La noche de la lluvia

Hey Everyone,

Mexico is still fun, hahaha. The top photo is my friend Nora, she is from Luxemburg. I feel lucky to know someone from Luxemburg. The other photo is of my friends Beu, her nickname is Beulobo and of Komal my friend from England. This week has been crazy it has rained so much. Yesterday it was raining cats and dogs all day. Then I went with some friends to my friend Rachel's birthday party. It was an adventure to get there; Junco de la Vega is a street 4 blocks away from us that is a big street and there are always taxis there, except for last night. No taxis would pick us up and it was really pouring out, there were little lakes all over the streets. It was pretty bad for the girls because there makeup was running off. We decided to try to walk to the party, then eventually we got a ride from a taxi and started to head towards Colonia Roma where the party was, then we couldn't find the street the party was on. Finally we made it to the party and had a nice time. My friend Erica fed a street dog at our house here once and now the dog will not leave our house, it follows us all over the place, even to the Tec sometimes, which is pretty far away. Next week is our first partial exams and it should be pretty tough. I really like my classes here, but my chinese class is really tough, we have a quiz almost every day. I really enjoy my Importing and Exporting class, we do research on countries and present every week. That is thing I like most about Mty. there are so many people from all over the world. I am finally adding some culture. Liz, Julia (Liz's daughter) and Maury (Julia's son) are at a birthday party for Liz's niece right now and they will be hitting a pinata. After I get my partial exams done I will be doing some exploring around Mty and I will also bake some cakes with my friends this coming thursday. Hopefully I will be able to see the south of Mexico and really get a full view of Mexico.

Here are two funny links to watch:

The first is a youtube video made by my esteemed friend Mike Kruis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEkJY3mnWLg
it.
The second is also a youtube video of a crazy german kid, i put it up with Spanish subtitles to help you learn Spanish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpHJdGmT8k4

I will try to start another blog in Spanish this week if i have time. Also, right now i am adding skype which is a free service you can use like a phone computer to computer. I will put my name on here when I add it. Please comment on my blog to help me improve it :)

That is all!!!

Cuidanse,

Kyle Cook

Pinatas

Hola everyone!!!

Sorry it has taken me so long to post again. The woman with the electric smile is my friend Erica Walker from Colorado. The next photo, is my friends cousin with a dog, the girl didn't speak much english so I was talking to her in Spanish all night and she was talking to me in english. She goes to school at the University of Texas at Brownsville. My hat is basically a house for Liz my house mother hahaha. As you can see from my picture the whole campus of Itesm is wireless and there are animals all over. The next picture is our whole family at the dinner table. My week has been totally crazy. I have basically lived at the library all week. I got up at 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday to finish my calculus homework, then my professor didnt show up for my 8:00 a.m. class. Then Wednesday night i tried to stay up all night on Wednesday to try to read El Proceso a book by Franz Kafka, unfortunately i dozed off and didn't have time to finish it. I am doing good in my other classes, I talk to my calculus teacher only in Spanish. It is kind of funny because his girlfriend studied at UW-Madison; once when he was visiting her, he tried the hottest wings at buffalo wild wings, because he thought there was no way they would be too spicy for him and he was totally out of commision the next day. Everytime i tell anyone in Mty. that I am from Wisconsin they always ask me about Brett Favre or the Packers. There is a bar that shows every steelers game and there is a Steelers fan club here. I have talked to a lot of people about this and they say that since the steelers were great in the 1970's everyone since then has followed the team, the cowboys are the other team that people like here.

I haven't really had a chance to go anywhere but Colonia Florida, which is my neighborhood. In Mexico, they use colonia to refer to a neighborhood. This makes it a lot easier to get around, if you want to go to Soriana, which is a chain of grocery stores, you tell the taxi driver, "soriana en la colonia florida." I know some of you might find this hard to believe but i can actually make my way around Mty. pretty good. Speaking of Mty. it is basically an American city, you can buy almost anything you want, there is internet all over. The whole campus is wireless, there is a lovely area outside of the library that is underneath a building so it is in the shade and there is always a nice wind. however, not everything about Mexico is so nice, the lines and paperwork needed to do basic things is really tough. The city has a very cosmopolitan feel to it, there are lots of beautiful buildings and huge companies here like Pepsi, Maytag, etc. I really want to travel though to see what the rest of mexico is like. That is all for now im going to head back home.

cuidanse,

kyle

Monterrey

I am having trouble writing captions so I will describe them from here. The top photo is a photo ofmy host mom, Liz Alva de Leon and two of my three roommates. On the left is Michgael Buchmayr a 24 year old Austrian and on the right is Oliver Hoffmann a 22 year old German. Below that is a building on campus, sorry I have no idea what it is. Underneath that, is me with three amigas, from the left, Cecy Segura, Isa Segura and Beu Cardenas. We met them out at a place called Galeria. Then some photos of Monterrey, it is completely surrounded by mountains and it is really pretty. Then a movie poster for the batman movie in Spanish. Ducks are underneath that, the nice thing about this campus is the abundance of wildlife, there are deer and peacocks and ducks all over the campus. Underneath that is Ollie, me, David James Weller (my other roommate, an Englishman who goes to Aston ), Erica Walker and Kim Benjamin. Kim and Erica lives three houses away from us. Kim goes to Aston University in England, the same one as David, but they just met on this trip. Erica goes to the University of Colorado at Boulder. We have become good friends since our time began here in Mty (that is what everyone calls Monterrey). Finally, Mike, Kim, David and Erica are having fun at a bar.

Monterrey is really fun, it is a lovely city with people that are very smart and nice. It is recognized as the business and education center of Mexico. It is the third largest city in Mexico with a population of 3.8 million people. It is also the capital of the province of Nueva Leon. My host mom is named Liz Alva de Leon, she is Mexican and Guatemalan, and she keeps us in line down here. She is the prototypical grandmother, and she treats us like family. She has a grandson Mauricio who is usually over at the house, because his mom Julia (Liz's daughter) is at work for the catholic church. I have not had a lot of time to explore the city or Mexico, but I want to go up some of the mountains and see the south of Mexico. The lifestyle is different here, usually most people take a siesta at lunch for an hour or two and then go back to work. It is a slower pace as well, they take more time out to see their families. Also, the traffic is a lot different, stop signs are seen as a suggestion. To get to school i have to cross Junco de la Vega a big road in Mty and look both ways. ITESM is a really good school and really high tech, they have wireless all over the University, I am writing this outside of the library with a nice breeze coming through. Right now my schedule is Chinese 3, Importing and Exporting in Mexico, my internship (I don't know what it is yet, I will fill you in when I do), Worldwide 20th Century Literature, Calculus, and History of Latin America. I am practicing my spanish here and getting better but i need more practice. There are a lot of other foreign exchange students here apporximately 600 others, they come from all over the world, but most are Germans, French, English and American. I am learning a lot about other cultures as well. My average day begins at 7 or 7:30, i get up and go to class and then study and play basketball almost every night. I encourage all of you to go visit a foreign country and learn some things.

Lots of love,

Kyle Cook