CJ visits!

This might get confusing because it's all in reverse order. This was our last night in Monterrey and we went to an Argentinian restaurant with our friend Calla who is also studying here in Monterrey and from NWU.

The Food was great, the company was better

I took this pic after she found out

CJ is paying close attention to the game

We had pretty good seats

Really fun time

We took a boat ride on Paseo Santa Lucia, it's a river walk and has art all over the place

Nice pic

Toucan!

The cute little girl decided she didn't want to hold the snake at the animal show at the zoo

Turtles!

This was 1 second before the bird squawked and scared the crap out of CJ

We found a zip line

CJ went first with her flip flops in the bag

Pretty proud apparently

Nice pic CJ, this is Paseo Santa Lucia where we started our day with a nice walk

We went to a soccer game. Our seats were high, but it was a nice view

Ruffles chips with the design of the soccer team we watched

Paseo Santa Lucia

This is the crazy fan section where people jump, chant, yell, and sing for the entire game

We went out. Isn't CJ beautiful?

Our matching Under Armour shirts. We went on a walk around campus and took a picture with the deer.

CJ surpised me by coming to Monterrey one day before I thought she was. I was really happy to show her around Monterrey and hang out with her for about 5 days. It was just plain awesome.

va a cumplir 23!

The whole group, I'm on the far left

My roommate Marcelo

My friend Oscar

My buddies Alejandro and Samuel. We watched football together a couple times.

My TV, it's not gigantic, but I like it

Didn't quite catch that one

Got it!

Didn't hurt a bit

Some rum and coke in the hammock, gotta love it

Ready for my Dos Equis commercial

Yep, my birthday is on Wednesday, hope the song lyric , "nobody likes you when you're 23" isn't true.

It's been a while since I've last written a post on here, but that's because I've been really busy. School got into the swing of things awfully quick and they keep us busy. It's ok though, for the most part. I am liking my classes more this semester than the previous two sessions. My spanish is improving. I have good days and not so good days, but over the course of time, I know I am improving.

I haven't had a chance to attend as many Rotary meetings as I would like, but I'm hoping to get to a few soon.

So one friday afternoon, a group of kids from the MIB program went to the friend of a friend's house for a grill out and pool party. I sat in the hammock, had some Dos Equis cervezas and some rum and cokes and enjoyed the relaxation. Then we had some steaks on the grill that were delish. After that we swam a little and dove after the frisbee into the water.

Last Saturday, we had our group picture for the EGADE (which is the business school) at the Tec (which is the main campus) so everyone showed up dressed up in their business suits and we looked almost professional. The Thursday before I bought a suit for the pic, for much cheaper than I would have found in the states, gotta love the exchange rate.

On Friday nights, since I miss high school and Husker football so bad, sometimes I go watch the university team play. They are apparently 5-time national champs and they kick the crap out of everyone. The games I went to where 52-3 and 56-7. There are some huge boys on the line and I'm sure the running back/kick returner could play division 1 college football, and so could the kicker, but of course they were going to have a good kicker

Also, I don't know if I've written this, but since I'm going to be living in Monterrey for the next year (until may, june or july of 2010, not sure, i've asked, my questions go unanswered) I bought a TV. and since, I thought, Since Monterrey is so close to the US, there has to be a way to get the TV back to the states, so I might as well buy a nice one. After some research, I went to Walmart and bought a Samsung LCD 32" TV with Full HD 1080 p and I am really excited about it. We get the NFL network on HD and they broadcast a few NFL games on Sunday, some on HD and some not, but most with commentary in Spanish, so there is another way for me to practice my Spanish! We get about 60 channels, and 10 in HD. When I say we, I'm talking about me and my roommate Marcelo, who is in my program, and he's from Bolivia.

The greatest thing that has happened so far was last Thursday. On all of our channels, they show an average of one college football game per week. Out of all the games on all the days, they decided to broadcast Nebraska vs. Missouri on Thursday night! So I had some friends over, including a friend from Wesleyan who is also studying in Monterrey. We had some beers and I got a little wasted.

CJ and I spend a lot of time on skype where we can see each and talk to each other for free over the internet. We decided it would be fun to skype during the game, and it worked! It was especially great when my friends thought I was crazy for jumping up and down and yelling all the time but then they would look on the screen and see CJ and her friends jumping up and down and yelling (and all wearing red nonetheless).

My friends lost faith by the third quarter, but then I declared that we needed to throw it deep. Zac Lee heard me and the rest is history. Actually the rest was me jumping up and down and yelling even more than I had been, but this time, deliriously happy instead of pissed off.

So in conclusion, I got to see the NU vs. Missouri game at 8 pm, same time as everyone in Nebraska, on my couch in Monterrey, in front of my new TV, with friends and cervezas, and my girlfriend on skype. and we won!

The next day I had a group meeting that included guys from Sweden and Denmark and a girl from Germany at IHOP, because we thought that would be a good place for us to go for all of us to cure our hangovers. We did get work done, but the best part was the conversation, when I told them about the football game, the Swedish guy said "Oh is that the one where you use your hands all the time, ironic that it's called football." Of all the meetings I've had here, this was by far the most memorable.

