

Already I have made a few friends... well sort of. They are exchanges students from various parts of the globe, who stick together because, aparently, the Méxican girls are too snobby at their schools. I hope that isn´t the case at my school.

Mazatlán is a very nice looking place. There are parts that are very, very run down, as is the case in any Méxican city, but even in those places everyone looks happy... As in everywhere you go everyone is smiling. In a way its pretty strange because everyone is SO friendly. Especially when you introduce yourself like this: 'Buenos días. Me llama Niki y soy de Australiana. No habla Español.' They all find it amusing that I can´t speak their language and a lot of people think I´m very strange for coming to a Spanish speaking country when I have not learnt Spanish before. I don´t think they understand that not many people choose to study a language in Australia and that for us the best way to learn it is by going to a Spanish speaking country.

Once I have sorted out the problem of USB converters and other technological problems I will post some photos of my house, family and the city.

On the 7th February I am going on a trip around Baja California to see the whales mating... It goes for about 5 days and everyone says it is awesome. Then in April/May I travel through the 'Ruta Maya,' which is basically a 17 day trip around México. Everyone says its very expensive, but I worked out that it is pretty damn cheap in Australian dollars... just like pretty much everything else here. Its good.

Anyway... I don´t really have anything else to say. Plus, it is lunch time y tengo muy hambre.

Fire Twirling

I figure that I can use this blog to record things that happen before I go to Mexico as well so... here is something for the record.

On Wednesday night I had a 'surprise' going away party. We all went out and had dinner at the new 'Woodfire Pizza and Modern Mexican' (which, according to Ely, is nothing like actual Mexican food) restaurant and then went fire twirling. All my friends have been fire twirling for yonks so they're all fantastic, but that night was my first go at lighting them on fire. Considering that I haven't used poi in about 6 months and that I only know two tricks I think I did rather well. I have some photos too... (You can see more by visiting my flickr account)




So there... that was my first twirling experience. How absolutely exciting. We are doing another burn tonight and I will give it another go, although my sunburn could prove to be problematic. Anyway... We'll see how it all goes.