Anoche: El Partido. Esta Manana: Bano De Muerte

Last night I found out that there was a futbol (this means soccer) game in Queretaro. It was between the Queretaro Gallos Blancos vs. Argentina (or Venezuela?) Colon. I talked to my senor about how to get there, then headed out and waited for the bus, there was a decent amount of time waiting for the bus because of all the traffic. However, when the bus finally came around the corner that it was packed and had people hanging out the windows with flags the colors of the Gallos Blancos. The bus stopped for me, I squeezed in and payed my fair. I turned around (kind felt like the moving part in a washing machine filled with far too many clothes), just in time to see everyone in the bus start singing in unison as drums started playing. I was completely shocked at the amount of noise and animation in this forest of black and blue (the colors of the team). I thought, "this is crazy! There's a bass drum on this bus?" Of course that was ridiculous... there were actually two bass drums, a snare, and people playing little cymbals as well. The bus ride to the Stadium was one of the cooler experiences of my life, I just wish that I knew what they were singing so I could join in. You know how hard it can be to make out the words of a crowd of people singing in unison(ish), now imagine that in a second language. Good luck.

The ride finished after the much music, singing, yelling out the windows and passing around about three or four cigarettes to what must have been every single person on the bus minus myself, the bus driver, and the guy whose job it was to stand in the door and make sure everyone who wanted on was on before the bus driver took off, and also to make sure people didn't fall out. We half shuffled half fell out of the bus and rushed to the stadium. I then bought both a ticket for the game (while doing my best to not be ripped off my the people standing around the lines (it was ridiculous, the people would stick out there hand and say: "five pesos for buying your ticket" A transaction which they had absolutely nothing to do with except for watching you uncomfortably intensely while you purchased it from the legit box office)) and a jersey for the team (which I've wanted since I moved here).

The game itself was pretty awesome. The home team lost, which was unfortunate, but a lot of the people we were sitting with seemed much more interested in gossiping, smoking profusely, drinking underage (which is impressive since legal age here is 18), and just generally showing an uncomfortable amount of machismo (guys here are very controlling of their girlfriends. It's cultural (and the women don't seem to mind) so I just kinda have to bite my tongue/pocket my fist).

After the game I walked home without incident, talked to Alexis for a few minutes over skype (which rocked) and headed to bed exhausted.

Today was just school as usual. Nothing particularly exciting came about except for a bit of an epiphany (yeah, again) when I realized that it's not just that the group here speaks almost exclusively English that bothers me, it's that I don't like most of them as people. It think it explains a lot of my random annoyance/anger issues here. I'm not just frustrated by my inability to communicate most of the time, but also by the fact that this is kinda like Vernonia High School all over again. There are an extremely limited number of people, about 90% of which I dislike, and I'm forced to be in the same places as them much of the time. I'm being pushed back into my little recluse bubble that I've been fighting to break out of for years. I'm generally able to find time to break out when I chat with locals in the streets or my family here.

After my epiphany (and class) I figured it would be a good idea to use the bathroom before I left so that I would have a more comfortable bus ride/walk (takes about a half an hour to get home). I walked past the janitor, who looked at me with the same kind of interest as you would at anyone walking past you, and into the bathroom. I went to the urinal area, and felt a sharp chemical sting when breathing in. I thought, at first, that it was just a bit of bleach or something, so I didn't really thing much of it. Then on my second breath I realized that it was absolutely more than a little bleach, and definitely more than the extremely vascular tissue that is my lungs was capable of handling. At this point I started coughing and gasping bits of air as full breaths were refused by my diaphragm. I just barely zipped up before stumbling out of the bathroom coughing, were the janitor looked up at me from his casual work, then went right back to it, again as if nothing had happened. I figured it would be best just to hold it until I got home rather than risk dying face down on the floor of what was in the process of becoming a very clean bathroom. It took a few minutes of walking and quite a bit of water to get my throat back into a happy condition, and I'm completely fine now, but that experience really makes me feel for Mr. Hoerauf who went through the gas-chamber in marine boot camp.

Harsh chemicals and lungs are horrible together and should be kept apart whenever possible. That's my piece of worldly knowledge from Mexico for today.

Love you all, keep on rockin' in the free world.

-Connor