A day that started bad but ended good

What a day it has been. And I am not just referring to the weather which incidently has been splendid. Kind of like a really nice early august day back in Scandinavia - clear blue skies and about 27 degrees. No I mean the way it started and then ended. Curious?

I was supposed to be in school at 9am for a meeting with Dr. Olivia, our programme director and also (most likelly) my supervisor for my thesis regarding aforementioned thesis. At 8:52 am Ole, a fellow Danish double degree student calls me, asking why I am not downstairs ten minutes ago like agreed. Crap I say, frantically trying to get ready, find something for breakfast and pack my bag at the same time. At 9:02 am I am downstairs, sellery-stick and drinking yoghurt in hand (the only breakfast avaliable 'to-go') waiving for a cab. Ole and I make it for 9:20am. Extremely apologetic we arrive at Dr. Olivias office where she cheerfully responds; 'no problem, I would have been here all morning'. Thank god for mexican polychronism! After that, it was two and a half hours of meeting, quick lunch and then groupwork. Pretty normal day. The good news was delivered after dinner time. Curious again?

Well, it is not in the box yet, but I got an offer from Cemex regarding a thesis-project. Quite the demanding task, but spot on for what I am interested in. It is a project within Cross-cultural management with international scope and scale. The details have not been properly worked out yet but damn it seems exciting! So keep your fingers crossed for this one; bigger feather in my mexican sombrero would be hard pressed to find.

I will leave you with picturesque proof of what a splendid day it was. The view is from my bedroom window.

So long, J

Just another rainy monday

The weekend went by in a flash - just like it usually does. I did a fair mix of studying and partying. Life is settled into patterns; school, workout, spanish, homework, a party or two... I´m not sure if it´s a good thing or not. The apt is still causing us headaches - internet was gone for a week and we still have other things promised to us missing. It is so tiresome.

The city itself is also experiencing mishaps. Yesterday at ten - boom and the lights went out in the entire neighborhood. My first real blackout! I made three important discoveries;

1. Thank god my computer has a fair battery - it gave me some light.

2. Always have candles and a lighter close by.

3. Mexicans (in my building anyway) react to a blackout like lemurs on guard; they gather around and makes noises.

Today´s most exciting event was picking up my new mexican mastercard. I chose a ridiculous motive that turned out to be quite cool. It´s like Nemo - but in gold and with a frown. What do you think??

I shall call him fishy, he shall be mine and he shall be my fishy. Oh and btw; no need to try any online purchasing - I have deleted and changed digits. Clever.

Now I will recouperate from the days workout session by listening to the sweet voice of Annika Lantz. Thank you Swedish public service for podcasting!

Oh yes, it is raining today. Just like the headline says.

Chiao!

New record & dinner with the Belgians

So no internet yet... crap. Here I am at starbucks on campus enjoying a frappuchino and using the internet.

Two fun things yesterday: first I set a new personal record on the 5k-distance; 19:53 min! Awesome, finally under 20, that calles for celebration! I decided to go to the CEMEX-seminar tomorrow, so celebrations will be on hold until the weekend.

But we did celebrate (sorto of) yesterday when invited by our fellow double degree friends from Belgium, Steven and Tom, for dinner at their place. The culinarian experience was pasta with shrimps, tomato and silantro, then banana-split for dessert. Great evening with alot of wine (that turned into whiskey that turned into rum..) card games and semi-filosofical discussions.

I am about to go with Saana for lunch here at campus, then I will pick up my mexican bank-card. It wil be so pretty, I chose a goldfish as motive! I will photo it and upload asap.

Enjoy your day/night! J

Tuesday is when the weekend begins!

Yes it is true; last class for this week starts in 20 min.! 3 hours of Venture Capital with Bert & Ernie and then I am done. Well I do have an optional CEMS seminar on friday but I have not yet decided what to do about that. Maybe I should also point out that the weekend approach is only in regards to classes - I have more than enough schoolwork to do for the upcoming days.

