Saying Goodbye

                              29 de mayo

I'm in the airport again, but this time its to come home from a life changing journey.
I know I haven't fully finished all the posts I wanted to make about my time here in Mexico, but you can be sure I will be retroactively posting (as I have been for basically this entire blog, unfortunately).

Sebastian came to the airport with me and I have just left him on the other side of security. I cried so much my eyes are stinging and I'm crying again writing about it.

It feels really weird to be leaving Mexico, it really and truly has become a second home to me and it is immensely painful to leave it behind.

I don't even think I have the words I need to describe this experience yet, and the leaving part is, right now, too hard and painful to fully process.

So I'm leaving this post short and bittersweet, and I will try and do a nice and full reflection post when I've caught up on everything else.

Maybe You Need a Little Guatemala

The Thrilling Saga

Snapchat: the wonderful little social media platform where you and your friends exchange pictures. Sometimes they're helpful and provide something called a "geofilter." Perhaps You Need a Little Guatemala is one of those.

And the moment when I caught Syd making the weirdest face goes perfectly with it.

And shout out to Sasha for the screenshot and text filter on part 2.

Here's to many more shenanigans

Popocatépetl

18 de abril

When I woke up this morning it felt colder than normal and the light quality was different.

It wasn't until I was sitting at breakfast and my phone vibrated thanks to a classmate's post to the group facebook page: the volcano is spewing ash and we should wear masks to school.

This being the first volcanic eruption I've experienced in my lifetime, I was both excited and kind of freaked out.  Popocatépetl [popokaˈtepetɬ]is about 30 miles from Puebla, which also just happens to be directly downwind from the active volcano. This is a video of the eruption from twitter:

La fase más intensa de la erupción del #Popocatépetl esta madrugada entre 2:52 am y 3:03 am. Impresionante pic.twitter.com/csHrSt4vUX

— Webcams de México (@webcamsdemexico) April 18, 2016

Syd didn't believe me that there was ash in the air. She thought it was just fog, but then we saw the footprints outside our home. La ceniza [ash] looks like a lovely light dusting of snow. That is, until a car drives by or a light gust of wind wooshes through, throws it into your face and you start coughing up a lung.

We were woefully unprepared to have to deal with an eruption so we had to improvise a method of protecting our lungs from the ash. The university was handing out free masks so we didn't have to improvise for long. I started singing Bastille's Pompeii shortly after the photo on the right was taken which prompted a lovely ¡cállete! [Shut up!] from Sydney. Ah, true friendship.

I've been making Pompeii jokes all day, even though this eruption is no where near that big of a deal. The most damage we're going to get is to engines and the lungs in people that are silly enough not to wear masks (I'm looking at you Sasha).

The only real affect this has had on me is severely dusty shoes, an overly sweaty lower face, and a mild cough. Well, and the fact that this song has been stuck in my head for the last 12 hours. 

The sunset tonight was absolutely stunning since there is a whole bunch of particles in the air. It was a brilliant glowing orange, and I could just make out the outline of the volcano through the haze.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture because there were too many trees in the way. 

There's periodic distant booming right now, but I'm not sure if that's actually Popocatépetl or something else.


Latino Fox News and Inverse both have articles up with more information about what happened this morning if you want more details. There's another video of the eruption below, in color, if  you want to watch it again in slow motion.

El fin del infierno

10 a 12 de Marzo

Winter Quarter went out with a groan and a quick prayer that it was over. The last few weeks of the quarter were hellish, with a professor who wasn't the best communicator nor supportive when we asked for clarification. 

It was a series of busy work, unproductive class discussions, lack of communication and just an eternal bought of frustration.

But its finally over, and I'm pretty sure my sigh of relief when I practically ran out of the classroom after turning in my final exam could be heard across campus.

And so began Spring Break 2k16

Mis amigas y yo had a day of freedom before we left at the crack of dawn for the airport for the next adventure: Guatemala.

