What a Day

I bought the wrong textbook (actually a stack of photocopied articles and such) yesterday. Today, the other Dickinson student and I asked the girl sitting beside us where she bought her's. After class we went down to purchase the correct stack of photocopied pages. We went up to a counter and paid our 20 pesos (4 US dollars) and were handed little receipts to go exchange for our books. We asked where and were told go down stairs and it will be obvious. Well...it wasn't. So we asked someone else and were told to go down to the next floor. It wasn't obvious there either, so we asked again and were told to go to the photocopy room. We stood in line and handed them our receipts. Wrong place. This time the directions were back to where we paid. Well, we knew that was wrong so we asked someone else. Oh...just follow the signs to the editoria.

After that little adventure, I went to the bus stop. The campus is a circle, so theoretically every bus must pass each stop. Fine. True enough. But...and this is a big but...they can also leave said circle early and go for a lovely tour of the mountains. It's only like an hour. In the middle of nowhere. In the desert. Guess who got a tour of the mountains? This girl. I was incredibly grateful that a gentleman came up and asked where I had wanted to go. And then told me that I would eventually get there. He suggested that I get off and wait for a bus going the opposite way, but when I tried that the bus driver was nice enough to let me know he was the last bus. So I stayed on and did eventually get to where I needed to go.

But not on time. Remember how everything closes at 1:00? Yeah...That includes the bank where we have to pay a processing fee for our criminal back ground checks for our student visas. AND IT DOESN'T RE-OPEN. That was supposed to have been done by tomorrow. We then found out the bank was open until 3:00. So Lindsey and I walked there to be told that it was the other location that was open until 3:00; this branch was closed. Time for a taxi. Just before we got up to the window we got a text from Carrie saying we didn't need to pay today, our meeting had been moved to Thursday. Thank goodness, because apparently the paper we were paying for spontaneously combusts at 1:00. Even though the bank was open, we could not pay because they didn't have the paper work after 1:00.

There's a Dickinson Professor here this week, and we all had a lovely meeting with her. With food paid for buy Dickinson. We were informed that we would be getting reimbursed for some costs of the program. Great news. I also can complete a Spanish minor. Sweet. 

All of the things that went wrong today are things that people who live here would know. But are so ordinary no one thinks to explain. It's completely part of being in a different culture. And all that we can do is treat each event as a learning experience and create a new plan with our new information.

Also on the plus side: I get to sleep until 8:00 tomorrow.