Speaking of aforementioned work, my mid-term in cross-cultural communicaitons went just fine yesterday. I am so glad that I spent saturday going through all neccessary articles and lecture notes since Sunday proved to be anything but a study day. I was supposed to be good and stay in saturday evening, I had even gone to 7-eleven to buy chips for a movie and then early bed. But somehow the promises of Bacardí drinks and a nice pre-party seemed too good to pass. My rationale was something like; one drink doesn´t matter. The problem arose when one drink turned into four and the pre-party turned into club-hopping (who ever thought they´d have gogo-dancers in showercabins in Monterrey??). But I will not complain; it sure was a great night on the town, and a little headache is a small price to pay for it.

Our internet is still not working btw; which is why I am corresponding very sporadically. Our janitor has told us it should be fixed by today. Obvously in mexican that means we might have internet for the weekend. If the f***ing telecompany is not on permanent siesta that is.

J

Saturday

I am dong two very important things at the same time here; laundry and using the internet. We have been without this necessity of the modern man (I am of course talking about internet) for two days now and it is striking how handicapped you feel. It is a bit silly; not that much has happened but it is the inate feeling that something MIGHT have happened that is deeply disturbing. Facebook, msn, skype, gmail, swedish news, world news, study resources gossip - there is so much you are not in touch with when 'off the grid'. So I decided to kill two birds with one shot and go to the lavandería. They offer both functioning and free internet. So whilst my whites (hopefully without a red sock in it!) and colours are swirling around in their machines, I can comfortably sit back and absorb all internet has to offer. And as it turns out... not that much has happened.

Oh, I just want to add; mexicans make a hell of alot of noise when they party. Our neighbours had a drunken feast last night and not until 5 in the morning did they stop. Neither did they care about closing their door, not throwing chairs (!) around in the hallway or refraining from knocking on our door from time to time. My response? Put in earplugs and hope that they will burn in hell.

J

Rainy Friday

So it is friday again. can not believe how fast time passes by; in eight weeks I wil be back home i Sthlm! Passing of time is not all good; it also means that exams are sneaking up to haunt us. I think I have that very well under control. Monday will be my second exam; mid-term in Cross-cultural communication. So take a guess as to what I will be doing this weekend :) But right now I am in Starbucks at our campus, using the wlan and having a frappuchino. The internet in our building went down yesterday and so far no connection. Very annoying but I guess good in the light of studying. No internet = no facebook, e-mails or news = no distractions! I have to sit here for some time though, it recently started raining (quite heavily) and I´m just wearing t-shirt, shorts and sneakers. Crap. Well I guess its better than the snow I have learnt you have in Sweden.

Next update when the internet is back :)

Chiao!

Basterds sin Gloria es un película muy buen!

Yes, tonight was movie-night and Tarantinos latest was the preferred choice. We had a long day in school (10:00am - 20:0 pm) so we decided to round things off with a movie. And just because we felt like we deserved it, we went for the VIP cinema. Basically you pay double the price for a comfy leather chair (foldable legrest) higher elevation in between rows, comfortably temperated room and the optoin to have a waiter bring you whatever you want (almost). Me and Ole gave serious thought as to order a couple of cervezas but thought the better of it. I setlled for ice tea and m&m´s. The movie was good (awesome ending) but tricky for us. We asked whether the movie would be in english: 'la idioma es inglés?' and ofcourse it was. The problem however (and those of you who have ssen it knows) is that most of the movie is in french or german. I can hardly read spanish, my french is limited to 'voulevouz...' and my german has not been practized since Berlin 01´with Ann and Issa. A linguistical mishmash in other words. Nonetheless, I got most of it and liked it.

Speaking of languages, me and Magda have finally started with spanish classes. We have a wonderful private teacher who will come to our house three hours a week to teach us extranjeros this beautiful language. And we do need those lessons; I am getting tired of talking like an infant with a speech impediment. So keep yor fingers crossed for fast improvement!

