Having had a chance to explore Guadalajara a bit more, I think the city is definately up and coming. Many of the houses are nice, though the neighborhoods are compact and do not have a lot of yard to speak of. Our dorm actually has a side yard, which appears to be a rarity. It's hard to adjust my American mentality that having every single home gated/etc means you are in a bad neighborhood. I really don't feel it's the case here. Perhaps many years ago, when these homes were built, but certainly not now. It really does just seem to be a part of their architecture, however, as even high class restaurants have locked gates.
The campus for the Universidad de Guadalajara is absolutely wonderful. The buildings are fairly common, reminding me of the hurricane-shelter sturdy concrete blocks that Miami-Dade College is composed of, but the rest of it really takes you by surprise. To explain why it is so surprising, you have to understand that Guadalajara is surrounded by dry, brown hills, and they get little rain. Yet the campus is covered in green grass, cropped close so you can sit beneath the shade of the trees they have planted everywhere. Even when the weather is quite hot, the common areas are large enough that it allows the breeze to travel through, and it's very pleasant.
There are two things done here that I wish all campuses in the U.S. did. First of all, they have a language center which is free to use for anyone with a student ID. They have computers you can sit at with language programs, movies in other languages that you can sit and watch, and even individuals who speak various languages who will hold a conversation with you in the language that you are trying to learn. They even have Spanish as a language option for their exchange students. I'm hoping to get a peek at this, since I've been slowly teaching myself some spanish with the help of some books.
The other thing I really liked is there is a 'cyber garden' in the center of the campus. This is pretty much a well-landscaped area with a circular path dotted with shaded tables. This area is right next to their food areas (where you can get a small meal, including a drink, for about $3-$4), but the highlight is that at each table there is a stand which not only has power outlets for your laptop, but also ethernet outlets and wireless hotspots. The nice location, combined with the breeze, makes it a great place to sit and work when we are not in the conference room they have given us to work in.
Speaking of which, the conference room is quite nice. It's a good size room, about the size of the conference room next door to the CS secretaries, with a whiteboard for us to use. Most importantly though, there's a water cooler and, blissfully, air conditioning which we can control. All in all, I have been nothing but impressed with the campus and the people who work there. The buses run every few minutes it feels like, and the stop near our dorm is perhaps 15 minutes walking distance tops. Can't beat a direct route to the college for only 50 cents a trip.
The only real downside I have found to Mexico so far is the lack of AC in the housing areas. I've gotten used to the heat itself, but the real problem is the mosquittos. I'm running an average of about six new bites a day, and I've been wracking my brain trying to find a solution to the problem. If it keeps going at this rate, I'm going to get rather uncomfortable. If we close our window at night, it stays around 88 degrees or so in our room. If we open it, we get tons of the bloodsuckers since there are no screens. We've turned on a fan to keep the problem down some, but it's still an issue. We're going to check the nearby store tomorrow to see if we can find some type of netting to put over the window.
Work is going fairly well, as I've been picking Sean's brain almost nonstop since we got here. I think I have a pretty good understanding not just of what needs to be done, but how we will be able to do it. We need to give the SRS for Konstantinos one more pass before sending it out, and he'll let us know if there are any glaring problems with what we think is expected as an outcome. Right now my I'm focusing on trying to head off any problems we may have when the coding begins shortly, but I feel things are rolling smoothly and everything will be resolved by the time we need it.
I should have some pictures for next time, but my laptop decided it no longer wants to accept SD cards. As in, it quite literally spits the card the whole way across the room after I pop it in. While amusing, I'm glad Sean's laptop has a reader that I can make use of later. 8 weeks means a lot of pictures.
(re-post)