Blog 2 - The best holidays I have ever had

 

Hello, dear students. How are you today?

 

In this blog’s session, I will talk about one of the best holidays I have ever had. If I had known that my best vacations would be in a foreign country, I would have laughed so hard because, for as long as I can remember, traveling on a plane to another country had been 2 of my biggest fears.

 

A lot of people scared me with stories about being deported, losing the passport and being detained at the custom office of an airport; although I acknowledge that it’s really faster to travel on a plane than a car, if you face an accident on a plane, it will have dramatic consequences.

 

Despite this, last year I decided to travel to México in order to break up with a Mexican ex-girlfriend. Yeah, I know, it is a very random and maybe a very stupid reason to travel abroad but hey, whatever takes you to travel abroad, go for it.

I arrived at this beautiful country on Christmas 2022, and I left this amazing nation on February 14^th, 2023. I was planning to stay for 2 full months but, as time went by, I needed to go back to Chile since I missed my family a lot and I was getting tired of moving around so much.

I arrived in Ciudad de México, the capital city. I had thought that, since this is the capital and during festivities (Christmas and New Year’s Eve), it would be fully crowded but, to my surprise, most people were out of the city because of the holidays and students had some kind of Christmas break, so it was a bliss for me.

During my first night at CDMX, one of the first places I visited was “El Ángel de la Independencia”.

 

Before the “official” breakup, I had decided in Chile to travel to certain regions of México that were attractive in terms of their parks and infrastructures, with a lot of museums and coffeeshops and close to the main square of the capital city of each region. You know, in case I wanted to overcome my painful breakup while drinking a nice coffee and see amazing views across the street.

I did a solo trip most of the times: I visited CDMX, Puebla, Oaxaca and Puerto Escondido all by myself on the span of 1 month and 2 weeks. I got obsessed trying some of the local cuisine and visiting new coffeeshops across these cities.

Here, we can see the real size of tacos. Even if they look small, they are quite fulfilling. And since I was in México, I needed to try something as rare as a grasshopper for snack.

  In terms of coffee, what amazed me where the different types of coffeeshops: from thematic coffeeshops to more quirky ones, I tasted so many varieties of coffees and enjoyed myself a lot during my morning walks.

Unfortunately, most Mexican museums charge an entrance fee (around 2-3 thousand Chilean pesos), but if you are a student, you can enter these free of charge.

Even with this extra expense that I didn’t consider in my budget, it was totally worth it to see these places full of the vibrant and diverse history and art of México.

I also did a lot of sightseeing and discovered beautiful landscapes at different points of my journey. One of the many marvels of México is how colorful and alive the cities in this country are.

Many people (both Chilean and Mexican) were afraid/scared/annoyed/scandalized of a woman traveling to one of the countries with the highest levels of femicides. Despite this, I got to experience how friendly and warm Mexicans are: people were nice to me, helped me when I got lost and commented of appropriate places to visit and the do’s and don’ts of certain cities.

The culture there is so different to Chile that I was grateful to have taken this trip: it brought me a mental break from many obligations I had back home and enriched me both culturally and emotionally.

 

This travel was one of the best because it is the first one I have ever made on my own and it showed how capable and “adult” I am in real life. Also, at some point  I got together with my current girlfriend at the beautiful beach city of Puerto Escondido and, afterwards, we met at Puebla before I left the country.  So, she is one of the main reasons I want to go back to this country, where my heart and my future home is located.

 

What about you, students?

 See you soon 😊