fun times in la ciudad loca!

I had been dreading the long journey from Auckand to LA for some time and, it turned out, this was with good reason! Firstly, my flight from Auckland to LA was delayed by two hours and Auckland airport is not exactly a very interesting place to be stuck in! However, several large glasses of wine and a chinese accupressure massage later, I was ready to sleep as soon as i hit the plane. This was a good thing as the inflight entertainment wasn´t working and it was a 12 hour flight! Having slept my way through most of the journey, I arrived bleary eyed in LA and was really worried about missing my connection to Mexico City as we were so late-I even got the immigration lady to let me push the que (quite a feat in LA where they seem to think everyone is a terrorist, even if they don´t want to leave the airport before moving on!) The customs man looked very suspiciously at me and asked about my egyptian passport stamp and why i wanted to go to Mexico (Americans eh?- no sense of adventure!!) Eventually they let me through and i rushed to the chaotic part of the airport where air Mexicana is based. Having made it to the front of the que, the lady calmly informed me that there would be a slight delay to the flight. When i asked how long, she nonchalently responded "about 6 hours..."at which point my face fell!! Obviosuly feeling sorry for me, she changed my flight, but only to one in 5 hours time! This stressed me out a bit as i was knackered and also i was being collected at Mexico City airport by a taxi from the school and i knew changing my flight would make this pretty difficult! However, i realised there wasn´t a lot i could do, so i went for some food and waited for the flight. Having seen that my new flight was now delayed too, i nearly gave up and stayed in LA for the night, but eventually I boarded the flight 8 hours after i should have done and slumped into my seat. The first thing i noticed was that i was the only non mexican on the plane- a sign of things to come!

We finally landed at mexico city airport at 1:30am and its the quickest I`ve ever cleared customs as i was the only one in the foreigners que! I didn´t expect to see my taxi so  when i saw the man with a sign with my name on it I nearlyu leapt into his arms with gratitude!! I was taken to my appartment which is in the same building as the school and left to my own devices. It was seriously noisy as there was a rock club with a live band playing directly opposite the appartment and the street noise was phenomenal. I felt a bit lost and homesick and started to wonder if I´d made the right decision (I was definately missing Rosie who I´d got so used to being with all the time- it was a massive shock to be on my own again and in such new circumstances.) Eventually I managed to get to sleep and slumbered well into the following day.

The following day was Sunday so I had a day until school started. I was a bit scared of going out to explore as my spanish was very poor but i decided that adventures only happen to those who look for them so i braved the great outdoors! I wasn´t sure how safe the city would be but as i wandered around and tried to get my bearings, I got the impression of a vibrant, crazy place but not one that intimidated me in the slightest. I found the nearest 2 metro stops and nearby shops and returned to the apprtment to regroup. I was still alone there and wasn´t sure if i´d get a room mate (the appartment is huge with 2 big bedrooms and a large living area and kitchen) so decided to brave walking even further ins earch of some dinner. I made my way to what I now know is the Zona Rosa, a part of the city full of shops and restuarants and chose a spanish place to eat in. The food was very nice and i was glad that my limited spanish stretched to ordering food and saying thank you without major incident! On arriving back at the appartment i met my new room mate, Aarti, who was also English. she and I got on really well which was a relief and it was great to have a partner in crime, even though she was only staying for a week.

The following day we made our way to the school for what was supposed to be our first day of lessons. It looked pretty big on the website but inreality was the same size as our appartment! The teacher there started speaking in rapid fire spanish at us which left me utterly clueless and, it seemed, wanted us to take a test to see our level of spanish!! this seemed a little odd to me as i was enrolled on the total beginners course and couldn`t really speak a word, let alone understand at breakneck speed! Eventually Aarti and I were put into a classroom and told to wait until 10 when the class would start. We were soon joined by the others who would be fellow pupils.

They were as follows:

Ze germans- Paul and Marina who really couldn`t have been more german if they tried! He was sooooo tall and extremely dominant whilst she was pretty sweet and incredibly quiet (I later found out every time she tried to talk he made her be quiet, beleiving his english to be far superior to hers!!)

Aamish- an indian guy who was a bit of a wide boy and dipped in and out of our classes as he pleased it seemed. He was always late, blaming work as he was in Mexico awaiting the renewal of his US visa and had to do 15 hours a week for his company (these hours always seemed to coincide with grammar lessons! Coincidence? I don`t think so!)

