My speaker is from England. She developed a rich taste in travelling after this event when she went to Mexico.
After she finished high school, she had an option to do a gap year and go to the U.S, as an exchange student. She made a couple of new friends there, which one of them was Jessie from Australia. At the end of their trip, he said he would be going to Mexico, and asked her to join him. She called her parents up, and she promised them that she would stick with him. They didn’t have enough money to take a flight, so they planned to take a bus to Mexico. In Mexico, they ended up splitting up, which was the one thing she promised her parents she wouldn’t do. But on the way, she met many people and saw many interesting things. She saw a german couple getting married, and she was one of the three witnesses there. She also met someone called Koon, who wanted to enter another neighbouring country illegally, because it is very unsafe there. The went into an empty school bus and hid at the end of the school bus when they would check it, and luckily they didn’t get caught. She went there to explore the culture over there and ended up snorkelling with sharks. The way to get back wasn’t easy either. They needed to pay a shady bus driver to get back to Mexico, but they didn’t have much money and were in a sticky situation. Luckily they met a middle-aged man who could speak English and gave them money to travel. He also went with them to Mexico and dropped them off. She learned that she should always travel without a strict plan, and explore new places, but learned that she should carry more money with her. Another thing that would’ve helped her more, in the travel, would be to learn Spanish, so she would be better at communicating with the locals.