Excursion with the Mexicans

Today (Saturday) I spent the day at Stanley Park with my roommate and all her Mexican friends that are part of the exchange program she is in. I was literally one white girl among 17 Mexicans, it was quite a sight! They all spoke rapid spanish, which was a little intimidating for me, but once I got to talk to them one-on-one, they were all very friendly and most spoke english pretty well. I was too nervous to talk to them in spanish, but I could often understand what they were saying, and they were surprised that I could sometimes join the conversation (speaking english however) when they were only speaking spanish. For example, I was kneeling by a pond and taking pictures (my newly acquired hobby) and one of the guys said snickering to the other, "empuje la gringa" which means "push the white girl in". I think he was surprised when I turned around laughing and said, "thats not very nice".

It was a great afternoon though! We rented bikes and rode around the park along the seawall. It was a cloudy day, the first one since I have been to Vancouver. As we rode around the far side of the park, everything was very quiet and peaceful, different from the rest of the city. One of my favorite parts was riding by the balancing rocks! There is this guy who is an artist and a photographer and he spends his time balancing rocks on top of each other, taking pictures of them, and selling the pictures as postcards. It was a pretty amazing feat, and I think I want to live that kind of life!

And of course, we ended the day by doing what any good group of Mexicans would do: playing futbol.