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