From the USA to Monterrey (MX) to the USA :)

After leaving Norbert at the junkyard, I took the bus from San Antonio (Texas) to Monterrey (Mexico).

I have rarely met such friendly people like the Mexicans: even without knowing Spanish, I was accepted right away (with communication through hands and feet) :) (More details will follow in person: there were too many cool stories to summarize here :D )

I had the opportunity to stay with a friend and his family in Monterrey. It was very nice and quite different from Germany, as children here live with their parents for a long time and families are very religious. In general, it was incredibly warm-hearted. Even though I didn't want to live under the same roof as my adult siblings AND my parents (sorry guys ;) ;) ), we Germans could learn something from the Mexicans :)

North Mexico in a nutshell: I don't want to sugarcoat anything. Mexico is dangerous. In the past 6 years, there have been 20,000 murders in Mexico, and those are only the ones we know about. However, it is also beautiful. Since I had 24/7 company (which was not easy for me), the whole experience felt very bizarre: Of course, Mexicans stay away from the dangerous areas and the warnings feel incredibly distant. You can hear the fear in the stories, and yet the people love their Mexico. (Including me ^^)

Another big topic was cars: public transportation is incredibly poorly developed and overcrowded, and sometimes even dangerous (sometimes people get on just to steal from everyone). Only private schools have school buses. And that's why everyone who can afford it has a car. A 'short' drive here takes half an hour in the flat cities (the houses from above look a bit like a liquid that, like a lake, stands between the mountains). Often, it comes down to centimeters, whether it's changing lanes or parking. It was one of those typical things: you are regularly shocked but it's too fascinating (and necessary) to give it up or look away ^^

I could probably write about my 3 days in Mexico for hours, but for now, that's enough :)

The rest is hopefully self-explanatory thanks to the pictures, so I can spare you an even longer post (Mexicans hardly eat potatoes, otherwise I would have posted one here ;) )