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.