Studying in Guanajuato

To be honest I've just been flat out avoiding writing anything for the last few weeks. I've been going to internet cafe's daily and just really haven't felt like writing anything. It's not that I haven't been having a blast studying spanish (I have) its more that it doesn't really lend itself to an interesting retelling. Instead of detailing my daily studies lets talk about Mexican life in Guanajuato.

Guanajuato is a lovely little colonial city in the heart of Mexico. At one stage it was producing 30 % of the worlds silver and that wealth is a key factor in how Guanajuato appears presently. Thanks to the past wealth of the city there are a number of lovely old ex-hacienda's on the city's outskirts. There is also 3 beautiful old theatres and a large number of churches.

The city centre lies in the bottom of a valley and as a result of this confinement much of the city is walking room only with only 3 major roads which wind their way through it. This turns out to be the best part of the city lifestyle though as the walking areas lend themselves much more to a European style ambiance than you would get in many other Mexican cities.

The classes I'm taking have been fantastic and my understanding of Spanish has increased incredibly unfortunately my vocabulary needs to catch up a bit with my understanding of the language. Funnily enough I understand more spanish grammar than English now. I'm also taking cooking classes every day which is both enjoyable and a good chance to practice some spanish. I've gathered up some good recipes than I look forward to messing up when I return.

Currently I've set my return date for the 23rd of February and I don't see that changing. Before then I hope to spend a nice relaxing week in Guadalajara and then do some travel through the southern colonial region and beach regions around Acapulco and Puerto Escondido.

Mexico finally

Well I'm back finally and it feels great to be travelling through Mexico again. The flight here was terrible. I decided to get the cheapest flight possible: Delta with 2 stopovers totalling 12 hours for a nominally 7 hour flight. Of course one of the stopovers being Salt Lake City meant that weather interruptions were always going to be on the cards. I didn't anticipate that it would set me back 12 hours in total though. The life lesson is that you always get exactly what you paid for. Thankfully in this one case I apparently paid for a free business class upgrade and a cheque for 200 usd. Yes, the customer is always right.

Finally I'm here, marginally less indebted to Mr Visa, and with the party spirit(s) in my stomach I'm ready to sample the best that Mexico has to offer. After a couple days catching up on sleep and just generally hanging out with Angel we went to our second party for the cutting of the Rosca de Reyes. Without going into too much detail a rosca is a sweet bread in round donut like form (but magnified). The Rosca de Reyes is a rosca with mini figurines of baby jesus baked in. The tradition being that if you get a baby jesus in the piece you cut you are obliged to throw a party on the 2nd of February. I found 3 reyes (jesuses) over the weekend. After one of the parties we went out to a club. At the club we ordered a bottle of Bacardi in order to garner ourselves a table. It turns out that Bacardi does in fact come in 3 litre varieties. Viva la Mexico indeed.

My cultural exchange continues in Zacatecas where I've reunited with Martijn from the Netherlands. Good times are bound to ensue.

Whistler, Vancouver and Debating en masse.

Apologies for not posting sooner. Whistler was hit with a huge storm the night before I arrived which both dumped 50cm of fresh snow and also cut the only fiber-optic cable going to town, hence no internet for most of my stay.

I had a very enjoyable stay in Whistler. The fresh snow meant that my first few days of snowboarding were well cushioned days. My many mistakes weren't as painful as they could've been and I was immediately disheartened. I think I progressed quickly up to the point which I felt comfortable going down the intermediate slopes. The latter days were thus more enjoyable untill my final day when the icier conditions caused me a bit more pain due to over-confidence conspiring with the snow to cause me to make some painful mistakes.

The village itself is nice (if a tad expensive for a humble backpacker) but thankfully the hostel was so far from and so inconveniently serviced by busses that I didn't spend too much time there. Of course the inconvenience worked against me every night that I wanted to go to the pub in town.

After a week of lakeside-cabin living (inconvenient location doesn't mean it wasn't picturesque) I headed back down to Vancouver to meet up with the rest of the debating society for a very UQDS Xmas. Good times were had by all involved and we bonded (no leather involved). I won't go into too much detail but maybe some stats will fill in the gaps.

1. ~900 dollars (between 17 people)
2. ~100 beers
3. ~40 potatoes ( I peeled the last 20 with a knife so that number is fairly accurate)
4. 2 glazed roasted hams
5. 1 Roast Turkey
6. 7 people in a 2 bedroom apartment

Good times were had, turkey was consumed and belts were loosened. What more could you want for Xmas?

The tournament itself had its highs and lows. Individually the best part of the tournament for me was the satisfaction that I not only improved consistently througout the tournament but that I didn't feel we could have performed too much better than we had. The contingent as a whole did better than any UQ contingent in history. We had 2 teams, UQ A - The flagship and UQ B - Gangsta B'ts, reach the final 32 teams (called the "break"). Both teams then progressed into the quarter-final stages. UQ B was unlucky to dip out at this stage. UQ A surpassed all hopes when they progressed through to the grand final.

The lowest point was when UQ A didn't win the final. Individually though my dissapointment of the tournament was the growing realization that germinated in the first 3 days. I realised that adjudication is fairly random. Any given adjudicator, good or bad, sees a debate in an entirely subjective manner. The best thing I think I can do is treat debating as fun and valuable as of itself without needing any particular reinforcement of my excellence (who can deny it anyway ;) .

Sorry for the long post. Haven't had enough free time to "internet" beyond just checking emails and doing banking. Hope everyone had a very merry xmas and a very memorable new years.