Goodbye for now, Mexico

“I like messy people; people who don’t fit in a box or stay between the lines, but who’s integrity is greater than any rule book and who’s loyalty is stronger than blood.” Jim Wern In April 2014, I made a last minute and rather impulsive decision to give my study abroad year a go. I'd just taken my self off medication (not sensible kids, always speak to your doctor first!) and I was feeling great, so I thought 'fuck it, why not?'. 

I thought I knew exactly what to expect. In first year I lived with loads of exchange students, and I'd witnessed lots of partying, travelling and general debauchery. All the cliché language barriers and culture jokes came up on a regular basis, there was a lot of gossip, tears, laughter and the like. Basically, I'd been given the impression of the typical L'auberge Espagnole year abroad and that all seemed rather appealing to me; a well-earned break from the ongoing stress of the last few years of my life.

I didn't know how wrong I could be. Instead I ended up taking part in a failed uprising, being shot at by police, hitch-hiking through the jungle, living without water, crawling through caves, hiding an illegal immigrant, crying my way through the Guatemalan border control, dropping out of uni due to students being shot on campus, rekindling old friendships and making new ones, meeting a best friend who I love unconditionally (even if she does like to turn people into soap) and falling in love with a bunch of salvajes whilst hiding from my accidental drug-dealer boyfriend in Chiapas, who ended up becoming an unshakeable part of my life in DF (the salvajes, not the accidental boyfriend). And all this on top of the usual language struggles, homesickness and other difficulties that come with being the foreign kid in a new country and kind of sucking at the language.
Ignoring the slight blip at Christmas where I was forced to go home, my stay in Mexico totalled just over 10 months. It'd be a lie to say I loved every minute of it because sometimes it was downright painful (running for our lives, the love triangles, bailing people out of jail...), but I can't say I regret a single second. Not surprisingly, I've learned heaps about myself, not to mention an entirely new culture and way of life. Oh, and I kind of speak Spanish now too, which I suppose was the idea of this all along.

#MOMENTOCHEESY

I don't know how to thank everyone I met enough for the incredible time I've had. I know the bonds we've made are so much stronger that the distance between us (ew did I really just write that? Too many Mexican feelings) and I know we've got many more exciting times ahead. I'll miss la pobreza, chilaquiles and living my life vicariously through Blair Waldorf more than you can imagine. Ahora son todos un parte de mi corazón y sería imposible olvidar como cambió mi vida con ustedes. Los quiero CHINGOS y los veo para mitzear pronto (Franzi y Anthony sólo dos meses!!) I really have found a new home.

**Video coming soon!**

Mexican Independence, English Teaching and the Caribbean

It's midday and I just caught myself sat on my bed, only half dressed - despite being up for several hours - and eating nutella straight out of the jar with my fingers, so I decided it's probably about time I do something productive with my day. My productive activity of choice just happens to be writing this, because although this is kiiiind of a form of procrastination from my actual work, I like to view it as constructive procrastination... in that one day Lonely Planet will see my blog and give me my dream job and I will no longer have care about translating satirical newspaper articles about political correctness into Spanish. A girl can dream, eh?

Anyway, the last couple of weeks have been rather crazy here. Two weeks ago we had Mexican Independence day, with more parties to attend and more alcohol to consume than humanly possible. Despite the official date of Independence Day being 16^th September, it would appear that just one day of merriment is nowhere near enough for Mexicans, with festivities spanning pretty much the entire week. Too hungover to attend any of the official celebrations (oopsy), I just attended parties of various friends throughout the extended weekend, salsa-ing my heart out as per usual and taking full advantage of the free booze.

Party number two of three for Independence Day. Edgar (in the big hat) has never looked so Mexican.

However, my favourite part about the whole weekend was seeing just how proud Mexicans are, simply of being Mexican. National pride is a relatively alien concept to me, as us Brits tend to be disliked on a pretty international scale for so many things. So the idea of having a day to celebrate how awesome it is just to be British would be completely ridiculous. It'd be like that year that we entered that awful patriotic song in the Eurovision Song Contest with the Union Jack plastered all over the stage and then were given 'nil point' by literally every single country. Also I'm very aware we never had to gain independence and we were the ones running around conquering everyone like we owned the bloody planet... so not cool.

As it was such a mad weekend, I decided to take some time off from any liver-destroying and bank-draining antics and focus on school work and the like...




Don't laugh, I'm being serious.

As well as attempting to start working hard, Franzi and I had the genius idea of advertising ourselves as language teachers for German and English, as we really want to get some travelling done after this term ends and as it stands we might not be able to have the cash to do that.

So we postered like crazy all over campus (no rules against that here, it's awesome), only realising after we'd finished that Franzi had actually provided her name, facebook and phone number to four entire faculties. I swear to God if you put our brains together, maybe we'd just about make one logical person. Or all the stupid stuff would form together and we'd never actually get anywhere in life. Who knows?

But despite this minor setback, it worked! For the first time in my life I'm self-employed (how fancy does that sound?) and so far it's turning out to be really successful. As much as I love hanging out with my friends and meeting people at parties, it actually feels really good to now be doing something productive with my free time. As fun and carefree as student life can be, it's sometimes really positive to have some structure to your days, especially when you only have a three day timetable like I do. It can become dangerously tempting to waste all of your time off on tumblr or catching up on the latest gossip (guilty!) rather than using your time to benefit yourself or the lives of other people around you, and personally, I've found that the more productive you try to be, the easier it becomes. I think I've wrote this before, but life really is about getting the balance between structure and free time just right.

