Day 8 - Ensenada BC Mexico - Spanish School

I guess it’s really only day 8 since I’ve been gone, but I already have 2 spanish classes out of the way and there is sure a lot to learn. My host family is great and you can’t beat being fed 3 meals a day and being treated as though you are in a hotel with my bed made every night and all the amenities that go along with a hotel stay. There are somethings that are a bit different in these Mexico cities that I’ll get to once I finish the story about my arrival.

Anyway, as I was saying with Day 7 is I made it to Ensenada and found the 7 11 that I was looking for so I could contact my host family which wasn’t as easy at it should be. Well, since the really weren’t expecting a bike and are on the side of a pretty steep hill I managed to keep the bike upright in the small driveway they had to I could unpack it. That seemed easy enough, but now the question was, where do I leave the bike to someone doesn’t steal it or strip it. Well fortunately Roberto and Diana had a garage down the street one block that it was the safest place to park it because even if I tried to bring it up the sidewalk close to the house, it’s still in the open for someone to get to. The other problem would have been trying to get the damn thing up a couple of steps because remember, these things weigh over 800 lbs and they don’t have that much clearance. 

Ok, the best plan according to Roberto is definitely to park it in the gated garage, but it’ll take him some time to move the 4 cars that are already parked there so I could get the bike in. The other thing is that also means I shouldn’t plan on easily pulling it out to ride it so if I’m ok with not being able to freely ride it, it’s still the safest place to park it. So this garage is up a pretty steep hill itself and wouldn’t you know it, the last part I had to get up to put it behind the second gate was a step and no ramp. That took a bit of work to get it up and I know I bottomed out, I just hope I didn’t break something. Once I got the front tire per the hump I figured it’d be easy giving it some gas to get the rest of it there, but no luck, the tire just kept spinning against the step. That meant backing it up so the front was still over the hump and giving it some gas to get the whole bike over. Well, it took more than one try, but I made it and thankfully without falling over that my bike should be secure until I decide to take it out and then have to figure out how to get it back to where it’s safe. 

Now for getting settled in and getting to know my host family. One of the first things that I learned from Roberto who speaks some english is they’ll allow us to speak it the first day, but after that we should be using or trying to use as much Spanish as we can. Diana doesn’t know English and she is really the host that we should speak it around her if we want to get fed. It was fortunate that their son Edgar was in town, a lawyer from Tijuana that does speak English that he was able to help me with somethings that I was not so familiar with. Remember this is a whole other country and nothing like the US or even Canada. I guess one fortunate thing is if I leave a good impression with my host family, I have a lawyer in the casa (house) that could maybe help me out. 

For starters and since I was early, Diana already had lunch cooking and although I’ve been here for 2 days so have 8 meals under my belt, I can say the food is awesome, muy bien. I couldn’t begin to tell you all of the different things that we’ve had, but it is definitely some good Mexican food. I did meet another, Christina who is here from San Diego for class, but she is definitely in the advanced class and I’m no where close to what she can speak or any of the other ladies at the school.

Yes, you got it, ladies and me, the only hombre in the school, but the classes are small and I guess that means we should learn a lot quickly. There is Christine, in the advanced class and a couple of ladies from Canada who are in town with their husbands and church group on a mission that one is in the advance, and the other Jennifer in my class as a beginner and trust me, we are both very much beginners. I’ve learned a lot in 2 days, but mostly words to describe items and not so much the conversations I’ll need to know if I plan on doing a lot of traveling through Mexico.

Oh, one of the other things that I’ve notice since spending some time walking the streets is how run down and poor so many of the places seem to be. There are some of the nicer houses definitely gated to park their cars and keep anyone from the property, but there is more poverty type places than anything. That is until you visit the tourist area which is a bit cleaner and has all of the shops, bars and restaurants to go to, mostly tourists from the cruises that come into port every day which is something that I learned at the bar that I visited today. More about that tomorrow The other interesting thing that I haven’t run into before is no toilet paper in the toilet. The sewer systems in most of these towns can’t handle the toilet paper that you have to wipe and drop it in a waste basket instead of the toilet, I will tell you that takes some getting use to. That and many of the bano’s charge of you to use them and don’t have toilet paper to use. I don’t know if that’s extra, but at least my host family and school have paper to use, I just have to remember where to drop it.

Sounds like fun doesn’t it. Well, I can say the weather is awesome and I have much more Spanish to learn. I will try to post stories every once in a while, but school is school. ^ hours a day for 2 weeks so hopefully I’ll have learned a lot and maybe after getting settled a little more and comfortable with my surroundings down to the bars to have a little fun.

So for the pictures that I’ve attached, they are of the house of the host family I am staying with, my room, where my bike is locked up for awhile and some of the scenery around town. The casa is on the side of a hill with houses below and above and I tried to get a picture up the hill and down from the view we have from the street. Oh, and I have a great few from my bedroom overlooking the city and seeing the mountains in the back ground. I can’t see the water front, but you’ll see some pictures from that area. Enjoy, I sure am with the weather.

Day 8 Ensenada pics