First Day

I just came into Oaxaca Airport, which is an extremely nice little airport with this kind of Hawaiian touristy feel to it. I noticed the it's very temperate around here, the temperature doesn't fluctuate more than a few degrees from 74-75 degrees regardless of if it's day or night. My home-stays drove me and my housemate, back from the airport. Driving through the city, you notice that Oaxaca is an extremely old city with a rich history. We saw a Catholic ritual for the Virgin Mary, where people walk with a statue of Mary and sing through the streets. All the buildings look old and historic, and the streets are made of brick or stone. The city has a very European feel to it.
My home-stays Sr. Adolfo Ruiz and Sra. Cecilia Ruiz are really nice. Sr. Adolfo is really laid back and has quite the sense of humor, while Sra. Cecilia is this lovely old lady, who treats us as her grandchildren. Unfortunately, I am really limited in my ability to communicate with them, due to my lack of Spanish; if I don't improve, I can see how this could become a point of frustration between me and my home-stays. It's pretty similar to India, in that they don't use carpeting here, and stuff is generally old.
For dinner, I went to this restaurant called VIPS. Ironically, the restaurant is owned by Walmart, which I noticed because there was a Walmart "opinion" phone for people to call to review to food, lol! Also, the restaurant promoted the Walmart credit card. The food was really good, and I didn't get sick at all, which hopefully continues for the rest of the trip. Another really interesting thing I noticed was that there were a lot of nice cars, I saw a BMW 5 series, an Escalade, and a hummer.
I'm really excited, but I do feel the onset of culture shock. For the first time, I felt far away from my family in the U.S., and it's a hard feeling to explain. This experience will definitely make me grow and change as a person by forcing me to live out of my element. I think it will help me become more independent in my thoughts and reasoning. Also, living here will show me the differences between world cultures, which truly is an invaluable experience. Experiences like these will build and tear down preconceived prejudices between people of difference backgrounds and ethnicities. I can see that racism really does stem from ignorance, and that people really need to get out there to learn about other types of people. Anyways I'm out for today I'll keep everyone updates on a daily basis. I'll post pictures in a little bit.