I study Applied Physics and am currently studying for half a year at Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Puebla in Mexico. I had the above conversation with a Mexican friend of mine in one of my first weeks. Safety is a very different concept here. In The Netherlands safety is a given fact, while here it is something that you achieve by being careful and avoiding doing stupid things. Puebla is one of the safest cities in Mexico but still it doesn’t seem all that safe. For example a student from my university was kidnapped and murdered by his two best friends last year and you will always see the police walking around with either an M4 or a shotgun. So that is something to get used to.

But don’t get me wrong, Mexico is one of the most fantastic countries I’ve ever been to. The people are incredible friendly, the girls beautiful, the life cheap, and the culture rich. Life evolves here day by day and everyone seems to enjoy it. The attitude is not as much mañana mañana as everybody always jokingly says, as well tranquilo, in other words: everybody does their things but in a very relaxed way. Even at the university. Even some professors seem to realize only now that we started the semester a bit too slow.

I’ve had an incredible half year here in which I’ve learned to speak Spanish, met people from all over the world and visited beautiful places. Unfortunately while I am writing this, I only have two weeks left before my time here comes to an end and I will start missing everything intensely.