1 week in Mexico

Today is 7th day in Mexico. Past only 1 week, but emotions are like I spent 2 months. I learn a lot during 1 week, got to know people very well, got new friends, saw city, worked, planned, ...

At Monday we said bye bye to Cindy, who left to Spain to work in SSGN board, and all our team left to Octavio´s aunt flat to have planing days.
First day, half of the day we were talking about us, to get know each other better and it was very interesting. Then we created our team 1 year vision, logotype and started to plan. When we looked into numbers, that previous MC planed till year 2010, I saw that numbers is not possible to achieve and I proposed to change planed numbers of exchanges. It was challenging, because numbers was planed already year ago, all LCs had that numbers, but in the end all team agreed to change numbers to one I proposed and which looked more realistic.
In the evening we were drinking beer and talking, joking, ...

Next day was more productive, because half of the day we were continue planing - defining strenghts and weaknesses, setting milestones for priorities of each area, making actions and then sharing. Not so easy process to plan whole year.

I´m becoming tired of some things in Mexico, like smell of cooking tortillas, dirtiness and colorfullness of city, spanish language what is all around and because of my pour knowledge of Spanish, I feel limited.
I still cannot go anywhere alone, because for sure I will get lost.

I like people openmindness and friendlyness here, I like my team, parks, new knowledge I´m getting here, new cultural shocks, ...

I have still many challenges here and 2 of them is that I don´t want to cook for myself, because food is different here and way to cook also, as well after the day you feel tired and don´t want to cook, want home, where mom cooked everything already.
Second challenge is fast tiredness. Most probably, because of time changes and sleeping not in my bed (bed I have in Riga, to which I got used), I don´t sleep same sweet as at my home and also already at 11 become very sleepy. Hope after 1 week, I will get used to everything and also to time difference and will have my normal timing (don´t feel sleepy till 1 am).

New facts:
1) English language knowledge is very pour here. Many people don´t understand my english because I speak too fast for them and it is shocking me.
2) People driving a bit on red light
3) In metro the most popular product is MP3 CDs for 1 USD
4) Transport is cheap here - metro cost 0.2 USD

In Mexico - first impressions

Find photos here: www.flickr.com/photos/sergejs/sets

First impressions about country is - it looks similar as I was expecting and as we see it in the movies.
City is very colorful and old. It has a lot of old small houses and all of them have different color.

In the first day I already went to my office. Office is very close to house and building is very beautiful. In the office building we have dinning room, where every day we getting lunch for free. Ladies, who is working there, has a lot of respect and everyone loves them, because of their attitude and quality of food. They make great sup, second dish, fruits and desert. From the first day I’m started to make contact with them with my poor Spanish and seems I’m managed to do it well.

At second evening I was talking with girl from last MC about relations and next day she took me to meeting with her friend (girl) and told that they are going to talk about relations and boys (perfect topic). We went to meeting by taxi (35-40 min. for 4 USD) and then went to some garage, what was used like restaurants where you can eat traditional food. I took 1 plate of soup and I was full from it. In restaurant we started to talk about relations topic and in the friend’s car continuing it. I got to know differences in relations in Mexico and shared my thought with them (all of us learned a lot).

Next day, finally, I tried tacos (traditional food with a lot of meet). It is pretty good, but I guess as more you eat them, as more you like. 1 taco cost 1 USD.

Today I had first free day, what I wanted to spend without anything related with AIESEC and I managed very well.

This night I slept 10 hours. After breakfast we with trainee from Peru and my teammate Dante went to Zocalo. We visited castle, where were leaving some important people in the history of Mexico. There I could see picture of history of Mexico - it was impressing. Mexican history is very interesting.
Then we went to church, what is not staying straight, because it was build on the lake in the past. This church is most important in country. Zocalo is very interesting place, because many centuries ago at that place were pyramids and place, where ancient cultures lived, but when came Spanish, they build Zocalo as we see it not on the top of that buildings!!! And in some places you could see tops of the pyramids.
After that we went to very interesting place - market place. It was so impressing. There are a lot of people, a lot of sellers, people are screaming and prices are very cheap. I bought there slippers and socks. Such marketplace I could see only on TV, but today I experienced it. It was very interesting.

After that we went home, because I arranged meeting with friend (one of SN in AIESEC Mexico - Mariana). She with her friend(Adriana) came 1 hour later, because was hard to find my home and we went with her car to watch castle.
That place was very green in very beautiful. Museum was not very interesting, but beautiful and place around is as well. During all the time I was talking in Spanish and English, and they were talking mostly in Spanish with me. When we wanted to go back, as every evening here, started to rain. Rains here are very hard. We were totally wet, when we got the car. On proposal going to have lunch, we made decisions to go to Mariana´s house and order pizza.

