A foreign country is such an experience, and the travel there was no different. We flew through Sydney and Los Angeles in order to get to sunny Mexico, which took a lot out of us and really brought us closer together as a team – the delays, missing flights and luggage caused us to have to work together in order to get to our destination in one piece. A thirteen-hour flight is never ideal!
However, I managed to catch up on all the things I have been wanting to do but never had the time to – reading, new movies, new series, etc. I checked out duty-free and managed to get through customs without getting tackled, which is always a plus.
Our first trip around Mexico City was on a big tour bus, which took us around the city to all the places we had never seen before. It really opened my eyes to the fact that Santa Fe is an equivalent to Auckland in terms of business district, and you start experiencing reality and vibrant culture the further out you go. We toured past quite a few historic monuments and explored markets where the bus let us get off and explore for two hours.
We had fresh mango, tried new things, enjoyed what the market could offer, and even ate grasshoppers! The two hours flew by surrounded by such a colourful, bright community full of people with a sense of vibrancy that is difficult to describe. I loved the sales aspect of markets and of Mexico in general with the extroverted approach to business.
Our trip to Tec de Monterrey was a real eye-opener to how different universities operate. Tec encourages a wide spectrum of collaboration, dynamics, and relationships to form under the passion that you are pursuing – whether that be Medicine in a lab, an Engineer who is helping build parts of the university, or a Marketing student creating advertisements to encourage new students into the school. The buildings are inspired, and the classroom is designed to facilitate debate and open-classroom learning.
The other explorations of Mexico included discovering new markets, analysing the largest mall in Latin America, boat-touring on a canal, and horse riding. These new experiences, all occurring in the span of a week, generate a sense of adrenaline that leaves you open to trying extraordinary new things and throwing yourself into the deep end in order to understand more about different cultures and the information that we are absorbing 24/7.
The university, the locals, and the team have all been amazing at helping us to wander around hidden parts of Mexico, and soon we will be in Querétaro where we can begin exploring once more.
Until Querétaro!