Argentina

Thursday: Hung out on campus and went to the church on top of the pyramid. I have some amazing photos. That night I played 7 v 7 soccer in an arena with Munchi and some of his buddies. The average Mexican is pretty good at soccer, but I held my own despite wearing tennis shoes. That night they had a surprise going away party for me. Unfortunately, I arrived to my own party about 90 minutes late because of the soccer game. In my rush, I ordered the first drink on the menu called the Bambuko (which was also the name of the bar). I figured if a drink is the name of the bar it's a good bet. Hands down, this was the WORST drink I have ever had. It had tobasco sauce and a chili pepper stick in it. It was like a horrible version of a bloody mary. Like a champ though, I drank it down and went with Gilda to Rocka. Friday: Last day. Slow morning due to the night before. Played some street basketball with some exchange students and Mexicans (played alright), and then went to the UDLA varsity ...

Alright, once again a very long time between updates. Let's go for the weekly recap. Sunday: Woke up no feeling so hot and Paulina informed me that we were going for a road trip in 10 minutes. I got myself together and grabbed a stack of crackers and apple juice for breakfeast. We went to the house of one of their friends where two guys were in the midst of eating mushrooms ("champis" or "angus" in Spanish). Apparently the road trip was going to be me and Paulina taking these two Mexicans for a road trip while they tripped. It's funny that Mexicans also call it "un trip" or "un viaje". The plan was just to drive into the country and find a nice tranquil spot for these two guys. Apparently you don't want a lot of commotion when you take "champis". We drove for an hour into the middle of nowhere and found this little lake. We parked the car and walked down to the lake and shot the shit for like 3 hours while these guys enjoyed...

Alright a lot has gone on these past few days, which is why I have not updated the blog. Ok, picking up with Tuesday night or the Independence Day Eve. That night Paulina came back from UDLA (her university) with 5 exchange students (two aussies and three americans). The whole day people had been coming to the house to set up things for the party: a tent, a barbeque, chairs, tables, booze and food. The family had put Mexican memorabilia everywhere in the house. Little flags, baby sombreros, novelty mustaches, horns, banners, and such. Their house wasn't that big but by about 8 o'clock it was in full swing with everyone eating, drinking, and being Mexican (with the exception of the 6 gringos). Of the 5 exchange students 2 spoke very broken Spanish, which was hilarious because they were 6'3 australians who couldn't give a kangaroo's ass whether their Spanish was good or not, two Americans who were decent, and 1 Mexican-American girl who spoke Spanish and English perf...

On Sunday we had a relaxing morning and at around 1 pm we went to Paulina's uncles house. Saturday is for friends and Sunday is for family. It was a nice patio tucked between two buildings with about 20 people who were all related. Uncles, grandmothers, grandchildren, husbands, wives, and one gringo that nobody knew. No it was fun, they all joked around with me and had me try every kind of food and wanted to know my opinion. I had this great soup with beans and cilantro and some sort of delicious meat thing, so I asked what it was and they said "fried pork skin". It was less delicious then but still very good. We left at around 3:30 pm to go to the Estadio Azteca because Pepe (dad) had gotten football tickets after he learned I was a soccer fan. The stadium was absolutely massive (it fits 130,000) people. The stadium was only about 1/3 full because America (the best team) was playing a team that had been struggling all season. The tickets were only 100 pesos and were abou...

Woke up at 3:30 am on Friday to leave for my trip. Made it with no problem to the airport, thru security, to Houston. My flight to Houston was slightly delayed and my lay-over was only 50 minutes, so I bascially had to run from gate to gate to get boarded on time. The flight from Houston to Mexico city was 25% full and I was probably one of the only gringos. We flew into Terminal 2, so it was good that I had printed out my wikitravel of mexico because I knew that in order to catch the subway you have to go to Terminal 1. So I took a bus to terminal 1, took the metro (subway) to Panhillan, then took a different line of the metro to Pino Suarez, then transferred to the Line towards Tasqueña, and then I took the light rail until Registro Federal, and then I walked the remainder. It was a pretty intense journey from home to Mexico city and i think i hit every kind of transportation (car, plane, bus, subway, light rail, and walking). I guess I didnt take any boats... Anyway, Paulinas fami...

I made it to Paulinas house without any problems. it was 3 subway ligns, a light rail line, and a half mile walk though. Ill try to find a computer tomorrow to give more information as I am borrowing this at the moment from Paulinas little brother.

Back-packer essentials: 1 black back-pack (don't expect to get it back) 4 underwear 4 socks 4 t-shirts 1 nice shirt (for the ladies) 1 pair of shorts and swim suit 1 razor Toiletries Bandage and medical tape Sketch book + camera (a good duo) Pocket translator 1 yellow towel (it's been to Argentina and the DR) Pen and paper Food for airplane flight Documents Unlocked pay-as-you go phone 1 light water proof jacket 1 sports jacket And directions... I leave Shelton at 3:30 a.m. and arrive in Mexico City at 4:40 pm. (Only one lay-over in Houston). I have instructions on how to arrive to Paulina's house, but they include two subway rides and a light rail ride, to a long walk. Espero que todo vaya bien. Adios.

