5 a.m. the alarm clock rings. 20 minutes later we’re downstairs eating breakfast. Again 20 minutes later we’re on the way to the bus.  Just a second later and we would have missed it, what a lucky day.

Just a felt century later we arrived in ITESCA. Not a minute too late or too early, because class should began in just two minutes more - so we hurried. But nothing, even half an hour later no teacher arrived. On my question if it was normal I just got an answer telling me: “It’s the first day, things like that happen. Don’t worry.”

Now it’s the second day and the same has happened over again, I’m slowly staring to wonder if that class even exists or if it’s was just ‘invented’ to get us out of bed early. Anyway, today I’ve learned; and used my time to wisely practice a bit my Spanish, hoping that this way my Spanish teacher won’t be to disappointed when I have my first lesson with her on Wednesday, or should I say miércoles.

I guess now it’s time to say something about the positive impressions I got from this school.

The computer room seems up-to-date and it doesn’t seem that there is a lack of computers either. We got a tiny but clean looking cafeteria. And the best of all is that I get everyday one hour of private Spanish lessons - What more do you want!

Best wishes and good night

Thomas

Wuhhaa, you get your stuff together before you go to a different country, thinking nothing can be worse bureaucratic then Germany. But once you arrive to your destination you start to think…

Exactly that’s what happened to me right now. All of a sudden it feels like that Mexico was wearing a pretty mask and is taking it off - slowly - very slowly. Yesterday I’ve got a new letter from my University telling me that I most likely need to register at the “National Register of Foreigners”. Never heard of that before, but they were right, in my visa it says on the first page:
” … El titular debera dar aviso al Registro Nacional de Extranjeros, dentro de los 30 dias posteriors a su internacion al pais…”
The only problem is that I don’t speak Spanish and that nobody in the Embassy has told me, even after I asked, if I need go to some office in Mexico. But how did we always get told in school: “stupidity doesn’t safe from punishment”.
Does Obregon have such an office? No they don’t. If you want to register you either need to travel 4 hours to Hermosillo or two hours down to Guaymas. Smart as we’re, we will travel down to Guaymas spending - most likely - all day there.
Something very important is also that you need to be able to speak Spanish, because they don’t speak English.

At very last I want to share the list of the things that I need to bring to their office:

• Subjects which I’ll be taking
• Proof that I’ve paid my Semester fee - luckily I did that this morning
• Acceptance letter from ITESCA
• Passport
• Passport copy
• 6 picture of right side
• 6 picture of front
• Letter by the school telling me to register at the ‘National Register of Foreigners’. If it’s mandatory why do I need a letter?

• Letter saying that someone pays 500 Euros per month. If I have a student visa then this was already asked and approved by the Mexican embassy / Government.
• Student Visa
• Letter from the place where I life ( Light or water bill)

Off we go to take some pretty, pretty pictures.

Adios and bye
Thomas and Estefania.

Let’s begin. To be honest I don’t have a lot of information about my new university yet. Reason for that is once my language barrier and secondly that they seem to have holidays already. As soon as I arrive I’ll write something more for example the number of their students, what they offer, how the transportation system is and much more.
Anyway, for now we have to life with the little information we got. The full name of the university is: Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Cajeme. It’s located a bit outside of Ciudad Obregon Sonora, but I heard that there is a Wal-Mart close to it. So that’s definitely going to be a plus, this way I’ll be able to buy me always new notebooks, socks, shirts, shoes, cloth or food when I lose mine on the bus. To get a little idea of what it looks like I attached a photo of Google maps. The university doesn’t look too big - but still very pretty true? They offer a variety of subjects: ranging from tourism to software development.

How did I find the university?

That was easier than I thought. Since I didn’t study already at a university I also couldn’t relay on partner universities. Meaning it was all up to me, I tackled that problem all alone. Ok, to my excuse: I know a few people in Obregon Sonora and they were at least able to give me some names of the universities. Yes, Ciudad Obregon has more than just one University - there should be about four. All of whom claim to accept international students, at least if you trust this website: http://gotosonora.com/education-sonora.htm.

Like I said earlier I have friends in Obregon which told me that ITSON would be a great university. So I had a couple of weeks contact with ITSON either by phone or email. But after weeks of talking it soon got clear that they most likely couldn’t offer me anything because there just weren’t enough interested students.  After that I had a bit of contact with private school, they were quick in answering and they got a lot of experience with international students, the biggest downside was the price of over 5000$ usd. per semester.

That’s why I kept on searching and then - by a lucky - convenience I saw that there was another university listed on the Webpage: ITESCA. My last hope and it worked. They immediately were able to talk to me in English and didn’t keep me in a long waiting line unlike others. Just a few hours after my first call  and an email later I got the administrator for the students on the phone. He told me in a few words that he would be also interested on having - another - international student. And that they could offer me most likely something like a big buddy program.

Maybe you guys still know it from Junior High or Elementary school. Basically it’s a person that stands by your side and helps you with administrative, language barriers, homework and any other kind of help - just like a big brother should be, huh.

He then transferred me to a mate of him. She told and cleared some of the details with me. Since ITESCA, she said, is a public school the fees are much lower even for foreign students, approximately 500$ usd.  per Semester, plus about 100$ for a Spanish course). She also send me a few pdfs with the information of my courses - the only problem was that they were in Spanish. Luckily the computer-stuff words are similar in German, English and Spanish. So, that I understood most of it even without a proper translation. That’s the stand I have for now.

Well, just one more thing, there seems to be a club for ‘free software’, basically a bunch of Linux geeks, at this school. http://www.linuxgli.org/. I’ve talked to one of them, he seemed pretty nice. He also told me that they sometimes make LAN parties in school. So, for all you addicted computer-players that’s the right club for you.

I found an English speaking person at every university I’ve called except here: http://www.ulsa-noroeste.edu.mx/, because of the looks of it they weren’t capable to transfer me to the right person. And a phone number I got from them of a website was wrong, so that I kept on calling a private household with a pretty confused Mexican mother on the phone.  I actually called the poor woman twice, because I thought at first I dialed the wrong number.  That was basically the talk I had with her: “Hello, do you speak english? Habla  espaniol?  - “No habla  ingles, habla espaniol?” - “*disappointed me* Noo, perdon” ( two minutes later the same thing all over).

If anyone should ever get interested and want some information about this university, and I shouldn’t have posted it already on the website, let me know I’ll do my best to collect them for you. This only includes information about this subject and not your newest math homeworks!  It’s just about 22 days till I will stand in front of the university and beg for more information and a guided tour through their holy walls.

So long Thomas