Buenos diaz! /J

Depraved wekeend

Sorry for not writing more this week, shame on me. It has indeed been a good one; fair amount of academic work and a very short week (class cancelled on thursday so weekend started tue evening). We have also managed to get all of the papers needed for the visa process in order and even applied for a mexican bank account. Add to that the first week of living together with our new mexican roomie Genesis who is a very sweet and friendly girl. All good in other words.

The weekend have been mostly about partying. I´ve had a slow start when it comes to going out, but made sure to make up for some of it. Three days straight with fun nights, new people and places has set a new standard for the upcoming months. For instance, friday started with drinks at ten and ended in a pool at eleven on saturday. Quite fun as you can imagine. It has however left me somewhat sleep-deprivated, but I expect to be able to make that up during the week.

Oh and just to clarify for any family member reading; don´t worry, I still take school very seriously and am an exemplary student :)

J

Glorious Yucatán!

I am sorry for not writing anything during my trip, instead now you have to bare with me in one long post. But in my defence we have been very busy during the past days, and when you have the caribbean outside your window, who needs internet? In any case; short description of my trip:

Tue 29 Sept: We left Monterrey at three flying with VivaAerobus. Yes, it would be the mexican equivalent to Ryan Air. First stop was Merida in the middle of Yucatán. We chose it because of the cultural heritage ans proximity to mayan ruins. Because no trip is complete without a little culture on the side. Nice little hotel with pool and a pictoresque city. We made a small tour before dinner and then went by horse-carriage (royal indeed) around town. Fun and just enought excitement for one first day!

Wed 30 Sept: After a few hours by the pool we went on a guided tour to Oxmal - a mayan ruin city two hours outside of Merida. It is nothing short of imporessive the way they constructed these rather magnificent buildings all those years ago. We enjoyed it very much, even though the tour almost killed us by heatstroke. In the evening we saw a strange lightshow in the ruins, describing the indians praying for water. None came and thanks for that!

Thu 1 Oct: At nine in the morning we took the bus to Cancun. It is a four hour bus ride and was quite like travelling in a dairytruck - it could not have been more than 17 degrees in the bus. So ironic when it is almost 40 degrees outside and you are sitting theres hivering with cold.. The irony however was lost on most mexicans who seemed to be very happy with the cold. In Cancun we checked in to the 'Park Royal All inclusive' in the middle of the hotel-strip. Very fortunate with great location, good facilites and a nice beach, we immediately took a shine to the place. All Inclusive is just that, which is why we spent the better part of the afternoon and evening eating and drinking.

Fri 2 Oct: The morning was spent by the pool. At one we went on a 'djungle tour' where we went by jetski through the lagoon to a reef fore snorkeling. It was so much fun jetskiing, I need to get me one of those! Snorkeling was awesome; not the best reef but good enough with lots of fish and anemonies (think 'Finding Nemo'). We made it back to the hotel in time for more food and a nice evening swim in the ocean.

Sat 3 Oct. Our last day in Cancun. Since we needed to check out at noon and our flight was not until ten pm, we decided to go to Isla Mujeres outside of Puerto Juarez. There we visited a turtle farm and looked a the nice turtles. Amazing animals and quite majestic. They had two turtles that was more than fifty years old, quite impressive. Then we hitched a ride around the island with two girls from Tijuana. They had rented a golf-cart and took us all the way rund the island to the north beach. There, Me and Magda really squeezed the last out of the holiday, all buttered up with hawaiian tropic sun oil. Then we went back to collect our bags and on to the airport. All in all a really great holiday. And the most important thing; I have an impressive tan for only four days and alot of activities. I like it!

Now it is back to Monterrey and back to school. Eight more weeks before I come home for christmas. Not that long - times flies when you are buried in schoolwork.

Hasta luego Amigos!