After 6 weeks in México I left this diverse country with heaps of impressions, memories and knowledge about the people and their lives. Thanks to
Carlos, Fernando, Daniel, Deidy, Liliana, Mathias, Pau, Verónica, Señora Rabago, Señor Arroniz and many others I was able to see what life is like in México - especially in León (a city of 2 million inhabitants which hasn´t been dedicated a single page in my 800 pages Méxcio guidebook)
I was able to see, how people live, work, study and party there. And above all, it saved me a lot of money as I am now able to totally make my way through Latin America without having to go to language school anymore. Within three weeks I picked up so much thanks to mis mejores maestros
Carlos y
Fernando. Thank you so much again y muchas gracias por todo otra vez!
By the way, saying thank you and being thankful is a great thing and when I received a list from
Linzi on Thanksgiving Day telling me what she is all thankful for, I felt I should create a list as well. And here is a short version of it:
Literally every day I am thankful for:
- my parents, for raising me perfectly (from my perspective) and for always supporting me in everything I do
- my grandparents, for being the best ones in the world
- my sister, for giving me the ability to be really proud of her
- information technologies, for enabling me to communicate regualarily with them
- having many good friends, as it is possible to learn from everyone any day
- having enough really good friends, as it´s important to share experiences, happiness and sadness
- having the oportunity to travel the world, as it´s for me THE way of gaining knowledge about life, understanding people and developing personally
- having just enough money, to be totally happy
- being healthy, because it´s the basis of everything
- being able to learn quickly, as it makes so many things easier
- being decently looking, as it leads to so many advantages in life
- being able to change the things I am able to change
- being able to accept the things I cannot change
- being able to distiguish between those two
- Linzi, for giving me the idea of creating this list
So this list could go on forever of course but that would be a bit too much I guess. It´s in my head and competes with many other thougts. So as already said, I left México after 6 weeks. Thousands of kilometers and about more than 100 hours on buses led me through the country and every now and then I got very absorbed in thoughts when I was on the road. But above all, a deep satisfactory feeling occupied and still occupies my mind literally everyday.
Every morning when I get up, every time I see the sun, every time I hit the road, every time I meet new people, every time I visit a new place, almost every hour of the day I feel totally happy. About having made the decision to travel once again, about beeing able to just do that, about knowing that there is still plenty of time ahead of me, about knowing that great experiences are awaiting me - I am sure I cannot expect more from life than this absolute FREEDOM!
Ok, so this might have been a bit philosophical but it´s for my grandparents and all the others that keep asking me "what do you want in those countries?" or "when do you come back and start working?"
I am sure I am learning everyday so much more for my life than I would in any school or with any work...
So before I finish off this monologue and finally paste the video here, I want to write some more lines about my beloved México. Things I have only seen there so far are that plates are regularly wrapped in plastic bags to safe the dish washing process, that toilet paper never and nowhere goes into the toilet but always in a bucket next to it, that saving water is a crime (washing the dishes is only allowed with running water, no matter how much you have to clean) and that children on the bus ask their mothers if they can throw the empty plastic bottle out of the window and the mother just says "Sure" and there it goes...
Having talked of the 100+ hours on the bus there is this nice thing called "TOPE" (bumper on the road to slow down the traffic) I want to dedicate my last lines:
Ode to Tope
Although I know you from Germany I only got to know you really here.
Thank you for always being there when I just forgot about you,
when I was falling asleep on the bus and you woke me up,
when I thought you´re gone and then you lie every 15m,
Thank you for probably extenting every bus ride by hours,
for being sometimes marked with ten signs and bright colors,
and other times just lying there grey and invisible.
Then you gave me the james bond feeling
because taken with the right speed you let the cars jump,
and bruise heads, and make drivers apalogizing ten times
while they just forget about the next one of you and hit you with the same speed.
Thank you for being there whenever I don´t need you
and whenever I just wanted to have a nice and comfortable ride.
Thank you TOPE,
I am sure I won´t have to miss you a single day on my travels here.
