1
And Then There's The Screaming Part Again...
Note: This was written over the course of about 3 days. The things at the beginning have nothing to do with the stuff at the end. Thanks for keeping up!
Well, I'm back. I'm sure that you were expecting something a little better, more insightful or lyrical, or just something more. I know I was. But I started to type, and that's what you've got. I'm kind of tired right now -wait, let me clarify: I have, for some god-awful reason, now had the opportunity to create levels of tired (dundunda!). At the moment, I am suffering from a sudden onset of acute 'papercut' tired, so called because when I close my eyes I get the same dry, sharp little stab of pain from a small papercut. Screwed up, right?
Now, on to the fun stuff! As you know, this is my first post in two weeks, and also my first post as a proper 18-year-old. Huzzah! Does this mean I'm allowed to swear on this thing? Thought to consider! Well, obviously, I cannot fit an entire 2 weeks into one post, nor should I try, especially not with a two-week stretch as stuffed as these were. Idiot that I am, I shall try to begin at the beginning and work from there. Expect the rest of this story to be confusingly inter-mixed with real-time events posts, probably spaced out over at least a week. So without further depressing confusion, let's go back, as they say, to when it all began:
-I spent a good portion of my birthday on one of the extremely bumpy buses on the way to Veracruz city with all four of the other Minatitlan exchange students, to meet up with the larger Ruta Maya group (side note: I did not know this, not having really left the state of Veracruz for any measurable length of time since I got here, but the roads in Veracruz are especially crappy, even for Mexico. Turns out, the government of this state is one of the most corrupt in Central America. Go figure). Since I can't remember anything especially spectacular about that bit of the trip, it must not have been very eventful (besides one of the most off-key, depressing choruses of 'Happy Birthday' I have ever heard -seriously, if I hadn't known better, I would have thought someone had died). We got to an, as usual, very disorganized terminal to be disorganized-ly stuffed into random cabs, eventually brought to a little hotel that looked an awful lot like a regular house down a back alley that didn't actually admit cars unless they were willing to drive on the sidewalk, and kind of sort of managed to get everyone into the house with minimum damage to shins and toes (this was made all the more exciting by the fact that we were the last group coming in, so all of the people who were already there were waiting for us to go have dinner, and therefore all piled out into the very narrow hallway to see what was going on). I was very surprised to receive several happy birthday's from people whose faces I knew and names I only vaguely remembered. It turned out that the hotel was short a bed, and all the other kids in our group had had beds saved by fellow countrymen (I'm not kidding. The camaraderie was a little freaksome). The other U.S. student is a boy, so he got the only other bed, since it was in the boy's rooms, and I was told I was going to be crashing on an air mattress stuffed into one of the double rooms with 4 other girls. I was again surprised by the mild outcry that someone needed to swap with me, since it was my birthday and I shouldn't be sleeping on the floor. I begged out, since I didn't want to take anyone's bed, and also because the air mattress was a hell of a lot more comfortable than my bed back at the house. Everyone was pretty much as I remembered, which did nothing to dissuade my fears. Okay, this is probably a good time to explain something: See, I've been on more than a couple of these sort of trips. You know, the ones where you get stuck with a specific group of people who you don't really know and who don't necessarily share any of your interests. It's kind of like classes at school, except for me, with one big difference. I've had this sort of gift-bag-draw at Parkland, with people who, while maybe (and in a couple of memorable cases, almost certainly) not grown up, at least old enough to be trusted with things like, say, voting. I may not have loved every member of those groups, but things went okay. By and large, we got along.
But here's the problem. These groups I have to live with, for a descent amount of time, often in very tightly packed, sleep deprived situations, and all these people are kids my age. For someone who is quite, introverted, slightly shy, and (forgive me, but it's true) generally more thoughtful, grown-up and well-balanced than my age-mates, this can mean 2 days of fun followed by the-rest-of-the-trip of pure hell. This has held true to such an extent that not that long ago, I was seriously considering not going. I generally remember trips kindly after they're done, but I don't really like paying money to suffer. I also know from experience that it's going to be a lot better from now on out, now that I am not legally a child anymore. God alone knows why, but people give you a lot more freedom, trust, and responsibility if they think your health is not going to effect their insurance. Anyway, I knew that the students tended to stick to groups depending on country, and since there are only 4 Americans in Veracruz, and I already knew I didn't really get along with 2 of them, I was not looking forward to being snubbed or ignored for 2 weeks.
But, in a birthday present I wasn't expecting, I was not alone. We went out for dinner at a place called VIPs (they call it vips). It's basically the Denny's of Mexico. I shared a burger with my friend Tobey (I don't think I mentioned her before! I met Tobey in Tuxtapec back in, what, September? Tobey is from Taiwan. She's really quite and really cool.), and after wards got the thing I'd been wishing for all day (ice cream!). We walked back home along the bay shore and I got to talking with one of the few people I didn't recognize from the Tuxtapec group. Turns out I didn't know her 'cause she wasn't there. Zeyneb if from Turkey. She speaks perfect English, and has only been living in Coatzacoalcos for about 2 months instead of everyone elses 4 because her university back home made her wait to get her visa. I think we hit it off quite well.
I spent that night ignoring the increasingly boisterous card game on one of the other beds in the room, and instead comforted one of the German girls who lives in Coatzacoalcos, who, even though she's been here for 4 months, is still suffering from some of the worst homesickness I've seen yet. Eventually, once everyone figured out there was no good way to get enough booze into the hotel for everyone (I'm not kidding, they got really inventive. It was pretty ridiculous). I heard they did eventually get a bottle of tequilla in somehow, but by then we'd hit 1am, and I'd opted to go to sleep. So ended the birthday!
