Ive arrived at the last destination of my journey from Iran to Mexico. The time has passed very quick, but I enjoyed every second of it! I still have two days left now to enjoy the beauty of Mexico City. The first day I arrived at Mexico people told me I had to be very careful because tourists are a target for thieves and criminals in Mexico City. They will abduct you to get a ransom. Or they will abduct you to get your organs out and to sell them on the black market as organ donors!
Besides all that, Mexico City is a magnificent city with a good economy. The government gets its money from the mining industry. Fuel and nonfuel mining are very important in Mexico. The mining industry only employs a small part of the labor force, but still Mexico wouldnt be Mexico without mining. Thanks to the mining Mexico has a lot of rough materials to sell on the international market. But Mexico isnt willing to sell all of its oil. It is estimated that Mexico is stocking oil for later in the Gulf of Mexico. Within 30-40 years (when the rough materials are rare) Mexico will still have a large amount of oil (58 billion barrels of oil).
We can conclude that Mexico still has a dark side. People (tourists) still get abducted, but if you are careful you wont get harmed.
So people, this was my last day at Mexico City! L I travelled many distances, had a lot of fun, learned a lot about the economy of the different cities I visited In other means I LOVED IT! Now I got the taste of it and I would like to do a similar journey next year, I want to see and explore more of the world!
I hope you enjoyed following me on my journey! I would like to thank all my bloggers for the support and friendship you gave me these last few weeks. I hope to stay in touch with you all!
We have reached our
final destination Mexico, It was a very exhausting trip, but we are so happy we
could continue with our trip till the end. That is because Mexico is the climax of our trip.Nowadays Mexico is a
very unsafe area for tourist because there is a lot of drugs traffic.Some weeks a go a
drug-cartel has terrorised a tourists zone in Acapulco and threw a hand
grenade in a popular and famous nightclub.
Monterrey is one of
Mexicos most important medical tourism destinations and upscale city, but
there they have to deal with some strange features. There are a lot op
shootouts and kidnappings, and that is the reason why the State Department told
to all its personnel to remove their children form the city streets and
prohibited them from travelling after dark, just because its to dangerous.
When we were in Mexico
we have asked some inhabitants what it is to live in the streets. They told us
that they are often freighted in the evening and night, because they never know
what will happen.
Unfortunately we have
come to the end of our trip. We had a very good time together and we have seen
many things. An other important point is that we know each other much better
and growth to each other.If they
would ask me to make a similar trip, I wouldnt hesitate and defiantly say yes.
At last I want to
thank you for following our blog, and I hope you had a lot of information and
have the courage to make a trip like this yourself.
Yesterday
we arrived at our final destination, Mexico! The weather is nice and there is a
lot to visit, so we can conclude that we stopped in a very interesting country
yet again! But then today, it wasnt as relaxing as yesterday anymore...
When we
were walking through the streets, suddenly a whole bunch of people were in
front of us. They were all yelling things and walking through the streets with
big boards with Hasta la
madre!on them. We wanted to know what this meant and why
there was a manifestation, so we decided to go in a pub near our hotel and ask
there what this was all about.
Later in
the pub an old man told us that they use this manifestation to send a message
to the Mexican government. The message is Hasta la madre!, the sentence we saw
on all the boards and which means we wont take it anymore!. With this they
want to tell president Felipe Calderon to end the drug war and the associated
violence. Allover Mexico people died because of this drug war. Thats why
people all over Mexico protest and join the anti-drug manifestation.
But not
only the Mexican government is responsible for the drug war, its also due to
the Americans who want the drugs.
I hope that
the government will listen to its inhabitants and tries to find a solution for
this problem. Its just not normal that people have to die for some drugs.
Sadly
enough we have to fly back to Belgiumin
a few days.. I wish we could travel even longer, but we have to go back to
school now. All in all I had the best time of my life!! I hope you enjoyed our
blog! If we ever think about making such a great journey again, dont be
afraid, well keep you posted! ;)
This is it,
the last one, the last country of our trip L We arrived in Mexico, where the sun
is shining high in the sky and temperatures are raising over 40°C. But I love
it! Always wanted to go to this country, its also a perfect country to end
this journey that started in Iran. The entire trip was one big adventure and it
was a once in a lifetime experience.
In my last
blog I would like to talk about the swine pig flu that started here in Mexico
some time ago. Its from a video I saw on the BBC website. The flu had a major
outbreak here, killing hundreds of people. After a while, the flu got spreaded
over the entire globe, killing even more people. It took months before they
found a vaccine against it that could save the life of the people who were
infected. Also in Belgium some people died, but it also involved a lot of
panic, caused by the government without no real reason.
In Belgium
they made everyone really scared because of the death of two people. They
bought way to many vaccines that are useless now because that flu has evolved
into something else. And all the panic wasnt necessary at that time because
the flu hadnt reached an major outbreak in Europe. Some people died of the
flu, but that were mostly people who had visited Mexico. I also think that they
exaggerated and made everyone scared without having a proper reason. A lot of
people didnt want to leave their houses and when somebody got ill everyone
immediately thought that it was the swine pig flu.
But Ithink that the flu would have never had an
outbreak In Belgium or even in Europe because everyone there has a much better
immune system than the poor people in Mexico or other poor countries.
But the whole event was also a perfect example of how the media and the
government can influence the people just by making them scared. Who knows what
else they might be telling that isnt true..
This was my
last blog I wrote for our English classes, I really enjoyed it and I might
consider to keep on doing this.
Were
almost there, after this one we will have reached Mexico and the end of our
journey. But for now, were still in Cuba, beautiful country, lots of history,
not always that peaceful with the history of the communism in the background,
and lots of cigars!
