I'm sick and I thought I would write an entry about Mexico in general and what it is like to live here.

1. People.

They are different. I actually had a presentation about Finland last week. I had done that already in Finland and I had a slide about Finnish character. It said that in Finland it's less small talk more honest straight forward kind of communication. That is true. People always greet eachothers with kiss and ask how are you. People laugh more and smile. They say I am serious and quiet, which I was never in Finland and totally am not by Finnish standards. I like people here though I miss miss my friends in Finland and that is a lot because the conversations that I have in Finland are much deeper than those I have here with my friends.

2.Food.

Chile, chile and chile and coka. I love the food here. I eat more chile than manuy mexicans. Coke is of course good but I'm trying to avoid drinking it as much as Mexicans because it's making me fat as well as the food that is just too good here. Here we also eat much more sugar. I probably eat more sugar in a day here than in Finland in one week. I often buy cookies in school because we don't have school food. You can also buy tacos or what ever they happen to sell that day but I usually just buy cookies or something like that. In Finalnd I eat like 5 times a day but here I eat usually three times.

3. Family.

Family is so much more important here than it is in Finland. My host family here is awesome they totally think me as a family member and care about me... sometimes too much. I actually have to ask for permission to go out when in Finland I just shouted from the door:"Mom, I'm going to my friend's house. I'll come back tomorrow... maybe.Here I have to tell where I'm going and with who and really hope that they will let me go.In Finland I saw my cousins maybe twice a year and didn't really meet my relatives so much. Here my grandma lives in the same house. Cousins, uncles, aunts and the mother of my grandma and my grandma's sister come here all the time.My family has also said that this is my home foreever and if I want to come to study here or anything I can live in their house.

4. Climate

This one is obvious. Of course it is warmer here and I like it. I thought that I would burn here but I haven't. It's because we don't really speand so much time in the sun here because it's so hot. People love air-conditioning. Now it's getting a bit colder so I don't have to put on the air-condituioner everytime that I go to my room. It's good because I always feel so bad wasting the energy and my family's money just to keep my room cold in 24° celcius

5. Law

In my Spanish book there was a chapter about school in Mexico. There it said it is much stricter and they have many rules. When I went to school here I really realized why they have all those rules. People here break them all the time. People swear, cheat on the tests, eat on the lessons, Older students come to our class room without permission, people listen to ipod and do anything that is not really acceptable. I sleep in the lessons... at least almost. The same thing happens also outside school. There are many laws in Mexico but you don't have to obey them. You can go to bar if you're underage, you can buy alcohol, drive car... well basically everything. It's illegal, but it happens. In Mexico city 2 Finnish exchange students were drunk and a police came. He didn't seem to speak any English and threatened to take them to police station. However 2000 pesos later it was alright and suddenly the police man learned English. Oh and one day some drugdealers were shooting eachothers outside one school the school was evacuated. My friend is in that school. On the same day someone had driven a car through the window onf my friend's mom's office (of couse it had iron bars on it) it looked kind of like they wanted to rob the place but maybe it was an accident because they didn't take the computers.

6. Mañana mañana

We don't have to hurry. If you say that the party begins at 6 o'clock it means that peaople actually arrive there like 2 hours later. It's quite nice actually. In Finland I lived in constant hurry but here I can just relax and think that my friend is probably late too. You don't even have to apologise if you are one hour late. Relax.

7.Little things

Thins is hard to explain because there are just many little differences: People love their cars and have many of them, people don't ride bikes, people eat slowlier, houses are colourful, parties every weekend, dancing, simply everything.

That's how well I could explain it.