Dulcet lolly lolas, sugar, honey, and hard candy

More than half of our stay in Mexico is gone.
Fortunately, next week we’ll be done with our boring, totally unstrenuous classes, and we’ll enjoy the freedom of traveling in the more Southern and more traditional Mexico.

Not that we haven’t done that already, I was actually talking to one of my local friends, telling him that we’ve stayed at home during the last weekend and he uttered in surprise: “That’s straaaaange!”

So starting from next week, we have more than one month to relax, enjoy, travel, know people and places, get more in touch with this beautiful country, fall for it deeper…yes, it’s official: we love it, we adore it, we want to stay longer!
To those of you who know my parents: please keep this a secret! My mother would kill me right now if I told her I’m planning to prolong my stay here with a few months. She doesn’t have to know until the very last minute, just as always.
The bad news is that up to now we haven’t been able to find any internship in Monterrey beginning in January, the good news – for us – is that we’re on the way to decide to stay longer anyway.

Random fact: “Mexico has the highest proportion of women in power, out of all the emerging countries”
Hah! That’s only one small reason for which we’d like to cancel the return tickets in January. Because the reasons are uncountable…we’re simply fascinated with everything that is happening to us here, it’s an active, full life, sprinkled with opportunities and all the activities we might want, enriched with beautiful people. And no, I’m not referring to handsome Mexicans who are – or can be – all some gentlemen with us. Even though they do exist, and we do appreciate them, there’s more to our love for Mexico than that.
Almost every day, we encounter people and situations that simply bewilder us. In the most pleasant manner. They are so kind-hearted, communicative, sociable, and natural, they lead their lives in such a sentimental and emotional manner that they make us doubt our own goodness. I myself have a confession to make: lately I have often felt the urge to cry. And it was not because I was sad. It was just because I often felt such joy that my smile just could not express it.
Do you know the feeling of a happiness so full, a satisfaction so profound, a positive emotion so strong that your mere smile is not enough to express it?
To put it in a nutshell, our life here is like a hot, relaxing shower after a walk in the dark, cold, windy rain. And who wouldn’t want such a shower to be as long as possible…?

Of course, there are also unpleasant details but we’re slowly getting used to ignoring them or, even better, to make fun of them, to relax, lean back and enjoy. Enjoy the taxi drivers who sing, recite their poems, try to teach us Spanish or toot us every 5 meters when we dare to take a walk. Enjoy the Oxxo – a local variety of 7/11 or a more modern Romanian “alimentara” – shop assistant whom we haven’t decided if he stupefies us more because he speaks, moves, calculates in slow motion, or because of his unbelievably long and dirty nails. Enjoy how many people hurry to give us a hand when we come out of the supermarket loaded with shopping bags and head for a taxi. A hand with a two-way movement: putting the shopping bags in the taxi trunk, waving at the taxi driver, opening the car’s door for us (and often there’s one person doing each of these :))) ), and, of course, taking the tip from us.
Enjoy how joyful workers who are painting the walls of our block of flats are, at 7 am on Saturdays, when they interpret the most impressive and loudest Mexican ranchero or cumbia songs. Enjoy how everyone wears the local football team’s t-shirts when there’s a match, including the little baby who’s not able to walk, but who’s joining the enthusiastic family on the stadium.
Enjoy the automatic machine coffee which is only available in big and jumbo sizes, the yoghurt that’s always sweet, the numerous cheeses whose tastes reduce mainly to 2 basic categories: soft, sweetish Oaxaca cheese and harder, fatter, saltier Oaxaca cheese (a sort of Romanian “telemea”). The huge phone fares caused by the monopoly in this industry, the guardian at the entrance of our residences, who rises the barrier for cars each time we walk by although we have plenty of space to pass on the walking lane, the parties where we’re accused to be “party-poopers” when we leave at 3 a.m.
The cold in our school, which is very fond of air conditioner, the infinite patience and kindness of our swimming teacher – we’re worse in water than the fish on sand- , the walks in the beautiful campus, the forever-beautiful colours of the sky surrounding the mountains surrounding the city. And if we ever get sad, angry, frustrated, annoyed with some Mexican whose behaviour is out of our power of comprehension – which does happen from time to time- we just look at these mountains. And then it’s all better. All good.