Mexico Mexico Mexico

I miss Mexico a lot. I’ve missed it ever since I was back. However, right now it seems a lot stronger now, than it has in the past. It’s strange because I left Mexico with a bad note, if you will. Meaning, at the time I wasn’t really sad to be leaving and at the airport I had to leave in such a rush I didn’t know what had happened. Right when I got back Lieke was there for a week, then Bruna from Brazil for ten days. Then after she left my first host family came for the night. Even though I wasn’t in Mexico, I still had Mexico with me.
Over the past few days I’ve had several dreams. I had my first dream in Spanish ever. I’ve had dreams about my host families, dreams about other exchange students, dreams about people I met in Monterrey. It’s so strange.
I really miss the food and the people I became close with. In reality, I didn’t make any close Mexican friends who were my age. I get the occasional instant message from a person who was in my class, but that’s it. I occasionally e-mail my host families and Jean and Liliana.
I now have a busy life. My life is really starting to pick up again. I was über busy in high school. I stopped working at the paper a month and six days before my departure to Mexico. It was in that month that I realized how much I worked, and that was a lot. I went to an exchange student conference in Michigan and a 10-day trip to Spain and then to Paris in that time period. I left for Mexico on August 5th. I had a hard transition and didn’t have much to do. I tried to be active, but embarrassment to talk and make a mistake prevented me from learning to speak Spanish right away.
Over my year things picked up and went back down as usual. Pretty much a “typical” exchange year. I was happy during the times when the “normal” exchange student was and I was sad at the normal times as well.
I am particularly remembering what I was doing last year at this time. I was trying to get better from being sick, but I was still struggling. I had just gotten back from this amazing trip, but now it was time to rest and really get better. Lieke was off to Mexico city for most of the month and I was stuck at the house to get better. But I wasn’t doing much besides laying down under mounds of blankets (because despite previous belief, Mexico DOES get cold!) and watching movies and walking back and forth from the movie store.
It was right after Christmas, the weekend before New Year’s is when I really felt happy for the first time while I was in Mexico. I had always been content, but this was the first time I was happy where I was, when I was. That weekend was really the first time I went out in Monterrey and I got to meet cool people who were Mexican and not exchange students. I got to spend an amazing new year with Lieke, Linda from Sweden and Jeremie from France.
I think back now at what an amazing year I had. It wasn’t the easiest year, but it was very worth it. Sometimes I can’t believe it happened, like it’s just a dream; but then I look at my pictures and everything comes flooding back to me. I wish I go back and relive all my favorite moments with my favorite people.