As usual, I over packed for the 2 weeks I was going to be gone, but I managed to save enough room for all of the regalos and recuerdos I ended up buying (I regret nothing).

We got off to a rocky start when- for the first time in my life- Uber failed us. There were no drivers available, and when one did appear and accepted the ride, he cancelled it a minute later. So we had to resort to calling a taxi service. I always struggle with this because my Mexican phone is really low quality, and I'm not skilled enough with Spanish yet to be able to fill in the blanks the phone creates in the conversations.

But we made it to the bus station and bought our tickets to the airport. We made it in one piece on a really nice bus but we got lost for a bit in the airport itself. I swear the signs led us in circles. The best part- the security in the airport was so simple. There was no line, we didn't have to take off our shoes, it was absolutely amazing. Such a breeze. I think the airports here are going to spoil me for when I go back to the states...

Getting through customs in Guatemala was relatively simple too. They have you fill out a customs sheet when you enter AND when you leave the country. This freaked us out a little bit when they took our immigration form. How would we verify that we're legally allowed to be there? But apparently its fine and they didn't even have randomly selected bag searches- a plus for me since I almost always get randomly selected.

The best part of immigration was being greeted by this lovely relief next to the bathroom before we actually had to go through customs (shout out to Immigration Offices providing a bathroom, its a rare blessing)

Its Mona Lisa but 3D and much bigger than the original. 

She's also nude.

It was an unexpected sight upon entering a new country, but I love it all the same.

It's Been a "Nope" Sort of Day

10 de febrero

Warning: this post is basically just going to be a big complaining dump about my day.

It's not that well written.

Sorry.

When I put on my "Nope" shirt today I was protesting a Spanish test that I had one night to study for. I was protesting having to wake up early and was expressing my general distaste for the day ahead.

Little did I know that it would quickly turn into the summary of my day.

My phone was stolen in a 30 second window on the (wrong) bus to school today.
I, stupidly, left it in an easily accessible pocket while I paid my fare and as soon as I found a spot and reached for it, it was gone. Props to the thief tho, I hope he gets some good money for it, it was a (relatively) new, nice phone.

I'm trying to be an optimist about this but it's not really working.

I feel kind of empty.

One of the issues with having an anxiety disorder and depression is literally anything can tip you over the scale. When my anxiety gets to high (like before an exam, like today) my depression is generally not too far behind. Motivation has been hard recently, and with this mourning process sort of thing literally all I want to do is curl up in my bed and never leave.

I want to call my parents and just talk.

I want to hide under the blankets and cry.

And it's not just because my phone was stolen, that's just the last straw in the snowball effect that is my life with mental illness (apologies for the blend of idioms). 

I keep being hard on myself about the phone thing and I know I should let it go but also I made a really stupid mistake and now I'm paying for it.

Basically I feel like a mess right now and I hate it.

But, shout out to my friends who comforted me today. It helped <3

Brujas, Cloaks and Classes

19 de enero

Today I learned that some of the churches here in Puebla don't keep holy water in their entry because the local brujas [witches] kept putting potions in it.

I guess it's the optomist in me, but I keep imagining kind little old ladies sauntering up to the holy water and dumping in a potion to encourage compassion and forgiveness because she thinks the world needs more.

In other news, yesterday I bought a chal [shawl] that kind of looks like a cloak. I wore it to class today and at least three friends told me that I look like I belong in Hogwarts. I feel so epic swooshing around in it and it makes me very happy. 

I'm also probably going to sign up for a painting class, even if it is a little nerve wracking and not necessarily in my traditional branch of skills. I originally wanted to do ceramics, but a whole bunch of my classmates are taking it and I don't want to be tempted to gravitate towards only them. I want to make new friends, dammit!

Right now I'm resting my becloaked self in an attempt to recharge my introverted energies. I think this is some of my only free time in a while, and I've felt like I've been running on empty for the last couple of days. It's hard to get alone time when one of the major rules is "Don't go anywhere alone, ever!"