Cigars are
probably Cubas most well-known export product and I think that everyone who
smokes them can agree that they are the best.
Cuba has had a lot of troubles with America, but that didnt have an influence
on their export of cigars. In 1991, when America had a trade embargo on Cuba,
they exported over 77 million cigars, thats just an enormous amount of cigars!
I dont
smoke, so I cant say a lot about how good or bad these cigars are. But theyre
probably good if one country can sell so much. But it doesnt mean I cant talk
about cigars, or more in general about smoking. In my country, Belgium, they
recently made a new law which made it impossible to smoke inside a bar. Lots of
people are pro this law, I guess even more people are against.
I dont really know what to think about it. Its probably something good for
your health and for the people who want to drink beer but dont like the smoke.
But I think its something really bad for the owners of the bar, theyll lose a
lot of customers because they dont want to go to a bar anymore where they
cant smoke.But you could endlessly
discus this matter without coming to a consensus.
But to return to Cuba, I dont think that these laws which are coming in a lot
of countries to prevent smoking in public areas will have a lot of effect of
Cubas cigar production. People will still buy their so beloved smokes just to
smoke the in their own houses, will drinking something or just watching
television.
This way my blog from Cuba, next up is Mexico, the last one, its a shame
because I was really beginning to like it. But Im still really happy that I
have seen all these beautiful countries.
Here we are
again with another blog! Times really flying when you have fun, we just landed
in Jamaica after crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Jamaica is red, green, yellow,
Usain Bolt, Cool Runnings and ? BOB MARLEY!!
Of course,
who else? Jamaica is Bob Marley and Bob is Jamaica, the man who changed music
in his own way and who is an influence to hundreds of bands all across the
world. I have a little video from YouTube of Bob Marley singing no women no
cry, probably his greatest hit and one of the best known songs in the world.
Its a live performance at the Amandla Festival in 1979 in Boston just before
he started his Survival 1979 tour.
For me, Bob
Marley is more than a legend. He found a way to make music that you just cant
hate, music that has so much meaning to it and that must touch everyone. I play
in a band myself and even though we make a totally different style of music,
the reggae of Bob Marley has a lot of influence in our music. His way of
writing and his sense of melody just makes listing to his music so much fun. I
like a lot of music styles and reggae is one of them, it just gives me
goosebumps when I listen to that kind of music.
Bob Marley has had a lot of hits with his band The Wailers such as "Is
This Love", "No Woman, No Cry", "Buffalo Soldier" and "I Shot
The Sheriff" and I love every single one of them. Jamaica breathes Bob
Marley, it just has a mentality of being happy, sunny, in a good mood,.. And
you can feel that in the music, it makes you happy when you listen to it en you
just want to dance on it. Bob Marley also plays guitar and that makes him even
more a legend for me, I love his way of playing en the sound that he can
produce out of his guitar.
Next week well be in Cuba and after that your journey will almost be finished.
Lets hope we have the same weather and the same happy-feeling in our two
remaining countries.
After our
sportive stop in Turkey we moved on to Greece, a beautiful country with a very
rich history. When you think of Greece, you immediately think of the ancient
Greeks with all their wisdom and the magnificent old buildings that still stand
there after thousands of years. To write this particular blog I used a source
from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. I used it to look up some information
on the building that everyone should have already seen on picture and should
definitely visit once in their lifetime. Im talking aboutthe Acropolis of Athens. A wonderful building
that used to be a temple but is now only just a ruin on the highest point of
Athens. But even the ruins of this building are still very impressive.
I studied a
little bit of Latin/Greek we I first started high school but I had to stop
doing that because learning all those words wasnt really my thing. But the
culture and history of that time always kept interesting me and Ive always
wanted to learn more about it. This trip through Greece was a perfect
opportunity to do some sightseeing of all these magnificent ancient buildings.
I have always been astonished by the way these people could build such high
building without the current technology.And how they made them so though that they still stand after all those
years. Our current houses cant stand 30 years without having to be fully
renewed and some people 2000 years ago could build buildings that even could be
good homes for people.
But the historical Greece is so much more than just the Acropolis, there are
hundreds of temples, statues en other building that make Greece the country it
is now. I think it would also be a shame if all of this culture would be lost
due to some greedy people who might want to build some tear down all these
monuments and make them into skyscrapers.
Our journey
across the world continues and after Iran weve stopped in Turkey for a couple
of days. Here we went to see a soccer match between Belgium and Turkey. I
really insisted on doing this because we come from Belgium and the national
soccer team of Turkey is one of the best in Europe and the world.
In this blog in included a little video I found on YouTube showing the
highlights and the goals of the match. At the end it was 3-2 for Turkey, a
little disappointment for us buta lot
of celebration in Turkey. Here its a habit of driving your car through the streets,
honking and waving flags when the national team wins.
Im a huge sports fan, going from F1, American football to soccer and tennis. Im
also a big fan of the Red devils, Ive seen a couple of their matches during
the Euro 2012 qualification sessions and every time Im more convinced that we
have one of the best European teams. We cant yet compete against teams like
Brazil, Argentina of Spain, but were getting there. We have a lot players
playing in every big competition and they are all the best of the team. But we
still miss a lot of experience, all our players are barely older than 25 and
they all miss the experience of playing for some time together in the national
team. We also have need of a good trainer, someone who knows everyone and
doesnt have favorite player from his older team where he used to coach.
The lack of experience is probably the main reason why we lost the match
against Turkey. We should have always won that match but due to some little
mistakes we gave the victory away.. But after seeing this match you can only be
hopeful for the future. One day well again be playing in all of the big
tournaments and be one of the favorites to win them.