Marina had family in her house (mother, father and 2 more sisters). I asked to not introduce myself, because I can make it by myself in Spanish. When I came, I introduced myself and then they were very hospitable and gave me towel, dry t-shirt to feel more better after rain. While we were waiting for pizza, I started to talk with her sisters a bit in spanish and in english and later I was communicating with Mariana´s father ... in spanish only. I needed help with translation of what he was saying, because he was talking fast, but I was talking with him in spanish. We had interesting conversation with whole family and it was good challenge for my Spanish. They told that for 4 days being in Mexico, my Spanish is very good and improving very fast.
I felt that during second part of the day (going to castle and then going to Mariana´s house) I improved my spanish so much. I was able already to talk with her father in spanish. We spend nice time, then went to shopping mol to buy a coffee. Each of us (Mariana, her sisters, Adriana and me) took 1 glass of coffee and we went home.
That evening was wonderful and for my friendliness, they told, that I can concern them as my second family - it was so nice to here. And I got invitations for Mariana´s father’s and sister’s birthday.

This day was really good, full of impression, I saw city, met very nice people and improved my Spanish very much.

Next week we are finishing transition and starting planning.

Interesting facts and shocks:
1) People all around talk in spanish
2) They have palms
3) It is not so hot as we think
4) Building are small, old and colorful
5) Many different shops on the streets and in the metro people sell many stuffs
6) All people are brown (I´m very white here)
7) Don´t trust the cars - cars driving like crazy here
8) Transport is cheap. Metro cost 0.20 USD
9) People don´t talk with me to much in english
10) Very many people all around
11) In pick time they separate metro train to women and child part and men part
12) Buses don´t close front door during they way
13) Milk products is more expensive then in Latvia
14) In smaller cities, people live like ¨no sex before marriage¨ and when boy want to start relationship, he has to ask ¨Do you want to be my girlfriend¨
15) Big lines to the buses
16) Taxi is cheap (for 10 minutes ride can cost only 1 USD)
17) On the streets they have places where people clean shoes for rich people
18) Raining really hard
19) They you lemon everywhere - sup, tacos, desert, ... - everywhere
20) When you start relations and have this feeling you have, when everything starting, they call it ¨butterfly in your stomach¨
21) They use taxi a lot
22) When you buy fresh juice on the street (0.60 Ls) they put it in plastic bag and put there straw
22) On the streets you can see many transvestites
22) People are friendly and share everything they have with you

To be continued...

Way to Mexico

This is my first post to my blog.
I will try to write often, but not much here.

My travel to Mexico started with flight to Brussels.

At 7.30 I took my plane from Riga airport to Brussels. My parents came to airport to say bye to me. Flight went smooth, even I had overweight in my luggage, but AirBaltic didn´t charge me for it.
In Brussels my friend Roman (whom I met at TWIN 2006) met me with car and brought to MC flat.

There I met Gwen, who was alumni coordinator in AIESEC Mexico 2006-2007. I had small sightseeing in Brussels and then with Gwen and 2 more friend we went to Brugge (Belgium).
Shock: So international city, so many arabs and black people and all around talk language you don´t understand.

We enjoyed city very much and when we came back to Brussels I met with Rayemon (he is CMS sistem of AIESEC Mexico developer). We went to famous pub, where is more then 2200 types of beers and I took banana beer. After this we went home and I met Christiane and contacted Jovin, with whom we arranged meeting at 22:30. It was so great to met him.

Next day I went alone sightseeing of Brussels (as always made a lot of photos). I went around whole city center and then went to Atoms and Mini Europe. Atom was very borring, but Mini Europe was amazing (I guess it is worse to pay 12.60 EUR for entrance).

Then I met with Roman and his friend in the evening, we watched EU institutions and when to his friend place to drink a beer.

In the evening we had party with Beligum MC. They are such funny people, I enjoyed party very much and went sleep at 2 am. In the 6 am woke up and Roman took me to airport by car, for what I was very thankfull to him.

Then I took short flight to Frankfurt (aprox. 50 minutes). Airoport in Frankufrt is huge. I had 4 hours till my flight to Mexico and I spent 2 hours just for walking around aeroport.

1 hour before flight started check in and when I came there, there was huge line and a lot of mexicans inside the waiting area.

Then started all adventure. So huge airplane I have never seen - Boeing 747. Plane with 2 floors, with 9 sits in the line and maaany lines. Plane for aprox. 200 people.
I had good neigborhood siting next to me, with whom I practiced my spanish ... and english :) We had long talk, then lunch, then again talk, then sleep for 3 hours, then dinner and this way passed 12 hours of trans-Atlantic flight.

Border control was pretty easy, but I was waiting for 40 minutes to get my bags. When I went out, there was 9 people waiting for me from my and current MC team. Then came by car and by that we got home.