The next day was not so pleasant when we had to get up at 9 to clean the house. Cause it had never really stopped raining, the floor was literally black and there was crap everywhere. Took a while to clean up and we weren't quite finished by time we left to go to Xochimilco. The bus ride was less than enjoyable and not improved by our bus (of course) breaking down about 15mins away. They decided that it was a short enough distance that all cramming onto the other little bus would be a good idea. Spent the next 15mins feeling sorry for the person who said I could sit on their lap and trying to absorb the I pact very time the death trap sped over one of the bumps in the road! It wasn't the nicest weather and periodically switched between raining and bright sunshine. It's quite a nice experience for a couple hours and then after around hour 3 it starts to go downhill! Having drunk enough the previous night I also wasn't drinking so hour 3 was also around the time some other people I think had had enough! The whole thing is like a small maze of canals, but not very large, so over the course of 5 hours you pass the same places over and over. There are are dozens of floating vendors who come alongside the boat offering food, souvenirs, drinks, etc. In the last 1/2 hour we saw two people fall off another boat and 1 person fall off ours when he attempted to jump between 2 boats!
We had already planned to spend the night in la D.F so got off as close as possible before catching another bus to the area where our hostel was. Was quite a cool little hostel though the next morning it ran out of water of all kinds so wasn't such a fan then! It was almost all our house and Charly's girlfriend (who is also studying in mexico but elsewhere) and two of her flatmates. Plan was to go out for dinner then out. By time we found somewhere to eat and finished was already midnight and everyone was so tired just headed back to the hostel to chill. Dinner was kinda overpriced (like (£9) each considering was small and not that great, but we were eating in the historical centre so everything' costs a bit more!
On Sunday we went to Castillo de Chapultepec which had some cool views over the city. Chapultepec is this giant park in the city with the castle, a zoo and other stuff. Headed back early afternoon though as everyone had quite a bit of work to do having done nothing all weekend!
First couple exams weren't at all as bad as I thought. Before the first one we spent an hour going over the material, the only bad thing was that hadn't learnt the formulas as he said he'd give them to us, which he did, but in a random order not saying what they were! Next exam I thought was going to be one of the worst (business law) but turns out you could ask questions during the exam. Now, in England if you so much as drop your pen on the floor during an exam your not supposed to pick it up as could be construed as cheating! So you can imagine I was kinda suspicious at first when people went up to ask teacher questions! However, once I saw someone go up with his paper and she made notes on it before giving it back to him thought it was worth a try. I explained I hadn't understood one of the questions and she told me what I needed to write and then went through my paper circling ones that I needed to change / add more to! Was a very different kind of exam than what I'm used to! What made the week stressful is that the workload seemed to increase around exam time! So I was revising but also had to do the group project, an essay and my other homeworks! I have a feeling it's more of a readjustment than a real overload having spent the previous two years with only 1 piece of coursework that was marked! This whole attendance / work thing is still a bit of a shock to the system!
On Friday I had to go to the immigration office with a few other exchange students to finalise my temporary resident status. Unfortunately this meant leaving at 7am. We arrived at 8.20 and even though the office doesn't open till 9 there was already a queue forming round the block, we were only round the first corner so didn't seem too bad. However it took just under 4 hours from then for us to get in and seen. Bearing in mind all we were doing was signing something and giving our fingerprints, a 5 min process, it was a seriously long time. I am now though technically a temporary resident. I won't actually get the card saying so for another month or two, by which time it will be between 2-3 months since I started the process!
In the evening we went to Regis' house down the road (another French exchange student who's a friend of xavier and practically lives in our house - he even does his washing by us!) for dinner. We had crepes - so French!
Had me a nice quiet weekend catching up on sleep and work :)
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