Mexico: pesos vs. dollars

Hola,

Second time to Ensenada, and it's a slightly different experience. The first time was with Semester at Sea alumni on their reunion voyage as Ellen got the library set up, and they were excited to catch up and reunite. For me, it felt like I was somewhat of a bystander since I hadn't actually been on Semester at Sea and wasn't yet an alum.

Now that the Spring 2013 trip is officially underway with the faculty and staff onboard, it's great having the entire ship to a fairly small group of really close-knit folks. Some of the professors have taught onboard before, and some of them even seem eager to have me in class. Maybe I'm once again so different from the typical demographic that I'll be a good counterbalance to the classroom.

In college, it was me being an introverted southern guy from a small school. Now, it's me being an older male, still introverted but now willing to discuss issues in class because, well, lots of living has taken place since being in an academic setting over 20 years ago. I think the students won't know what to make of me.

Jman and I took a long walk to reach the beach where we went surfing the other day, and we didn't surf this time but collected seashells, mostly sand dollars. The parallel that I can draw is that here, at least this close to the Mexican/American border, pesos and dollars are pretty much interchangeable. I'm mostly able to calculate what stuff costs in pesos at 12.5 per dollar, but what's throwing me is that pesos are proceeded by by a dollar sign as well. Guess you just have to figure out that if something's priced higher than you'd expect, it's in pesos.

No pictures yet to post from the latest blog entry, but I'll try to have some soon. Tomorrow, the students board along with additional life-long learners, so Jasper will have his Grandpa join us on the trip and share his room. Might be a bit different around the ship with about 650 undergrads running around. Sounds fun and somewhat scary, too.

Until later,
Scott