Not having written for another almost 2 months unsurprisingly a LOT has happened…again. When I last wrote I was feeling pretty down about Mexico, but after that tough period I’m starting to feel more positive and enjoy it (with only 2 and a half months to go…). I’ve done a lot more travelling to all the (ever-increasing) list of places I want to go to that’s pinned on my wall. I guess my new-found positivity is partly due to this – getting to see new and completely different places is one of the best things about the year abroad. But actually I think it’s more down to changes I’ve made. So here are the best tips I have for dealing with homesickness…

1. Join a group. I always intended to do this but never found anything I fancied. But recently while running in the park I saw a group doing circuits, and when I asked it turned out to be a group of mums from the local school who train there every day practising for a 6k run they were doing the week after. Despite not having children or ever having done that kind of exercises I decided to go along and see. A few weeks ago I even ran the race with them and finished 3^rd in my category (admittedly there weren’t many 20-something year olds at a school run for parents and children…). They’re all lovely and we sometimes go for breakfast together which improves my normally boring Tuesday and Thursday mornings before going to work!

2. Learn a new skill – last weekend I also went to learn to knit from one of the teachers at the Anglo – my attempts are fairly poor so far (see below) and I can’t remember how to start it off. But it reminded me again how important it is to feel part of something.. especially when you’re away from the university atmosphere of societies and being surrounded by a lot of people you know. The other new thing I’ve started doing is cycling to work with the Boris-bike style system they have here. It saves me the stress of taking the metrobus though admittedly is a bit of an adrenaline rush – Mexico City not being the most bicycle or pedestrian-friendly city to say the least!

3. Find a new workplace – I used to always work on my project on my own in my room until it was time to go to work, or when Arturo finished working. Now I normally go to a café – I may be spending more on coffee but it definitely helps to be in an atmosphere with more people!

4. Plan things – I also made a list of everything I wanted to do in Mexico and have been working my way through it and working out when I will have time to do it all. Sometimes it feels strange to know I probably won’t have time to do everything though!

5. And not just in Mexico…. I’ve also been planning some things for when I get home, like what I want to do for my birthday. Even though it’s still a long way off it feels a lot closer when people at home start to get excited to do stuff too!

6. Make time to talk to family and friends – I’ve been very bad at this at times because to be honest talking to home often makes me feel sad and very far away. And they’re all falling asleep cos it’s normally about 10 at night there… While I don’t want to be thinking about England all the time, and make sure I’m enjoying being here too, it does help to talk things over with someone familiar. Sometimes it feels like you have a lot of big decisions and things to cope with on your own, but it’s important to remember all the people you normally talk to are actually still there!

7. Be proud – this is the thing I’m still working on. Moving abroad is really hard…and yet I’m constantly thinking what I could have done better or comparing myself with other people and their experiences. But as my dad reminded me the other day, I’ve already moved halfway across the world, started a new job, written (well, some of) a uni project, met my boyfriend, moved and settled into a new place twice (soon to be 3 times as I’ll move in with Arturo for the last couple of months…), visited a lot of new and completely different places and also learnt to navigate one of the biggest cities in the world…and spoken a lot of Spanish which after all is the whole point of this year. I still have to go to Chiapas, and learn to surf…but there’s still time!

I guess everyone’s bound to have struggles during this year but that’s some ways I’ve learned to cope! Onto happier things…

Just after my last blog my parents came to visit. Seeing them arrive in Mexico City was a fairly surreal experience but they settled in quickly! They stayed in an amazing hotel right next to my house, which was air-conditioned and double-glazed so unlike me they didn’t have to deal with the noise and heat 24 hours a day… 😉. Having never travelled much further than Europe like me it was interesting to see what they thought of the city, and I think it was very different to what they’d expected! Although it’s huge and at times overwhelming, in fact there’s tons to do, it’s pretty green and feels way less dangerous than I imagined it would. They mostly seemed impressed by how cheap the taxis were….

We did a lot of things and the week went far too quickly! But I’m pleased to say I’ve now finally visited Puebla, where I was originally going for my year abroad. Although it was beautiful, I’m glad I went at the end of the year to be able to compare it with other places I’ve been. I found it pretty similar to a lot of other colonial towns I’ve visited, and actually although I’m happy I managed to visit it I don’t regret coming to Mexico City. Being in the capital and centre of everything definitely has advantages!

