A few days before I was due to finish the hell that was Winter Quarter finals and embark on my much-discussed Spring Break I was (as usual) chatting to a friend on Skype who asked me about my plans. After indulging her in a detailed account of what I felt to be an excellently constructed week away (me + fourteen Americans drinking and hiking in Yosemite followed by a glamorous weekend in Los Angeles) she looked a bit disappointed. “But why aren’t you going to Tijuana?”
Up to the point when I actually met real-life Americans in America the term ‘Spring Break’ meant the same thing to me as it does to everyone who doesn’t know about the perils involved in traversing the much discussed U.S-Mexico border. As I signed my life away to EAP back in London I dreamt of how I would spend my ten day break, envisioning myself dancing in some beach bar with Snoop Dogg before taking part in a whipped cream based talent show compered by Jerry Springer. Reality hit upon arrival in Santa Cruz as I was frequently told that, by all means, go and down tequila in TJ but be careful because you MIGHT DIE. This message was only reiterated by the issuing of a travel warning by the Department of State discouraging from ‘unnecessary travel to Mexico’. In my opinion cheap cocktails, MTV hosted dance parties and outlandish shows of promiscuity in front of C-list celebrities are all totally ‘necessary’, but I took the safe bet and headed for the mountains.
I know some people who did fulfil their foreign student requirements and spent Spring Break in Mexico, a place which they described as being ‘a bit quiet’. By no means do I wish to perpetrate the image of Mexico as a country ruled by drug-barons and populated by piñata wielding peasants because too many of these negative images exist as it is. I’m just glad that the worst thing that happened to me on my Spring Break was passing out at a house party in Bel Air and having a cat vomit on my leg.