My birthday is coming up on Wednesday, and I am really excited because CJ's fall break starts on Thursday and she is coming down to visit me! I have some secret things planned, and I'll be sure to post pics next time. CJ is also going to study abroad here in Monterrey next semester to help her work on her Spanish--Should come in pretty handy as a OB/GYN. As a student in business school, I recognize the huge and quickly growing market for Spanish speaking doctors, so I am very proud of her and can't wait for her to come to Monterrey!

Overall, I would say that I am happy and that I'm having a good time here in Monterrey. I miss home and everything, but I know I'm learning a lot and growing every day (although sometimes the growth just comes from the tacos).

Hope you're doin great,

Jarryd

va a mostrar el nuevo departamento

Here are some pics of my new apartment and Monterrey. I like to go on walks at night, now that's it's cooling down to the 80's around 6 pm and the humidity goes down too. There is a park right behind my apartment and there are lots of people out there exercising or walking their dogs. I got to chatting with someone and it turns out dogs aren't as expensive here, so i might be coming home with a new friend.

Self portrait, I got the short haircut goin cuz it's really hot here. I'm always with my iPod and headphones

The building security guard
This is our kitchen, we have a fridge, stove, oven, microwave and you can see my protein and the gigantic bottle of water that costs about 2 bucks.
Here's another view of our kitchen with the chairs, a couple bananas and some beers
My room, not exactly what you would call clean.

They have deer on campus
I told it to smile

People walk their dogs and exercise here in the park

El Cerro de la Silla

Peacocks on campus

This is a panorama from the 6th floor of the CIAP building on campus, i had to take 2 pics, the next one follows

Hello everyone!

In the park there are pullup bars, and these other things that i'm not sure what to do with them

quick break

After 2 months of class in Monterrey, we got 3 weeks off for vacation, so I went home! and it was great. I spent a ton of time with my amazing/beautiful/smart/fun/cute/adorable girlfriend CJ, I got to see three of my brother's football games, I got to tailgate at Cheryl's tailgate and go to the first Husker football game of the year, I got to play some golf, and I got to spend some quality time together with CJ and my family which was so much better than chatting online or trying to have a conversation on skype with crappy internet.

The time went really quickly, and I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to, and I feel bad about that, so if I missed you, don't worry, I'll be home in December, but after acclimating to this Mexican heat and humidity, i'll need like 6 coats before i go outside.

So as it turns out, I get really into watching the Aurora Husky football team, especially when my little brother Christian is playing. CJ wore her ubiquitous flip flops to the game and I unfortunately smashed her toes on more than one occasion. Sorry babe. I was trying to explain to a couple buddies of mine, that I'm pretty sure I get more excited watching my little brother play football than I ever did as a player. I got to see three games, and Aurora won all of them pretty handily... I gotta get some of those guys on my fantasy team.

It's funny, I know a lot of the kids on the team not from going to school with them, but from working with them in the kids football camp at Aurora and when I coached flag football in high school. It doesn't make me feel real old, but I still think of them as littler than they actually are (which for some of them is gigantic)

The first game I went to, Chris had two tackles on kickoffs, so by the 3rd quarter of the first game of his senior season, he had more tackles than I had in my high school career. haha.

Last friday, I rode to Mccook with my dad, his girlfriend Lee Ann, my uncle Norb, and CJ and we saw Aurora earn a huge win 48-10 to snap Mccook's streak of 71 straight regular season wins which is incredible, that will probably never happen again. Chris caught a two point conversion pass and I stood up and started yelling, "That's my brother! Yep, that's my brother." announcing it to everyone around me. I was / am so proud.

I got to play golf in the Howie memorial golf tournament with CJ and my buddy Derek and we played well and thouroughly enjoyed the Rum and Coke stand in the Holland's back yard. Last year, I won a pair of Howie's shorts that he mowed his yard in. They were way too short and lots of people gave him crap about it, so I thought it would be a great way to honor him by playing the tourney in his shorts. and it was also hilarious. i played pretty good too, i guess i might have to bust those out a little more. CJ has a video of it, i hope she puts it on youtube soon. CJ won a flag this year, I guess next year we'll find out how she golfs wearing that! :)

I am very happy to be doing this Master of International Business program here in Monterrey, because it is such a short flight. For example, this morning I flew out of Omaha around 11:30 and I got in to Monterrey at 3:45, so just over four hours. You can take more time than that by flying domestic. And since it's so close, it's not that expensive either.

I'm looking forward to classes starting tomorrow. This semester goes until December 4th, so it looks like I will have a long winter break. My classes are Marketing, Management functions and abilities, Leadership for sustainable development, Introduction to Latin American Management, and a consulting project. So they sound interesting and I hope I learn a lot.

As most people can imagine, this whole studying abroad / living in a different country / learning a new language thing is not the easiest thing in the world. So please keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I continue to slowly but surely improve and grow as a person / world citizen / spanish speaker / whatever you want to call it. Thanks for reading!