We also went to Teotihuacán (one of the first places people told me to go..it only took 6 months!) It’s one of the oldest pyramids and the biggest in Mexico (3rd tallest in the world!). It was really impressive but also very very hot and a lot of walking, so while Dad explored the entire thing we ended up going for lunch after the Pyramid of the Sun…

During the week I worked but the school really kindly let me only come in for my classes so I could spend a lot of time with Mum and Dad too. We went to the Museo de Antropologia – after scanning all the rooms and having a coffee, me and Mum went to find Dad, assuming he’d have finished. He was in room 2. So he went back another day (and still didn’t manage to finish) while we went to the Castillo de Chapultepec. We also went to Templo Mayor, on a bus tour and to Xochimilco, the ‘floating gardens’ right in the south of the city. I was very proud of myself for haggling the price down from 800 pesos, and also accidentally got the number of our guide, who said he’ll give me a discount next time I come. He told me to save him as Jesus ‘Xochimilco’ or ‘trajinera’, ‘so I don’t get confused’..because I have so many Jesuses in my phone obviously… I tried to persuade him to put my name on the front of one of the boats but unfortunately he doesn’t have that authority.

On the Friday I got the day off so we went to Tepoztlán. Though it was pretty hot and tiring we all managed to get to the top and I enjoyed it even more than last time since there was far fewer people and we had more time. We saw a lot of eagles (or maybe vultures), went for lunch in a lovely restaurant surrounded by trees and had the best Tepoznieve (ice cream) ever!

The weekend after they left I went to the Mariposas Monarcas, another long-held ambition since arriving! They’re butterflies which fly every year from Canada to Mexico, to the exact same area. We went on a suspiciously cheap tour which cost £20 and took us to 3 different places and included transportation. As Arturo put it, we went with the ‘lowest expectations possible’ but were pleasantly surprised! It left at 7 so we got up at half 5 (hideous) to get the bus, which took about 2 hours. When we arrived we decided to hire horses to take us to the top – although this was a really cool experience and something I wanted to do, I also spent the whole time so tense and scared I’d fall off that every muscle in my body ached by the time I did finally get down…

The butterflies were even better than I had imagined – there were so many you could pick them up and some were really tame, I made friends with one and held it for about 20 minutes until I took pity on a woman who couldn’t find any to pick up (and cruelly cut our friendship short). Whenever anyone made a loud noise hundreds of butterflies flew up into the air at the same time which was incredible to see. Arturo’s main complaint was that it was very hard to take photos…so we really had nothing to complain about 😉 Except that on the way down the guide led the horse too close to the fence, and I scraped my leg on a nail and had to have first aid (more sadly, I broke one of the only two pairs of leggings I have in Mexico)

After that the tour went on to some waterfalls – I initially thought they were this very rubbish weir everyone was taking photos of…

But luckily the real thing was actually quite impressive! Finally we went to Valle de Bravo, a posh town on a lake where Peña Nieto has his holiday house (those from Devon, think the Dartmouth of Mexico…). To give you an idea, there were yachts and golf carts for sale… Although it’s actually a pretend artificial lake, so doesn’t really count.

Then the weekend after that it was a bank holiday so Laura and I went to Taxco, about 3 hours from Mexico City. I’ve been wanting to go for a while – everyone says it’s the place to buy silver. Not that I ever buy silver so I don’t really know why that seemed like an attraction. In fact my Dad’s advice to check the value of jewellery I can bring back to England made me laugh, since I bought 1 pair of earrings for the equivalent of £2…

When we arrived it was pouring with rain and the curvy mountain journey made both of us feel very sick, so not a great start. Our hostel was pretty hilarious, with the most unnecessarily giant bed I’ve ever seen, and a strange extension in the bathroom. The guy talked to us incredibly slowly like we were idiots, and accidentally forgot to charge us until we were leaving (then overcharged us…)

But Taxco was absolutely beautiful, like a Swiss mountain town in the middle of Mexico. It was built during the silver rush and you can definitely see the European influence! On the first day we took a bus from Taxco to the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa, some amazing natural caves which reach up to 80 metres in height and are 4km long. We couldn’t even go in the last 2km because there isn’t enough oxygen! We opted to do a zip-wire trip across to the caves even though it was about 10 seconds long – unfortunately there are no photos of me because Laura wasn’t quick enough with her phone, so here’s one of her doing it instead:

The caves were absolutely incredible with ridiculously impressive stalagmites and stalactites. The only problem was we were with a tour of about 100 people in which the guide told us nothing about the history of the caves and just pointed out how ‘hey, look! This rock looks like a couple kissing! And this one’s like Santa Claus’…

After that we went back to Taxco and looked around the town, market and church.

We walked up a very very steep hill, which turned out to be worth it when we got this view…

On Sunday we came back to Mexico City and in the evening I went to Vive Latino, one of the biggest music festivals in Mexico, with Arturo. I didn’t know many of the people playing, except for Molotov who I actually studied in one of my content modules in first year – so it was pretty surreal to see them in real life, like living one of my lectures!

Anyway I’ll leave it there since yet again I’ve rambled on for a very very long time! Next time I write I’ll be on the final stretch and already have come back from my holidays in the Yucatan peninsula – including spring break in Cancun…I’ll let you know how that goes…