I've also just realised that all this must sound rather amusing after the way this post started off. I promise, I have already left the house and taught two classes today after a rather difficult weekend, so I was just having a bit of me time with my one and only true love i.e. food, before getting back to actually making something of my day. Like I said, balance is important, and for me that balance includes a bit of self-care in the form of an entire jar of Nutella. That OK with you?

The last two weeks also saw the departure of my gorgeous friend Shelly back to Taiwan after her two month trip out here. I met Shelly along with the rest of the London exchange crew back in my first year of university when I was living in those really international student halls. I feel like she fell in love with Mexico just as much as I am doing, and I'm just so glad I got to see her again after such a long time.

At a Cuban salsa club in La Roma, showing the boys how it's done.

Aside from a lot of hanging out at uni a lot, accidentally attending the wrong class for SEVEN weeks (because I'm a super genius) and an accidental party that trashed my bedroom, I haven't got much else to report. I really do want to start doing some more cultural things in the city soon, because I am really settled in now and there is so much to do here. We were actually planning a trip to Puebla last week, a nearby city that is supposed to be stunning, but unfortunately those plans fell through for various reasons. Fingers crossed we'll be able to get organising it for another time though.

After our weekly Wednesday afternoon lunch in Arquitectura. I'm happy because I'm full of chilaquiles (and I suppose the company was alright too)

However, despite our failed Mexican travel plans, in three days time I'll be jetting of to Martinique, to visit my lovely friend Imogen who I study German with at King's. The lucky so and so is studying abroad in the French Caribbean for the first part of her year away, so I'm off to soak up some rays and climb a volcano, and you know, make sure she's doing alright out there. And the trip actually couldn't have come at a better time, as I've recently really been missing home and familiar faces, so it'll be nice to be able to word vomit at someone in the worst English accent ever, without worrying about being misunderstood. Not that I'm not having the time of my life out here, but sometimes things happen when you are away from home and you just need to be back in a familiar setting for a little while. I'm just lucky enough for that familiarish setting to be incredibly near a beach. I also have a day's layover in Puerto Rico on the way, a place I haven't visited since I was about 10 years old, so it'll be interesting to see if I actually remember any of it.

A Week in Mexico City

The last week in Mexico City has been really mad! Unlike us, my friend Edgar is super organised, so with his help we managed to pack a lot into just a few days.

Chapultepec Castle

The castle is at the top of a big hill in the middle of a forest overlooking the city, which makes for beautiful, if not a little smoggy, views over the greenery and the city. Inside you can see the museum which documents much of modern Mexican history and also contains preserved rooms of how the castle would have looked whilst it still served as a home.

The Zoo

Yes we went to another zoo! This time is was FREE and although not as big (or as lax on safety) as Guadalajara, they do have pandas which is awesome. Also quite a lot of the animals weren't actually there, a little odd perhaps but we figured maybe they'd just gone on their summer jollies.

Street Performers

I'm not sure how well you can make it out in this picture but in short, these guys are mental. They climb a 30ft (ish) pole with no harnesses or anything, tie themselves to it the swing around it in circles until they reach the bottom, WHILST playing music... It was both a bizarre and terrifying experience. 

The Anthropology Museum

If I'm honest, when Edgar told us that the anthropology museum was a must I was a little skeptical about what could be so great about it. However it turns out that it's actually pretty impressive, with all sorts of Mayan and Aztec etc artifects and a really detailed description of those periods in Mexican history, which for me as a history geek is super cool.

The Angel of Independence

This monument is literally right in the middle of a roundabout with no crossings and about six lanes, so you have to either get a taxi or run for your life to get there. Oh and also, Mexican roundabouts don't just go one way... Safe to say we decided to just appreciate it from afar.

Teotihuacan

On Wednesday we decided to be really touristy and headed to the ruins at Teotihuacan. It really is an incredible sight, with pyramids which are so old that nobody actually knows who originally built them or settled there. It's pretty hard to climb too, especially as we're a clumsy asthmatic and a cripple with vertigo. We survived though!

Frida Kahlo Museum

On thursday, we spent the day exploring Coyacan. We started out by visiting the Frida Kahlo museum, which despite my lack of knowledge about her, turned out to be really interesting. The entrance fee for students was just $40 (£2) and the museum is actually situated inside her house, in which she was born, lived and died. Part of the exhibit is home to some of her works of art, another part her house left as it was, so you could really get a sense of how she and Diego Rivera lived.

Hanging Out

That afternoon we met up with some of Edgar's friends for some tacos, beer and football, because (as you're probably aware) it was the first World Cup match between Brazil and Croatia. We watched the game at his friend Frank's house, then headed off to our friend Sofia's sister's place to chill on the roof, before heading out to her brother's pox bar (pox is a special type of spirit from the Chiapas region).

Being Ill and Eating Crickets

So yesterday was supposed to be the day we left Mexico City for Oaxaca, just six hours south of here. However, after a standard burrito lunch and a few days of not feeling so great, sickness finally hit me and we decided not to risk the venture until (hopefully!) today. In the evening some of Edgar's friends came round, so I forced myself downstairs to be social. They told me that locally they call my illness 'Moctezuma's Revenge', Moctezuma being the last Aztec ruler before the conquistadors came and took over, as it only really affects tourists, especially white Europeans. 

Despite my delicate state it turned out to be quite a fun evening, and I think I'm beginning to understand Mexican Spanish better... I also, after much faffing, managed to stomach one of the table snacks which was a bowl full of crickets. I feel like I should try everything once, and to be honest they didn't taste all that bad, but I don't think I'll be doing it again anytime soon!