Justin- very sweet guy from the US. Clearly pretty intelligent and probably too good for our class anyhow, he spent most of the first week staring into space and i had to threaten to kick his ass down the stairs in order to get repsonses out of him! (once i got to know him better obviously- i don`t tend to threatyen strangers but the teacher never gave up unless we each gave an example of every damn verb!!)

So, Aarti and I were in a class with this mixed bunch for our entire first week. The first days lessons were pretty hard as she only spoke in Spanish and my brain hurt after an hour, let alone 3 and a half with only a quick half hour break in the middle! (Brain cells still lost on shot glass in New Zealand- reward for successful capture and return!) Having tried our best in class, we decided we deserved a nice lunch and so walked to the Zona Rosa which is a popular spot in the city for lunching. My first observation (and one I`ve made many times since) is how many people snog in the streets here! It really is the city of lovers with people locked in passionate clinches everywhere you turn! can really put you off your lunch! Aaarti andI also managed to wander into what was obviously the gay snogging zone and had to quickly find our way out again amidst some fairly hostile looks! Over lunch the waiter took great delight in teaching me the spanish for various things (fork, spoon etc) and i think i learnt more from him than i had that morning (practical application over beer is so much better than being stuck in a classroom!)

That evening we decided to have a few glasses of wine in our flat then hit the zona rosa again for a few drinks. Needless to say, mexican cocktails are pretty strong and we were soon rather merry. We decided we`d better go home and hailed a street cab with easew. It was only when he said "de donde?" that we faultered in our slightly drunken good humour... oh god, where did we live?? We told him the street name but it runs the entire city so he asked north or south (perfectly reasonable question) Unable to answer, we gave him the only landmark we could remember.... er Pizza Hut!!! Luckily for us, he got us there and it made a v funny story but we made sure to get the proper directions for next time!!

i fully paid for the nachos I`d had the night before the next day witha full case of Montezumas revenge! I didn`t feel like it but dragged myself out of bed to go to clkass. Aarti had a lousy cold so between the two of us we did not make a pretty sight! We asked about the activities the school was supposed to run and about the textbooks we were supposed to have but were told there were none of either. Livid and ill, I called Cacutus language at home and twnety mins later we had textbooks and an activity shcedule- result! The lessons were pretty much all grammar again and not the practical stuff i hade hoped for but i didn`t care that day as i felt so rubbish and went staight to sleep in the afternoon. Í`d planned to meet up with Justin and Amish in the Zocalo, the main square of mex city (D.F as locals call it) and the germans had overheard me and triedto hijack the plans by making them very precise and very punctual! Luckily justin ahd escaped before then so i made vague promises to the germans and legged it! As it turned out, we did all meet up in the end without many problems and i was totally enchanted as the zocalo (catherderal, palace, old civic buildings) was lit up with christmas decorations (the mexicans celebrate the coming of the 3 kings on jan 6th)I took lots of pictures before we went for a drink at a local bar and then onto a chinese resturant for dinner. All in all it was a good evening although Paul ze German did dominate all the conversation and was typically emphatic in everything he said!

The following day our lesson was still pretty dull and all about grammar but Paul got very angry with our teacher Bere as he did`t understand her spanish speaking. He got himself into quite a state which i was  fairly amused by! I don`t really blame him tho- the class was taught as though we all had prior spanish knowledge and catered for the higher levels in the class and not the beginners. i was scraping by but they found the whole thing bewildering. Eventally i persuaded Bere to cover link words such as with, next to,m when , how etc as we couldn`t form sentences without them! this proved v useful and mostly pacified Paul!

In the afternoon, Aarti and I were the only ones to take the school up on the promised activity which was a trip to the centre. having told him we`d already seen the Zocala, our guide, one of the teachers called Hector, reluctantly took us to a Diego Rivera (husband of Frida Kahlo and most faous artist in mexico) mural museum and up the latin american sky tower. When I say reluctantly i really mean it- he looked as if he`d rather be anywhere else but we enjoyed the afternoon none the less. I love Diego Riveras work- itsso accessible and so busy with characters. The sky tower was an amazaing overview of the size of mexico city and well worht the whoel 2 pounds fifty to go up! (Mexico city is was cheaper than i expected!!)

After the tour we met Amish at the zocalo and then met Justin at a place called Chapultapec where we all went for an indian meal. Amish annoyed the hell out of me by trying to order for everyone- i mean, i think we`ve all had indian food before and Aarti is half indian too! This proved to be a strong characteristic of his- the need to take contol of us poor hapless women! needless to say this lead to a fair few rows between me and him! (starting with that night !!)