After that, things got really interesting.
To be continued...
Well, I'm back. I'm sure that you were expecting something a little better, more insightful or lyrical, or just something more. I know I was. But I started to type, and that's what you've got. I'm kind of tired right now -wait, let me clarify: I have, for some god-awful reason, now had the opportunity to create levels of tired (dundunda!). At the moment, I am suffering from a sudden onset of acute 'papercut' tired, so called because when I close my eyes I get the same dry, sharp little stab of pain from a small papercut. Screwed up, right?
Now, on to the fun stuff! As you know, this is my first post in two weeks, and also my first post as a proper 18-year-old. Huzzah! Does this mean I'm allowed to swear on this thing? Thought to consider! Well, obviously, I cannot fit an entire 2 weeks into one post, nor should I try, especially not with a two-week stretch as stuffed as these were. Idiot that I am, I shall try to begin at the beginning and work from there. Expect the rest of this story to be confusingly inter-mixed with real-time events posts, probably spaced out over at least a week. So without further depressing confusion, let's go back, as they say, to when it all began:
-I spent a good portion of my birthday on one of the extremely bumpy buses on the way to Veracruz city with all four of the other Minatitlan exchange students, to meet up with the larger Ruta Maya group (side note: I did not know this, not having really left the state of Veracruz for any measurable length of time since I got here, but the roads in Veracruz are especially crappy, even for Mexico. Turns out, the government of this state is one of the most corrupt in Central America. Go figure). Since I can't remember anything especially spectacular about that bit of the trip, it must not have been very eventful (besides one of the most off-key, depressing choruses of 'Happy Birthday' I have ever heard -seriously, if I hadn't known better, I would have thought someone had died). We got to an, as usual, very disorganized terminal to be disorganized-ly stuffed into random cabs, eventually brought to a little hotel that looked an awful lot like a regular house down a back alley that didn't actually admit cars unless they were willing to drive on the sidewalk, and kind of sort of managed to get everyone into the house with minimum damage to shins and toes (this was made all the more exciting by the fact that we were the last group coming in, so all of the people who were already there were waiting for us to go have dinner, and therefore all piled out into the very narrow hallway to see what was going on). I was very surprised to receive several happy birthday's from people whose faces I knew and names I only vaguely remembered. It turned out that the hotel was short a bed, and all the other kids in our group had had beds saved by fellow countrymen (I'm not kidding. The camaraderie was a little freaksome). The other U.S. student is a boy, so he got the only other bed, since it was in the boy's rooms, and I was told I was going to be crashing on an air mattress stuffed into one of the double rooms with 4 other girls. I was again surprised by the mild outcry that someone needed to swap with me, since it was my birthday and I shouldn't be sleeping on the floor. I begged out, since I didn't want to take anyone's bed, and also because the air mattress was a hell of a lot more comfortable than my bed back at the house. Everyone was pretty much as I remembered, which did nothing to dissuade my fears. Okay, this is probably a good time to explain something: See, I've been on more than a couple of these sort of trips. You know, the ones where you get stuck with a specific group of people who you don't really know and who don't necessarily share any of your interests. It's kind of like classes at school, except for me, with one big difference. I've had this sort of gift-bag-draw at Parkland, with people who, while maybe (and in a couple of memorable cases, almost certainly) not grown up, at least old enough to be trusted with things like, say, voting. I may not have loved every member of those groups, but things went okay. By and large, we got along.
But here's the problem. These groups I have to live with, for a descent amount of time, often in very tightly packed, sleep deprived situations, and all these people are kids my age. For someone who is quite, introverted, slightly shy, and (forgive me, but it's true) generally more thoughtful, grown-up and well-balanced than my age-mates, this can mean 2 days of fun followed by the-rest-of-the-trip of pure hell. This has held true to such an extent that not that long ago, I was seriously considering not going. I generally remember trips kindly after they're done, but I don't really like paying money to suffer. I also know from experience that it's going to be a lot better from now on out, now that I am not legally a child anymore. God alone knows why, but people give you a lot more freedom, trust, and responsibility if they think your health is not going to effect their insurance. Anyway, I knew that the students tended to stick to groups depending on country, and since there are only 4 Americans in Veracruz, and I already knew I didn't really get along with 2 of them, I was not looking forward to being snubbed or ignored for 2 weeks.
But, in a birthday present I wasn't expecting, I was not alone. We went out for dinner at a place called VIPs (they call it vips). It's basically the Denny's of Mexico. I shared a burger with my friend Tobey (I don't think I mentioned her before! I met Tobey in Tuxtapec back in, what, September? Tobey is from Taiwan. She's really quite and really cool.), and after wards got the thing I'd been wishing for all day (ice cream!). We walked back home along the bay shore and I got to talking with one of the few people I didn't recognize from the Tuxtapec group. Turns out I didn't know her 'cause she wasn't there. Zeyneb if from Turkey. She speaks perfect English, and has only been living in Coatzacoalcos for about 2 months instead of everyone elses 4 because her university back home made her wait to get her visa. I think we hit it off quite well.
I spent that night ignoring the increasingly boisterous card game on one of the other beds in the room, and instead comforted one of the German girls who lives in Coatzacoalcos, who, even though she's been here for 4 months, is still suffering from some of the worst homesickness I've seen yet. Eventually, once everyone figured out there was no good way to get enough booze into the hotel for everyone (I'm not kidding, they got really inventive. It was pretty ridiculous). I heard they did eventually get a bottle of tequilla in somehow, but by then we'd hit 1am, and I'd opted to go to sleep. So ended the birthday!
After that, things got really interesting.
To be continued...