One of the girls from Mexico sent me this message (first Spanish, then English): "querido taylor: Karla, gilda y yo empezamos nuestro viaje a la ciudad de mexico hace una semana. Ha sido un viaje muy dificil, primero no querian vendernos un burro por que somos mujeres, así que karla tuvo que disfrazarse de hombre para poderlo comprar. Hace unos dias el burro de Gilda se enfermó así que hemos tenido que gastar nuestro ultimo dinero para comprar otro. Te mantendremos informado. Esperamos llegar a tiempo para cuando estes en la ciudad de méxico. Lo bueno es que hablas español porque aqui nadie habla ingles. Por cierto!!! No olvides cambiar tus dolares en el aeropuerto, recuerda que la moneda que se usa en mexico es: TORTILLAS!! Es un dolar por diez tortillas, no dejes que te engañen. Si alguien te ofrece matrimonio, NO LO ACEPTES, aunque te paguen 1500 tortillas. Bueno... nos vemos en unos dias, NO TRAIGAS TU LAPTOP POR QUE EN MEXICO NO EXISTE EL INTERNET OBVIAMENTE ni tampoco hay el...

Me voy pa' Mexico el 11 de septiembre. Voy el 11 de septiembre porque es cuando los boletos salen más barato. Go figure. I will be staying with some Mexican girls that couch surfed with me in Seattle. They will pick me up by donkey from the airport and we will have 3 day journey to their village. Here's a picture of them: My goals for the trip are not to get kidnapped and not to get the swine flu. Todavía no sé muchas detalles de mi viaje pero les aviso cuando sepa. Solo sé que estaré alla pa'el día de independencia. No es el cinco de mayo como muchos creen. El cinco de mayo marcó una batalla contra francia. El día de independencia es el 16 de septiembre. I will spend the first week with the girls at their university in Puebla, and then I intend to go to Mexico City where I will either Couch Surf, stay in a hostel, or stay with random people I meet along the way. That's all for now, more updates as I figure my shit out. Two more weeks of work...

So we went to the DJ Tiesto concert for 600 RD (around 20 bucks) and it was awesome. There were like 15,000 dominicans decked out with glow sticks and going crazy. Just a little background DJ Tiesto is a Danish DJ and is pretty renound for his techno. They had a sweet light show, fireworks, and even a girl dangle dancing from a hot air baloon to complete the scene. The concert supposedly started at 9 pm, we got there at 11 pm thinking that would be when DJ Tiesto would come out, but he didn´t start playing until around 1 am. At 4 am we were all technoed out so we left but it seemed like the concert was still in full swing. We had walked all around the city earlier in the day for about 5 hours so after 5 more hours of dancing to techno, I was cashed. We went with Esperanza and Carlitos who are the friends of Yaul who was the friend of Bibiana who Michael had met through Jet Blue in Seattle. It seems that if you make one friend you can integrate yourself into the friend network p...

What up. I am using the slowest keyboard I have ever seen. I type and it appears several seconds later. Anyway, I am in Santo Domingo right now. We found a nice little hotel and we are paying about $23 dollars each per night. Santo Domingo is a real city and it is NICE. I thought that the DR was a third world country when I was in PUerto Plata, but Santo Domingo is very nice. IT is actually the oldest city in the New World. Christopher Colombus set up shop in Santo Domingo when he mossied on over from Spain in 1492. Therefore the city has lots of history because its 500 plus years old. We walked for about 5 hours today through the Zona COlonial, along the Malecon and up into the surrounding residential barios. Tonight there is a possibility that we are going to go to a DJ Tiesta concert but we´ll see. DJ tiesta is one of the biggest techno artists in the world... but he´s Dutch so not that cool on the whole. Our friends back in Santiago hoooked us up with some people they k...

Ok everyone, I have some time to tell you a little bit more about the trip. We flew from SEATAC to JFK with no problems and had a 4 hour lay over. We ate dunken donuts and and people watched for the majority of the time. Then we had our flight to Puerto Plata which wasn´t full and I got some most excellent sleep. Customs was a breeze but we came out of the airport and it was a huge mess. Our directions were sketchy at best. Basically we knew we had to go to an area called Sosúa and look for a street called Calle Piano and from there we had to look for a restaurant called Casa Vientiuno and then it was the last house on the street. The guy we were CouchSurfing wiith told us that we could take a Guagua on the nearby highway to the house. Well, we got there and it was rainy extremely hard, we didn´t see the freeway, and we really didn´t know where to go. We exchanged some money in a bank and did the unthinkable... we took a taxi. We hosed the hell out of us and charged us 23$USD in...

Just a quick message since I am about to get picked up. We flew into Puerto Plata and stayed with a Spaniard named Josep in his sweet house outside of Puerto Plata. This is the first time I have really seen the third world up close. It was also a tale of two worlds because admist the poverty was an enormous walled off tourism resort complex that draws half a million tourists per year. Anyway, two days of motoconchos, guaguas, and Presidente and now we are in Santiago to meet up with some of Mike´s buddies. I am sitting in an internet cafe and we are waiting to get picked up by someone named Bibiana. I have so much detail to add to this quick message i just wanted to say what´s up. See ya. Taylor

Just a heads up that I will be going to the Dominican Republic for spring break with my buddy Mike from March 22nd to March 30th. Should be sweet because we both speak Spanish and we got super cheap plane tickets ($100) because he works for the airlines. I think we are planning to CouchSurf but we'll see what ends up happening. More to come.