Welcome to Cancun
¡Hola Mexico! ¡Hola Cancun!
First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Chantal and I just turned 19 years old. Right now I live in Cancun, but until 2,5 weeks ago I lived in a small village in the Netherlands. Now you´re probably wondering, what does such a young Dutch girl in the far Mexico? I´m goig to tell you guys… I am doing my internship at EcoColors Tours in Cancun, Mexico. It´s part of my study Tourism Management at the NHTV in Breda.
Now you know something about who I am, I´m going to tell you my experiences about the journey and how my first experiences are to live in Mexico as a Dutch person.
The flight to Cancun was very long, especially since it was only the second time I travelled by plane. I booked my flight from Brussels because it was less expensive than Amsterdam and the distance between my house and the airport is nearly the same. After I said goodbye to everyone, it was time for me to go to the customs control. I had to take my laptop out of my suitcase and then it was okay. But of course, before I got in the plane, they wanted to do a second check with me. So I could open my suitcase again, take everything out and pack everything again…
When I finally got in the plane I had no neighbor during the flight. When my flight from Brussels to Atlanta lasted 9:40 hours, it is a very long time when you´re alone and have no one to talk to. Therefore, I watched some (like 3) movies on the plane. Luckily I got tasty food and they often asked me if I wanted something to drink. It made the whole flight a lot easier.
At Atlanta Airport, I had almost 4 hours to catch my next plane. In advance, this seemed to be a long time, but since I already needed two hours for passport control and I don´t know what else, the time went a lot faster. Of course they need to check my suitcase again, I think that I look like a criminal or something. After that, I changed a little bit of money, ate some food at McDonalds and went to the toilet, it was already time for me to go to the gate. Since Atlanta is such a big airport, I took the train to the right terminal.
When I got on the plane, I sat next to women who just came back from a trip Disney World with her family. The kids had Disney plush toys, they had Disney suitcases and even her husband had a Disney cap. After two and a half hour of listening to Disney songs while I was trying to read, we arrived in, to what the pilot said, Sunny Cancun. But when I opened my window screen, it was really black outside. It was already dark, but it was only 8 o´clock! I didn´t expect that, but when I finally got out of the airport, in the ´fresh air´ it was really warm and stuffy. Welcome to Cancun! After a long trip to my apartment, I finally got in my bed, happy me!
The next week I had to do some shopping, had problems with withdrawing money and felt really alone. I was glad that I could start my internship on Monday, so I have something to do and meet some people. My colleagues are really nice and I like the work. But I still have trouble with being alone at night and in the weekends. Especially because the time difference with home is 7 hours. So when I´m done working, everybody at home is already in bed. But I have some series to watch and I´m planning to do some nice things in the weekends so I will be fine. I hope to meet some people, where I can hang out with in the weekends, really soon. I truly miss my family and friends at home, it´s hard having them not near to me.
Even life here is much different from life at home (I have to do my laundry in a Laundromat, learn Spanish and take taxis, which are very cheap) it’s really great, I am going to see amazing things, enjoy the beautiful beaches and going to ´school´ in an environment which is much better than the rainy Holland 🙂
¡Hasta luego!
– Chantal van den Boogaert