Guess where this was taken

Downtown? NO! This was taken at my campus ;)

To say that the past 2 days have been intense and rough on me is quite an understatement, but let's start with the good things:

My body has finally fully adjusted itself to the city so I don't keep on being tired for most parts of the day ;-)

I was out for dinner last night by myself and felt completely safe and ate at a semi-streetsale place and, as I expected, I am not sick. Also today I took a walk to the supermarket in the dark and did not have the feeling that anything was going to happen to me. I feel more and more secure by the day and I think the person that's got a brilliant view on the matter in this case is my Mum, because she said to me on the phone today that she is not worried about my safety too much because she trusts me, my judgement and knows that I have experience. Love you mummy :)

Also I found three interesting courses that I will take this semester:

1)Problemas Sociales de la Mujer
2) Prospectívas de las Políticas Internacionales
3)Migraciones Internacionales

University here feels a lot like being at school in terms how the professors treat you as a person. Also the facilities remind me a lot of the schools I taught at in India, since the majority of them has no technical equipment whatsoever, are in a bad condition in many cases, sometimes do not even have a blackboard and one classroom I even mixed up with a storage room. Maybe I should also mention that large parts of the UNAM are UNESCO-world-heritage, but my faculty is not part of that ;-) What I found really funny is that one of my professors is apparently a chain-smoker and so he even enjoys cigarettes while giving class. Also it seems quite normal that professors can show up 40min late without any questions asked and no apology from their part.

Tuesday was definetely a bitch. I got up at 6, left the house at 7, and got in line at the immigration-office at 8 in order to wait for them to open at 9 for NOTHING, because they didn't accept my scholarship-letter from the University of Vienna since it is in German and therefore sent me to the Austrian embassy to have it authenticated. As I expected they were acting like complete as****** as soon as I showed them my German passport and they refused to help me, which means that now I will have to pay an awful lot of money for a professional translator that the immigration office accepts. What made me more angry actually was their racist attitude in the way they were talking about Mexicans and their unbelievable arrogance. Give people the tiniest bit of power and they will make use of it. So sad.

After that I spent 6 hours (!) trying to find a dress for the wedding next weekend, because buying things in Mexico is surprisingly difficult, and I still could not find any black tights after going to 5 different malls. And all the clothes are quite expensive or let's say Eurpean-priced, which is a huge joke, since most of it is produced in sweatshops for almost no money here, is being exported, and reimported after the branding and sold for prices that the people who produce the clothes could never actually afford them. That goes for many things here, for example food and other things of daily-need are also quite expensive.

Also I need to consider buying a reflex camera, since I would like to take this amazing photograohy-class I attended this morning, where they do not only teach you everything about cameras and photography, but also visit photography-exhibitions, go on photography-trips outside the city, and much more. And the class is free and I even get a certificate for it! I would really love to learn how to take great photos, so now I need to figure out how to get that kind of money and where to buy a camera...

Despite everything I am in good spirits. All the challenges I face each and every day here are great learning-experiences. I think it is indispensable to live in countries like Mexico if you want to work in the field of development, and it saddens me to see that so many people think they can design development-projects without having ever made the effort to leave Europe and just asume that they know what is best for everyone. This is definetely the most difficult place I have lived at so far, but: no risk, no fun :-) And above all: I want to learn and understand.

So crazy:

Aerosmith - Crazy