Showcase April - Thoughts from a Van | About public transportation selfishness and monopolies
You weren't born in a car Eric, suck it up. Those would be my mom's words if she heard me complain about public transportation. To be honest, I do suck it up. Since I'm very young, toddler young I mean, my family had cars, so I got used to the comfort but, once I grew older I started to use the subway and something called micros, which basically are smallish privately owned by individual drivers buses. These buses have a pretty much rule less behaviour and they answer to no one but themselves and their guild, so you can imagine the chaos that it is commuting in a micro.
Ok, long story short and to not bore you with public transportation details in Mexico, I'm in a van waiting to get to the airport. I have a plane to catch. A plane that will take me to Mexico City. It's just for a couple of days, worry not, I'll come back to Playa del Carmen in a couple of days.
The main reason I'm going to the city and spending 200 bucks for that, is to pick up my University degree, a piece of paper I need to make a life in Europe. Whether it is to get a job or to be eligible to start my Master's, I need my marketing degree. It was supposed to be ready for to pick up in April, but since I would be in Europe already, my dad would have to pick it up for me but, in a positive turn off events, Mexican bureaucracy wasn't as mediocre this time, and instead of 6 months, my degree certificate is ready only 3 months after I finished the initial paperwork. Neat. So I got a plane ticket and I'm on my way to pick up the last piece of paper I need to have my list of to bring to Europe shit.
Which brings me to my next topic. Being ready to emigrate to Europe. Gotta do it correctly this time. For those who didn't read my posts last year - insert Greta Thunberg face and the text how dare you -, I went to Salzburg, Austria with the intention of staying there long term. Well, at least for a longer term than the 3 months I'm able to stay in the Schengen area. I wasn't able to do it. To he completely honest and blunt, it was my fault. I wanted to stay but I didn't do anything spectacular to achieve it.
I was with a girl and had some friends there, but never really did anything to get a job aside from a couple of job interviews the girl and a friend got me. I didn't send a single email or CV anywhere. I didn't research about language courses at all. I didn't even bring my uni degree with me. I know, it's as if my subconscious betrayed me and I didn't want to start there, or at least not in that specific city. Or that person. Or that year. Or all of the above. Or maybe none. Either way, I had to keep traveling.
But now, I'm decided. In convinced, I feel 100% sure I want to do this. I'm already 100% about the city and all my reasons are strong. I'm making this decision for myself and being selfish, perhaps a bit too selfish, but that's the way I've been over the past few years. My decisions have to be positive, first to me and then for the people I love around me. But mainly, myself.
It's not like I'm an asshole. I'm not. I just understood that in order to be completely happy, I have to take care of myself and then, once I'm able to, I can help other people be happy and achieve their goals. I can't help anyone or be a positive influence if I'm not happy with my life and my choices. It's like that old saying, you can't love someone else if you don't love yourself. Well, the reason I'm good giving life advice and people take my opinion as something worth listening to, is because of this; can't help someone help themselves if you aren't in a position to understand that selfish decisions are not as bad as people make them to be.
Wait, I have to get off the van, this is my stop
Oh yeah, I didn't take the $13 USD bus to the airport. There's a 2 buck van that takes you to the entrance of the airport, and all you have to do is walk for half an hour. I walk all the time, so why not do it to the airport and get some excercise while I save ten dollars?
So yeah, I had to get off the van to walk those 2.4 clicks, I even took a picture :)
That's another thing that bothers me about Mexico. Why in the fuck would they charge five times the normal cost to get to the airport. It's a monopoly, there's only one private company who's got the permission to bring people to the airport, so they collude with the local government and for a small bribe, they get to charge whatever they want, just because it's a touristic destination where people pay in dollars or euros. And fuck locals, by the way.
Be that as it may, I'm already in the airport. I'm in a good mood. I'll be able to see my dogs, my family, the grandmas, check some stuff I have pending in Puebla, get some home made food and have a break from the hostel life.
I'm about to go through security and I guess this is a good time to wrap up this post.
I'm a great writer when it comes to intros and to the body of the text, or at least so I've been told and so I think about myself, but when it comes to endings, man am I worse than Mexico's public transportation.
So this is not much of a wrap up, it's just me saying good bye, and read you later amigos :)
This post was originally posted in February 2020 and it's part of my initiative called showcase April, where I'll post the best content I've done over the past three years.
#showcasemay already :D ;)