My trip started from Sabinas with my second host parents and my host sister in one car and Lieke, her host parents and another couple from the club in the other car. It was a LONG drive. It's a 6-hour drive but with bathroom stops and food stops it took almost 10 hours. We arrived in Tampico and saw all the other exchangers and that is always fun. Then I went to my host house in Tampico. I stayed with the same woman I stayed with last October.
Friday morning we went to a sports/recreation place just outside of Tampico. It was fun, not too hot and we played volleyball and sat around and hung out. The Brazilian boys brought out the hose and successfully got everyone completely soaked.
At night we went to an event called "The night of the clubs" where a lot of the clubs in the district had prepared little shows. I had to chuckle because I don't think you could ever get the Galena Rotary Club to go up on stage and dance and sing. It's a lot of preparation.
Saturday all the exchangers did a little presentation where we said our names and introduced ourselves in our own language and then in Spanish. After the presentation we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach. I stayed in the shade because I didn't want to burn. Why on earth would I want a red face and shoulders for the big night of the dance? The same night of Prom in Galena I was dressed in my prom dress from junior year along with my fellow exchangers. It was a very cool night. I got to see everyone dressed up and dance all night.
Germany, ME!, Switzerland, Brasil, Germany, USA, and Finland
My second host parents and me
Me, Cristy (my second host sister), Anna Laura (Lieke's first host sister) and Lieke
While I was going home from the dance I could feel a little tingling in the back of my nose and throat. I was getting a cold. So it was miserable to wake up on Sunday morning and feel absolutely terrible. My host mom in Tampico took me on a little tour of the city and then we had a little party for her niece's birthday. Then I met all the exchange students to go on the trip!!!!
We drove 10 hours to Veracruz. The next day we went to the Aquarium and the Centro, which is in the port of Veracruz. A TV reporter and camera came by and interviewed us. I can only assume we were on TV. I introduced myself and commented that Veracruz was very pretty and smelled like fish.
The next day we left for Palenque. It's a ruins site. It was very big and HOT! There also happened to be a group of Japanese tourists. It was fun to watch the Japanese girl talk to them and I even counted to 10 for them.
The hotel was cool and I ate ice cream with a few of my friends. It was also cool to meet a friend of the girl from Belgium. Her best friend is an exchange student in Mexico and his parents are here and they are traveling around. They happened to be in Palenque the same night we were.
Palenque
Pretty waterfalls
Me in front of waterfalls
Wednesday we went to Aguas Azul: WATERFALLS! It was absolutely beautiful. I don't even know how many there were, but I had to climb a lot of stairs to see them all. I went in the water and it was very cold.
We headed up to Mérida after the waterfalls. We arrived late and went to bed. The next day I was fortunate enough to see my cousin Stephanie again. We spent the day together and then I got to meet her English teaching partner who happens to be from Milidgeville! That was pretty much amazing, I know where that is and she knows where Galena is!!!
After that exciting moment my group went to Uxmal. I went there in April with my friends. It was a lot of fun and interesting the second time around. What I really like about this ruin site is it's very detailed. It's not as big, but it's more detailed than most of the other sites.
In front of the Uxmal ruin site.
We left Friday morning for Cancun; en route we stopped at Chitzen Itza, which is the most famous of all the ruins. It's very big and cool to think how life functioned there so long ago yet at the same time it was a little disappointing because you couldn't climb up the big pyramid. Right now it's in the running for being one of the 7 Marvels of the world so no one could climb up and it was very disappointing, but amazing at the same time.
My group in front of Chitzen Itza
We arrived in Cancun in late afternoon and it was awesome. The weather was perfect and it was a lot of fun to see the beach. At night we went to the show and then to the disco in the hotel.
Saturday we spent all day at the beach and pool. I really enjoyed myself, but I didn't like the hotel so much. I really liked the beach, but I liked the hotel in Puerto Vallarta better. It had better food, better staff and was a lot smaller. Our hotel in Cancun was HUGE! We were also very rowdy in the pool that day. So the security didn't like us either.
Sunday we went to a park called Xcaret about 45 minutes from Cancun. This park was very cool. It was like a forest with a zoological area and a beautiful view. I swam through a river for 45 minutes (I guess I floated, because I really can't swim) I saw dolphins and turtles and flamingos, oh my! It was a really great day, except at about 4 it started to rain, and it rained for about an hour.
Me, Laura from Finland and Susan from Germany when we ate dinner at the Italian restaurant.
At night the park puts on a show about the history, culture and heritage of Mexico. It was fascinating because it really went right through the history if Mexico and all parts of the country. One of my friends from Germany said, "you know, I've never really been proud of Germany, but right now I'm really proud of Mexico." It was very cultural and amazing. (and it was also Mother's Day!)
I was really sad that it was raining!
Zoe from Hungary and me enjoy hammocks, the sea and sun!
We spent Monday much like Saturday, the beach and the pool. We ate dinner at the Brazilian restaurant. It was very good. Monday night was a highlight of the trip. We went to the best disco in all of Mexico: The Coco Bongo. It was awesome. They had shows all night long of different performers: Jesus Christ, Beyonce, Michael Jackson, Moulin Rouge, Elvis, Spiderman and Beetlejuice, just to name a few.
Sam from Belgium and me enjoying the beach in CANCUN!!!
Tuesday I didn't feel the greatest and a lot of others didn't feel very good either. But we went to the Centro and walked around and then to the expensive mall and walked around. We went back to the hotel and ate and then hopped on the bus for a 14-hour bus ride to Villahermosa.
We drove all night and arrived in Villahermosa, Tabasco (my plane landed there on my way back to Monterrey from Merida in April) It's a beautiful town and we got to walk around for while. We went to a zoological park where at one point I was walking under a tree and hit on the arm by a piece of fruit that a squirrel no longer wanted. We kind of bummed during the late afternoon and night. At midnight we celebrated Lieke's birthday by putting a piece of cake in her face.
Thursday we went from Villahermosa to Veracruz. We stayed in the same hotel and went up and hung out by the pool and talked. At night we had our going away party and it was fun to hang out and have a last blast together.
Johans from Germany on our last night!
I spent 23 hours in a bus. I can tell you that was really fun. We went from Veracruz to Tampico and that road is a doozy, so I felt sick. Then from Tampico to Victoria then to Reynosa then to Monterrey and finally Sabinas. We left Veracruz at 9:30 a.m. and Lieke and I arrived in Sabinas at 8:30.
It was an AMAZING trip and I wouldn't have traded it for anything!
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