First real Post

Don´t feel like describing today yet. It was enough work just getting this blog up. but just to keep everyone the same level of up to date, here is what I wrote to my family in an e-mail recently (with a few modifications)

Hey, the flight went smoothly. I did wait a good bit, but my ipod kept me going for that time. I thought they'd arrive earlier, so I had an airport staffer announce my name. It was interesting the whole pronunciation issue. I had to explain that it wasn't Poe-oonds.

We´ve done the activity with the market prices today.The point of the activity was, using Morelos's minimum wage to try to find out if we could buy various "necessary" products at the market including shampoo, food, clothes for school. Then we came back and calculated these amounts in dollars. The dollars can be exchanged for far more pesos with far more buying power than the equivalent dollars have in the U.S.

It's what brings in tourists. It's also what drives people to migrate and then return here.Things that are cheap for us here are expensive for Mexicans making minimum wage or lower. Minimum wage is high here for Mexico, but I get the feeling that prices may also be higher.

I've taken the Spanish test at Universal (I think I did ok at everything except subjunctive).

I had a "Stupid American" experience today, when I confused the entrance for a waterfall with a gate for condominiums (thankfully the guard did not take my money). I finished ¨Crossing Borders,¨ which I thoroughly recommend, although I haven´t done the report on it due Friday. I did make it to desayuno this morning, waking up with my cell phone alarm (apparently ¨Flight of the Bumblebee¨works!).

I´ve found Cuernavaca so far to be interesting, generally easy to understand but somewhat disorienting. Typically in Tennessee and in Boston one can easily disern generally how old things are. I´ve not been to the historic landmarks, but the part of town we´re in seems to be of indeterminate age, simplistic with an occasional mock-Spanish florish here and there (especially on churches). Storefronts are nearly always painted rather than sleek ads or hanging tavern-style boards. They always convey the information boldly, except for condominiums, which as can be expected, try to be more subtle in saying that they are condominiums, instead emphasizing names like ¨El Bosque.¨

The house seems comfortable so far. Hopefully it will stay that way (we did have the talk about scorpions, bedbugs etc).