My First Experience in Morelia

By Emily Hogge – Guest blogger traveling in Morelia, Mexico
¡Hola! This is my second full day in Morelia, and I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of things. It is somewhat overwhelming to be constantly surrounded by Spanish, but I've been surprised by how well my Spanish has held up thus far. I feel like vocabulary is the main thing that trips me up; when my host mother gets to excitedly talking, I can normally get the gist, but sometimes I get a little lost.
Right now, I'm also slowly getting over the initial shock of immersion- I'm just so tired! From what other people at our school say, this is pretty normal and should go away in a day or two. But it's still been surprising to me how tired I feel, even though I haven't really yet participated in any activities other than my basic language classes. I suppose one culprit is just the shock to my system of so many new experiences, from a new place to live, new language, new people, just everything. I took a nap for a few hours yesterday afternoon, and went to bed earlier than usual, but I still awoke fairly tired. Hopefully, I'll feel less wiped out in a few days, and more excited about exploring the city.
I am so lucky in my host family, though. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it's really nice how it has worked out. I live with a woman named Blanca and her 1 ½ year old daughter Regina. We also live with Blanca's parents, and their dog, Axel. Blanca is very welcoming, and insists on talking in Spanish, even though she knows English fairly well (she actually gives English lessons to students in our house). One thing that I have been surprised by is the number of people who come to work in our house: I've counted 3 so far (one woman cooks, another cooks and cleans, and a third cares for Regina sometimes). It seems fairly common to have at least one person come work in a house, but from my few conversations with other students, it seems like 3 is slightly unusual. So, I'm not quite used to the way things are yet, but I'm glad that I'm here.