Today I saw what Mexico City is all about. I went for a walk in the central district, exploring shops and trying to acclimate myself to the foreign surroundings. The shops are so organic here, what I imagine little shops were like in the United States in the 1800s. Not that they shops are unsophisticated; they all have the ubiquitous credit card readers and professional barkers. I took some pictures, but they got erased when I ran out of memory at the National Museo de Antropologia—but I’m getting ahead of myself.
So I went for a short walk, maybe 15 blocks, and came back to the hostel. I vegged here for a minute (I got fitful sleep last night: the light scenario mentioned in my last blog, the mattress is hard, the pillow is hard, I was acclimating to a new personal space, idk, I just didn’t sleep well.) watching an episode of Weeds. I’m almost done with season six…Nancy just found a journalist who convinced her to tell her life story. That is not a spoiler, btw.
Anyway, I decided that Mexico is not made for television. I mean, Mexico makes lots of weed and imports it to the U.S., but that’s neither here nor there. So I planned a trip to the Ingles Kent ESL school. The school is near the National Museo de Antropologia, and I wanted to go there after. It was about seven miles from the hostel, but google maps said it would only take an hour and a half.
Little did they know that streets are named funny here. I walked for 2.5 hours before I gave up on going to the school and just started heading for the museum. The streets and the people are fascinating. I strode confidently through streets I wouldn’t dare show my face in after nightfall. I window-shopped for a time, but the core purpose of getting where I was supposed to be motivated my feet.
The smells are astounding. They change from raw sewage to delicious fried foods to fresh fruit to garbage in the space of several paces. I saw a huge open-air garbage heap about 15 meters square being picked over by poor Mexicans. Blocks away stood large single-family homes, some adobe, some not—all surrounded by tall walls topped with barbed wire. There was even one with electric fencing at the top. Even with this, the disparity between rich and poor is not as great as in the United States. The reason open-air heaps aren’t found at home are the social safety nets in place. Like WIC, food stamps, section 8 housing, social security, Medicare/Medicaid, etc.
The language barrier was quite strong and prevented me from getting directions. I had expected to find English-speakers here and there, but none were to be found. In retrospect I should have continued to ask people, but I felt foolish. People looked at me like I was a bug—“What are you doing in my country if you cannot speak my language?” The directions I did get through my broken Spanish were often contradictory and led me in the wrong direction. I know that at least once I was deliberately given wrong directions. I got lots of pictures that will be posted on facebook later today.
Eventually I got to the museum (with blisters on my feet) and paid my entry fee of 51 pesos. Although I could not read the plaques next to the exhibits, they were fantastico! Ancient works of art, exquisite mudmen that made me think of Liz’s grandmother (who collects them), mummified Olmecs with all their afterlife gear, and too many statues to mention. The museum allows photography as long as there is no flash, so those pictures will also be posted on facebook later.
The cab back to the hostel tried to screw me on the fare, but I since he couldn’t enforce anything, I haggled him down to a reasonable price. When I arrived, I found the four Brits replaced by three beautiful young European ladies, Laura (pronounced La-u-ra) from Germany, Picana(?) from Denmark, and C.D.(?) from France. As you can probably imagine from my name memory, I find Laura the most attractive. We hung out last night and went to a bar nearby with an English guy who was pretty cool.
That’s enough for now. Time to find an English language school to drop off a resumes.

Initial Judgement

As we descend into the heart of Mexico City I fain I can see wisps of its fabled smog rolling in gentle rivulets toward the suburbs. My nostrils wriggle in mock disgust at what they expect to find outside the pressurized cabin.

The lights along the rolling black floor grow closer together as we approach the city. They glitter like tinsel--the mos expensive Christmas decoration ever. Really it is quite similar to approaching any large U.S. city from the air at night.

The lights turn on. The flight attendant gives the same old spiel about upright seat-backs and stowed tray-tables in English, then chatters it all again in Spanish too fast to even try to comprehend. I took two Spanish courses at college, so I begin to understand, but it was two years ago and time fades memory. The pressurized seal of the cabin is broken when the landing gear comes out, the speed of the jet creating a roar at the new discontinuity of its hull. This doesn't hinder the plane slipping through the Mexican sky, just makes it louder.

I have heard of all the violence coming out of Mexico...yet when I look down, I see another American city hoping, striving, wanting what's best for its people.

My friend, the nurse Nikki, warned me so extensively about coming here that I seriously considered staying at the airport in Dallas (now i shudder at the thought). She told me of the U.S. State Department's travel advisory warning Americans away from Mexico, of how two state dept. employees were shot and killed yesterday, of the U.S. embassy closing. She made a convincing argument until I looked up the incident. Two Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were ambushed 160 kilometers from Distrito Federale; I was much less worried about traveling to Mexico City.

I'm sharing a room with four Brits. They're young and raucous and fun. When I went to bed, I walked into an argument about who was going to turn off the light. All four were in bed, harassing each other ("Whoever turns off the light is a fucking prat!"). I can tell from the various bottles littering the floor they've been drinking...so I wait for them to fall asleep so I can turn out the light and go to sleep myself.

The ride to Hostel Amigo was illuminating. I saw squalor and limousines, McDonalds' Playplace and gasoline measured in liters, the old city ad skyscrapers. All this to the accompaniment of police lights. No sirens, just lights. Apparently the prevailing opinion is that cop cars patrolling the streets with lights blazing will suppress crime. I saw nearly 30 on my way here from the airport. (I think I got ripped off for the cab ride. 240 pesos is way too much for such a short ride, I now know.)

Mexico City has 20 million people living in the city limits, and idk how many outside those limits.

A body could be easily lost in this, the biggest city my eyes have beheld.