On day 4 of classes we actually covered some useful verbs and the class seemed a bit happier with the whole situation. Aarti had a private lesson so Amish and I went to a nearby cuban restaurant for lunch (lovely food!) andf i dragged him around the museo de mdeicina in the zocalo. it was really interesting and full of old medical artefacts like x ray machines from the 20`s. Whilst at the internet cafe that night i had a v strange experience. I was looking at a picture of myself and Rosie on facebook when i was blonde and the man next to me asked me (all in Spanish!) if it was me. he then asked if i was german, and when i told him i was english he asked how long i was in the DF for. When i told him 2 weeks he went mad and started to google famous mexican poetry i HAD to become familiar with then stated quoting it to me with great passion!! I was a little bewildered and my spanish didn`t extend beyond saying "lovely, beautiful and sad" but it was quite an interesting experience none the less! It was hard not to become as passionate as he was about the poetry especially since the spanish language is so beautiful! Needless to say I didn`t get much e mailing done!

That evening, Aarti, Amish and I drank a lot of vodka then headed for the cuban salsa club over the road. Amish can dance os he lead me and Aarti and after that a mexican man came and asked me to dance. I told himn i was no good but he just replied "me too" so i went with it. It was hilarious- hye kept saying (in heavily accented english) "you are beeeeeeeeeeautiiiiiiful! marry me pleeeeeease!" which just made me laugh even more! Every so now and then he`d say in spanish "and now we kiss" and plant a big smacker on my lips! All in all it was quite an evening!! (but good for my first proper salsa experience!)

The next day we all skulked into class a little hungover and bolted ofr burger king at the first break.Amish had hired a car so we could see the pyramids so we decided to skip afternoon classes (this did not go down well with bere but gave the germans a private lesson!) and head off early. My observations on mexican driving are as follows

"red light? no problem! just put your foot down and go through at maximum spped- people will get out of the way. Traffic in your lane slowing down? no worries- just switch lanes with alarming regularity without once glancing in your mirror? someone annoying you slightly? no issue there- justlean on your horn as hard as you can for as ling as you can whilst smiling manically!"

Luckily Amish has driven lots in India so this wasn`t a problem for him! We got lost a lot and got to practice our spanish by aksing directions (the answer was ALWAYS "straight ahead!") but finally made it to the pyramids for mid afternoon. the oyramids are aztec built and quite impressive- the main big ones are to the sun and the moon. I climbed the sun pyramid which gave awesome views for the site which was a maya town but felt a bit too weak from the blaring sun to climb the moon one (Justin ran up it- crazy boy!!)Whilst he did that we bought incredibly cheap jewellery from the various vendors who hassled us non stop and seemed to take rock bottom offer sif you kept saying no! The usnset on the way home was beautiful (a compensation for all the polution!) and at least we didn`t get lost going back. As it was Aartis last night we went out to an argentinian restuarant where i had the misfortune of ordering what looked like roadkill with cheese (thanks justin for pointing that out!) I valiantly tried it but was unable to do it justice! I slept well that night for the first time since arriving- i was so tired that the nosie just couldn`t penetrate my sleep!

On the saturday, having dropped Aarti off at the airport, we drove to the volcanoes national park which was about 2 hours away. We spent a ridiculous ammount of time getting lost again whilst trying to find a waterfall that Amish had seen somewhere on the net. We eventually found what looked like a stream and followed it up the mountain where it became slightly stronger but dodn´t exactly rock my world! None the less, Justimn seemed to really enjoy the walk as it turns out he is a keen hiker so the time wasn´t completely wasted! We then drove up to the volcanoes view point which was absolutely stunning. There are two voclanoes, Popocatapetal which is the active one (last erruption was in 2000) and Ixta which is dormant. I was rather taken by the ancient myth that Ixta and Pop were lovers and when he went off to war and didn´t return she died of grief and when he finally returned he stood eternal sentry over her reclined body. (with some imagination she does look like a woman lying down and he does tower over her- eternal romance!) It was alarmingly cold up there- my first time since arriving in Mexico for needing a jaccket- but we stayed for ages just taking it all in. You used to be able to get closer to them but since the major erruption they seem to want to avoid subjecting tourists to a fiery death- fine by me! Of course, due to wideboy Amish not bothering to use a map, we got horribly lost on the way home and saw most of mexico city´s less desirable suberbs before finally getting back to somewhere we recognised at about 9.(by this point i was my usual impatient stressed out self- i can´t believe he wouldn´t consult the damn map!! This lead to argument number two!)

