My classmate Garrett's account of our first day in Monterrey

I couldn't have said it better, although I enjoy Monterrey a bit more than Garrett does :)

Muy buenos días from the economically less lucky half of North America. About half of the Spanish track has arrived in Monterrey. Fortunately most of us have managed to escape significant plane delays and there was no attempted terrorist bombing at Philadelphia International Airport (of course, why would there be?)

We arrived at our stylish dorms and found it way nicer than anything I remember from my undergraduate university days. It has a gym, pool hall, movie theater in the basement, large screen TV´s on every floor, and even a large contingent of American undergraduate students living here for the summer. It also comes with the rather antiquated rule of separating girls and boys in different parts of the building. Also you can’t bring alcohol into the building.

Monterrey seems like a decidedly unspectacular city. If I didn’t know I might think that I was stuck somewhere in the southwestern United States. Being the culturally adventurous people that we are, however, we decided to leave fully embrace Monterrey’s culture and promptly made our first shopping experience in-country at the nearest 7-11 convenience store. Then we ate our first lunch in-country at that most typical of Mexican restaurants, El Pollo Loco. That means “The Crazy Chicken” for 2 people in Lauder who can’t speak Spanishb. It tastes real good.