We traveled for eighteen hours today, spending more time in layovers than on airplanes. At around 4:30 am, Cesar, who works at Tec de Monterrey, very kindly picked us up from the residence building. We made sure to say our goodbyes and thank-yous to the guards before we left, as they had been so friendly and helpful during our entire stay. During the drive, Cesar seemed more awake than we were, enthusiastically singing along to American top 40 music. Once we arrived at the Puebla airport, we realized we needn’t have been so early. Security wasn’t even open for us to go through. Eventually, of course, we did board the plane and fly to Houston.

We had to go through customs in Houston, and we stood in the Visitors line for an hour and a half before an airport employee informed us that Canadians can stand in the (much shorter) U.S. Residents line instead. After that we didn’t have much of our layover left, so, wanting to still leave the airport in some way, we sunbathed in the parking lot on the roof for an hour before boarding our flight to San Francisco. (It was really windy up there, as the photo shows.)

In San Francisco, we raced the clock and used our five-hour layover to see as much of the city as possible. We were pretty proud of how much we managed to do without missing our next flight. We took a train to downtown and saw the famous Union Square, which was nice but somewhat of a letdown after visiting so many beautiful zocalos. We had lunch at a spectacular Indian restaurant with delicious curries and delightful chai, then took part of it to go due to our time crunch, and each jumped on the back of a cable car just to capture a classic San Francisco tourist photo before we needed to catch the train back to the airport. While on the train, we chatted with a couple of young men who were in the city just for the weekend, for the Bay to Breakers race, which, we were informed, is essentially more of a giant party than an actual race.

We finally flew to Vancouver and arrived, sleepy but happy, at 10:30 pm. We were, thankfully, allowed to keep all of the food items we brought home for family and friends. My parents both came to pick me up from the airport, and I stayed at their house, filling them and my little brother in on my adventures, until 1:00 am before driving home.

My three weeks in Puebla were an absolutely incredible experience, and I learned so much! I am very thankful to UBC and Tec de Monterrey for providing this amazing opportunity, and I sincerely thank all of you for reading this blog and journeying with me in spirit. Adios!