Finally time for the first real post, as I’ve currently been in Guadalajara for 4 days. I thought it would be better to do “slightly bigger” posts, instead of the strange combinations of random stuff, found in the 3 parts of part 0. And yes, this post will naturally be posted in local time, as promised (to myself…). Naturally, the immediate impressions of Mexico was slightly overshadowed by the fact that I got to see Charlotte (my girlfriend, for those who haven’t figured it out yet) again after a bit over 2 months – and the more obvious facts that I had arrived at around 10PM local time, which meant it was dark outside and I was rather tired from being awake – and traveling – for 23 hours.

Friday – October 2nd:
Quite a bit of impressions to make up for a loss in one evening at least, as I was thrown head-first into social relations the next day, when we (with “we” meaning Charlotte and I) went to the University, as she had to attend to a lecture. And already here, a notable difference between Denmark and Mexico was shown: you had to attend every single lecture. Back home, it’s your own responsibility. As it didn’t seem too appealing to me to join in on the lecture, I was asked (or well, told, but I didn’t have any objections) to join a few of the other international students, in a perilous adventure by car through Guadalajara, to buy fútbol (soccer)-tickets for later. Quite an amusing trip as I had only spoken to the two I was going with for around 30 minutes, before being detached from Charlotte…

And what a game it was! Two local teams from Guadalajara at a semi-big stadium (probably room for 30,000 people). Even though the game seemed to be pretty one-sided at first, as one of the teams scored within the first 5 minutes, the opponents got it turned around and won 2-1. Really exciting. On top of that, add Sol (yeah, the beer), nachos, the lovely company of others and a hilarious half-time show (with hilarious slapstick-alike comedy of people tripping painfully in every possible way imaginable, being tackled by one of the teams mascot, etc.). Oh, and then there was the weather. Dark clouds were slowly spreading over the stadium during the start of the match. Thankfully, there was no rain, as the storm didn’t get close, but it gave some really beautiful background lightning strikes. Needless to say, I was rather happy. Even though the rest of the evening continued with more beer, more socializing and drinks, I wasn’t exactly off the jetlag yet, so the evening didn’t go on for that much longer.

Saturday – October 3rd:
The saturday didn’t really include many interesting things to tell, as most of it was spend trying to get Charlotte a new phone, get it registered, and getting money on the account. In Denmark, that would seem like a trivial task, but not down here. The language barrier didn’t cause much of the trouble – mostly because Charlotte’s spanish has gotten really nice while down here – but more the silly amount of the Mexicans needing to register every – single – thing, in all ways possible. The phone had to be bound to a person (including the passport number – what the hell?), even if it wasn’t an actual subscription. In the end, we succeeded and there was much rejoicing.

In the evening, we met up with quite a bit of the other international students, and had a nice dinnerparty with plenty of food, beer and general good times. Words of Pastafarianism were given, and pasta was eaten.

Sunday – October 4th:
Sunday turned out to be the cultural forefront of these first few days. We decided to go on a minor bus-trip to downtown Guadalajara, and take a tour-bus from there to Tlaquepaque, and see the stores and the general area. The ordinary bus-system is quite different from the “organized” system in Denmark. Besides being hilariously cheap (a ticket costing 30% of the smallest ticket possible in Denmark, can take you everywhere in Guadalajara, pretty much), there’s a quite different view on getting on and off. You can basically just wave wave at the bus, and it’ll stop. In the same way, when you press “stop” in the bus, it’ll most likely stop as fast as it can, instead of waiting till the next real stop. Rather nice instead, gives more freedom, and removes everything I hate about busses in Denmark (where missing the stop you intended to stop at, mostly means walking for quite a while). Basically, the advantages of caps mixed into the ordinary buses. On a related note, caps are cheap as well!

But, before we allowed ourselves to board the tour-bus that would take us to Tlaquepaque, I had to get some new shoes, as my old ones were in a rather sad shape (read: utterly devastated). A pair of funky Converse-shoes later, everything was suddenly right. The trip there was quite exciting in cultural way, as we got to see the various different parts of the city, and different important buildings. Tlaquepaque proved to be a galore of different shops with souvenirs and interesting things you’d want to have, but not as “touristy” as it may sound. In the end, I got a really nice sombrero (which I’m still wondering how I’m going to get home) and got to eat lunch while seeing/hearing a Mariachi-band with dancers and the whole thing.

… And I think I’ll leave it as that for now. Lots of exciting stuff coming up the next few days, so expect a new post soon – which is hopefully slightly shorter too, as it took me close to two hours writing this.