On the sunday I was ready for some me time so, after a lovely long lie in, I headed back to the Bellas Artes palace as all museums are free on Sundays in D.F. I spent a good while looking at the Rivera murals before crossing the street to the national art museum for a browse around.Following this i wandered around biding my time before going back up the Torres LatinAmerica to see the sunset over the city which, due to the pollution trapping all the available light, was spectacular. I hung around for a good hour so that i could see the city at night from  above and during the course of this i met an english couple who had been travelling up from Argentina and had visited all the countries I´m going to. I arranged to meet them in the zocalo the following evening so that i could get some good tips for my onward journey. On the way back down the tower i was accosted by a mexican girl who wanted to tell me all about her englishboyfriend! She was very sweet so i talked to her for about an hour and found out even more about life in the D.F for locals before heading back for a well deserved early night (culture- so much more exhausting than drinking I find!)

The following day dawned with yet more spanish grammar lessons which i was rapidly beginning to tire of! We had three new people in our group- a canadain couple called Chris and Douglas who were probably in their 70`s and appered to have travelled everywhere, and a young swiss guy called Florian.

Luckily for me, the big boss of the school was visiting that day and, as the resident compaliner, i was summonded in to meet him. When he asked how it was going i said we needed way more practical experience as opposed to bloody verbs (after all- what use is a verb without any vocab to construct it with?!) and Justin and I were immediately granted private conversation lessons for 2 hours a day- result! I learnt so much more from conversational lessons but found them a lot more tiring- focusing on rapid fire spanish for 2 hours is a tough job on barely firing grey matter!

That evening I went to meet Paul and Sian, the english couple from the sky tower for dinner and drinks. I left myself what I thought was plenty of time and walked to the metro, only to find it packed out beyone anything I`ve seen in London. There are supposed to be women only carriages at rush hour but I couln`t even see any other women, let alone carriages for them so was forced to join the throng of men and adopt an "every man for himself" attitude to boarding a train. Every time a train arrived there would be a huge surge forwards and every last inch of the carriage was filled with squirming bodies desperately trying to hold on to something (although am pretty sure no onw would have moved if the train had crashed as there was nowhere for them to go!)

I literally had to roll up my sleeves and force my way on, and found myself highly uncomfortably wedged between 4 men, one of whom I quickly realised was probably enjoying the experience a little more than he should be- EEEEW! I couldn`t wait for my stop anbd felt no hardship at all about bashing my way past all the perverts to get the hell out of there! Dinner and drinks were really nice and I got some top tips on where to go in central and south america before heading back in a much more civilised taxi!

The following few days at spanish school followed a similar format with dull lessons in the morning and a conversation class with Justin, Chris and I in the afternoons. I learnt all sorts of things about Mexican life- how they don`t pay their taxes, don`t obey the law (see driving for details!) and have to pay 60 percent interest on their credit cards but still use them as they are a status symbol! I also learnt you can buy anything you like from the pharmacies- don`t know why i bothered getting all those antibiotiucs before i came out for emergencies as thery are all over the counter here! We visited chapultapec castle which was nice but not as old as the english ones and also went out on the light railway with Amish and Justin to visit the dolores museum, a stunning old house with beautiful peacock filled gardens that holds the largest private collection of Diego Rivera murals in the world.

I had decided to finsish scholl one day early and head to Oaxaca on the Friday, so thursday was my last day of classes. I skipped the grammar on account of my head being filled with verbs I`ll never use (to sweep, to build etc!!) and joined the others for the conversation class. Chirs, Douglas and I were supposed to have a salsa class at 4 so we went for lunch first which may have prioved to be a big mistake! We ate fantastic food and drank some lovely wine and returned fully stuffed and hardly able to move! The class reminded me more of senior aerobics than sexy salsa, with us shuffling around, holding our full bellies and vaguely attempting to swing our hips! After an hour, I was ready to collapse and was seriously hot to boot! Hardly a similar experience to the salsa club I went to the week before but highly amusing none the less!

For my final evening I had Justin over and we drank beer and listened to music before heading out to a cuban restaurant for dinner. It was a lovely ending to a fun packed 2 weeks in the crazy city and I felt that I`d seen as much of it and experienced as much as I wanted and was fully ready to move onto somewhere less polluted!