Little update since its been a few days. Still in school although I changed my classes a little. For the first week I was the only student in both my morning and afternoon classes. Then on week two some more people joined in the class. The new people actually knew a little Spanish so it was kind of awkward for me to have to go through the lessons using my halting, child-like Spanish skills. I switched over to private classes so I can cram more learning time in. Picking up everything has been hard. Learning a new language is 100% all about memorizing things and there’s a lot to remember. My sentences are starting to take shape a little and my vocabulary is a lot better. I doubt I’m going to be able to have constructive 2 way conversations with anyone when I leave but if I can get the basics down I can always practice on the road.

The place I was staying didn’t work out so I moved into a school-owned private apartment. The people there were awesome but the room was too loud and I had to sit outside to get internet access. The new place is a 15 minute walk from school but its 100x quieter and it has wireless.

One of the 2 things I ordered from the States via eBay arrived after just a week. It was a GE 26695 VoIP In-Ear Headset/Earphone & Inline Microphone. Got it for when I’m using Skype. It’s crap. The headphone part is fine but the microphone is terrible. Even with the PC mic volume all the way up recorded sounds are barely audible (Skype’s software even warns about it when making a call). The background hissing is also distracting.

The other thing I ordered, the immersion heater, hasn’t arrived but I saw one in a store and bought it since it was only US $2.65. Some of them don’t have a long life expectancy so I’ll hang on to both if the other one gets here before I leave.

Oh, I tried grasshoppers for the first time yesterday. A friend of mine, Beata ordered something off the menu called Delicious Crepe. Well on the English section of the menu it had the real name of the dish: Grasshopper Crepe. She went ahead and ordered it and we all tried some. The little hoppers had been fried up and seasoned with various things. I had 3 and thought they were pretty good. Will I start riding with my mouth open now? No.

After the grasshopper dinner we took a taxi to Guadalajara and watched Sherlock Holmes (in English–good movie too). I’ve had a cold for the last few days so the 40 F rainy weather was kind of brutal but I had a great time. They had a Dairy Queen at the mall too. First one I’ve seen in Mexico.

The pics below are just random ones from different days last week.

Weather in Guadalajara when posted:

Temperature: 9 °C, Humidity: 61%, Wind Speed: 4km/hr, Cloud Cover: n/a

12/28 I knew this would happen sooner or later but my Spanglishareds is failing me. That’s Spanish-English-Charades which is what I’ve been using to communicate with people here. The further south I go the more people have no idea what I’m saying. It’s getting to be very frustrating and of course it’s my fault for not learning Spanish before I got here. I’ll have to check my Visa and see how long I had left because I may stop for a couple weeks and take a Spanish Immersion course. Guadalajara probably has something so I’ll check next time I get Internet access.

The seat change made a big difference. My miles were low for the day but even if I’d ridden longer I think the discomfort would have been tolerable. The skinnier seat is the way to go it looks like.

The highway is still horrible for riding on. Further north it wasn’t as bad because there wasn’t drop if you did run off the road. All day today I had to ride with a shoulder drop and fairly busy traffic (car/truck passes at least every 20 seconds). The toll road, with its wide shoulder, would be nice but I don’t think the scenery would be nearly as good. It also skips a lot of the little towns that I like riding through.

Rosamorada is another town that only has one main road leading from the highway down into the town center. Navigating in smaller towns like this is so easy because the tallest building is always the church and it always sits next to the town square which is where all the stores and most of the motels are. The motel I found was only US $7.75. No hot water but the room is much bigger than the place last night. This place doesn’t have a toilet seat either. I might have to start packing my own.

You get tell not a lot of Americans visit this place because the entire time I was walking around people stared like I was from another planet. A few people tried to ask me things but I have no idea what they were saying. Sucks for both of us because I always have a bunch of questions from things I’ve seen during the day and there’s no one to ask.

In one of he outdoor bars I dropped in for a beer. The bartender and 2 customers were up at the counter (guy and girl). The guy kept trying to pimp out the girl to me which made for an uncomfortable drink because he kept using the p word to describe her and the group at the far table probably heard him (a kid was sitting at the table too). Needless to say I didn’t hang around.

I was going to have PB&J for dinner but this guy set up a hot dog stand right below my window and boy does it smell good.

GPX Track