Ultimately, translation

Apparently I live in Mexico. A lady who was giving me a ride home told me that. I think what she meant was that where I live, it's a lot more stereotypically Mexico than where she lives. But I have also realized that I have not told you where I live. I live with a wonderful Mexican family on a little deadend street in the Constitucion section of Zapopan, which is one of the cities attached to Guadalajara proper. Our street is just off the street with lots of stores. You can get basically anything within 10 blocks. We are 8 blocks away from the market. Which is probably a lot like you would picture an outdoor market in Mexico. Again, everything you could possibly think of in little booths lining the street, along with in the buildings themselves. And everything's a lot cheaper than it would be in Canada. It's pretty cool. Guadalajara is a beautiful city. Lots of beautiful architecture, plus lots of row houses. I have loved row houses since I went to Philadelphia in 2006. If you don't know what a row house is, it means all the houses on the street are attached. Like a townhouse, except for picture the whole street, and not all the houses are the same structure. There are a lot of different structures. There's also no such thing as a yard here. If you do have one, you're probably selling stuff on it. Houses have little courtyards though (picture quite little), and those are used often for hanging laundry in.
I've fallen into a sort of schedule, and this is it (in case you were wondering what in fact I am actually doing here):
7:00 (ish) wake up (to a palm tree outside my window, please note), get ready for the day
8:00 eat breakfast
8:30-45 catch bus 636, which takes me to school
9-12:30 Spanish school
catch bus home
eat somewhere between 2 and 3
do stuff, sleep, answer emails, etc.
eat again sometime between 8 and 11
Of course, there are variations. On Wednesday, instead of coming home, we go to Jen and Sandra's (our missionaries) house for lunch and the afternoon, and then go to soccer at RETO church in the evening. On Thursday nights there is church, which is really good. It's like a prayer meeting, but actually interesting and interactive. Saturdays and Sundays I wake up later. Saturdays we do assorted things, and Sundays we have church and then family time. Today we spend several hours making bags. If you've ever wondered where gift bags come from, I can tell you. I live with the lady (or rather, one of the ladies) who makes them. I get to put the strings in. We also watch a fair amount of television, usually in Spanish. Tomorrow I get to have Thanksgiving dinner with some of our missionary team. One day I went to the fair. Some days I miss Saskatchewan, winter, and the people there. Other days I don't.
It's a good thing God speaks all languages. Learning a language without knowing God would suck. Imagine having most of your personality unavailable to you, and then get to know a lot of people. And you can talk in little more than present tense. My sarcasm, my puns, my big words, are all useless here, because no one understands them. And you can't make plays on words in a language where you don't know half the words. I don't know how to express lots of who I am (Hay muchas cosas quiero decir, pero no puedo.) And on the flip side, my hosts can't yet express lots of who they are. But praise God because He is greater than languages. All reflect some of His glory and He can speak through all. God, not Google, is the ultimate translator.