Melisasa

During my entire exchange and travel period, I meticulously recorded down every spending and categorised it. This wasn't hard with the Pocket Expense app. This app makes everything a piece of cake and even provides chart and percentage breakdown. It's highly customisable too, and one can add categories and accounts. Unfortunately all the data is locked in the app, and I had to manually transfer the data to my computer to generate this inforgraphic.

This infographic is awesome by the way, totally user friendly and has just the right amount of functions needed to create the perfect infographic. 

My last day in Mexico was spent at Mexico City and it was so awesome.

I spent the day walking around and thoroughly going through the exhibits at my favourite museum.



But the best part of the day was really at night, at the Zocalo. CDMX has set up an ice skating rink and a huge slide in the main square, along with lots of Christmas decorations. And it was all free!! I only had to collect my free tickets at the booths located on both sides of the cathedral for the ice skating and arrive to join the queue at the respective time. The only thing I needed to bring was my socks.


1/2 hour before the time stated on the ticket, the crowd was allowed to enter and grab their skates. My shoe size was asked and printed on my ticket beforehand, and once I enter, I simply had to go to the counter with my size, exchange my shoes for my skates and queue to enter the rink. The whole process was so fast and efficient for Mexico's standards, and that left me really really impressed.



The whole experience was wonderful. There were 3 skating areas, connected by ice "bridges" and it was so fun to just go round and round. The main rink got really crowded after awhile though, with lots of "seals" crowding up the rink, for children and first time skaters.






We were all given the chance to skate for up to 1 hour before they started blocking off the bridges and the crowd starts to file out. I went out a little earlier and head straight for the slide. The tickets for the slide is handed out while I queued. When it was my turn, I simply had to carry my own "float" up the slide and the helper was there to push me down. At first look it didn't look that steep, and I was judging all the people who screamed on the way down. But when I was actually sliding down, it felt REALLY steep, and I involuntarily screamed too. Ahahaha

Today's my last day in Puebla. Tomorrow morning I will be headed to Mexico City to spend the night before flying out of this beautiful country.


It has been bittersweet.

Last Wednesday and Thursday, I traveled to a local high school at the outskirts of Puebla under Emilio's invitation and spoke to 5 classes of students about speaking English and Singapore.




On thursday, I also had my last frisbee game, with the Talaveros and afterwards we had tacos at the team's favourite place.

I took my last paper, Spanish, in UDLAP on Friday, and joined the Talaveros for home made burgers and multiple rounds of Dominions at night.



On Saturday, I took a day trip to Tecali. Getting there was alot harder than I thought. In the end, I took 2.5 hours to get there, spent an hour around town and went back to Puebla downtown to hunt for winter accessories.






On Sunday, I spent the whole day planning the U.S. itinerary, before meeting some of the lobas girls at night for a drink. We ended up spending an hour, just walking around the zocalo to find an open bar. I'm glad we did actually, because the christmas lights looked spectacular at night.




On Monday, I spent the whole day planning for U.S. again, before heading to Edith's house to celebrate Posada, a Navidad tradition. It was the last time I saw any of the frisbee people too, and it felt bittersweet.



Today, I packed and sent my clothes for the laundromat. Just came back from lunch with the Singapore guys and Moi.



Been feeling kind of bittersweet the whole week. The house has been getting emptier and emptier as people left for holidays. I've been bidding farewells the whole week too. I feel like I've built a second home here already. A familiar group of friends, a set of routine, and suddenly, I have to leave. It's only been 4+ months, but I've really bonded with the Lobas and the Talaveros and sometimes I forget I have just met them a few months ago. And it's so strange, how close I feel to everyone, even though I barely speak Spanish, and when we never actually spent THAT much time together.

I guess the quality of the time spent with all these wonderful people really made the difference. And even though I'm leaving already, I can't help but feel that I would see them all again. That I would be back in Puebla, back to this community.