Life

Dating

Here it is not uncommon for a girl to date someone five years older than her. My host sisters say it is because of the maturity levels. For example 13 year old girls are dating the 17 year olds in your class and the girls in your class are dating guys in college who are 21 and up. Of course there are some cases where you date someone the same age, and then there are some cases where you date someone ten years older than you and it is not looked down upon.

Money

The money here is in bills and coins but there aren't any cents. Currently the dollar is 36 pesos and most things are about the same price as they would be in the US with the exception of clothes and food in the supermarket. Food like snacks and water are about the same price. The thing that gets me everytime with the money is 100 pesos seems like so much to me when in reality it's just $2.78 but the coins like 25 pesos makes me think it's $0.25 when really it's 69 cents.

Current Prices

One Piece of Gum or Halls Mint: 2 pesos
Photo Copy: 2 pesos
Plantain: 5 pesos
Carpool Ride: 15 pesos
Bottle of Water: 15 pesos
Bag of Chips (about 3 oz): 18 pesos
WaterCooler Bottle (about 5 gallons): 25 pesos
Random Brand of Good Enough Nail Polish: 36 pesos
Helado Bon Ice Cream Cone (2 scoops): 50 pesos
McDonald's Cookies and Cream Sundae: 70 pesos
LifeSavers Sour Gummies: 88 pesos
Cell Phone Card for Ten Minutes: 100 pesos
Salon: 100 pesos
Acrylics: 150 pesos
Movie Theater on a Friday Night: 200 pesos
Pizza Hut Medium Pizza: 400 pesos

Entertainment

If you have Sky Cable, then you have many American networks plus some Spanish and other random networks as well. The shows are either in English with Spanish subtitles or in Spanish already. Some networks are TNT, E!, MTV, VH1, Disney, Nickelodeon, Health, etc.
Everyone watches movies on TNT or other movie networks, the movie theaters, and a lot of bootleg videos. Here a common passtime is watching movies. Many of your friends will say let's hang out and usually dinner and a movie is what you do. Also there are networks where you just hear music. Here American music is popular but mostly Reggaeton, Merengue and Bachata are heard. The radio has Disney and they play English songs as well as the Spanish songs of their Disney stars.