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.

12/31 Happy New Year! I’ll be ringing in 2010 in style with some sugar cane, apples, yogurt and a big bottle of Tecate. I suppose I could wander around town and join in on the celebrations but I have to be in Guadalajara in a couple days and staying out drinking won’t help. Can’t wait to see what the next year brings.

The last day of the year started out on a sour note. I lost my camera. I think it bounced out of the bag I keep it in while I was riding down the first hill out of Tepic. I noticed it was gone at mile 9 but there was no way I was going to ride back uphill for 9 miles looking for a probably broken camera. Hopefully I find a place to buy a new one tomorrow because I missed out on some good pictures today. Saw 2 volcano, a huge lava field and lots of incredible views of the valley I rode down into.

Skipped the toll road today and took 15 all the way. I guess it wasn’t that bad but it was very busy. No shoulder for 90% of the way of course. To add to the craziness more than a hundred car/truck loads of New Year’s party goers were driving in huge caravans to some unknown destination. I got plenty of waves from everyone passing by.

Had an amazing BBQ lunch at a place called La Sierra. Met my very first cocaine drug dealer there. His name was Eddie and he lived in California for 25 years so his English was very good. He’s not in the business anymore and unfortunately his time as a millionaire drug dealer cost him 4 years in state prison, his marriage and he can’t visit his kids because they are in the US and he’s not allowed back. He didn’t blame anyone but himself but we both agreed that the “war on drugs” is a joke. I left a good impression when I told him the big news.

The big news is that I’m going to take a Spanish class in Guadalajara for 3 weeks. I spent the day in Tepic yesterday trying to find a good school and get registered (on short notice). Classes start 01/04 and I’ll be in the “intensive” course for four hours a day, five days a week. They had a number of housing options available so I decided to try to get the most out of this so I’m going to be staying with a Mexican family associated with the school the entire time. The cost of staying there also includes 3 meals a day. Hopefully after this I’ll be able to carry on somewhat of a conversation with the people I meet. The class and housing cost a bit of money so I have to skip the side trip to Cuba that I was planning. Maybe some other time.

GPX Track