First Pass, The Regular Route - Mar 15
I’m only going to write about the interesting parts, however, I’m going to write as though the sentences were coherent. So I’m at the lookout point of San Miguel de Allende thinking “This isn’t that great.” I made a few plans with someone I met in Acapulco who is now studying in Mexico City. I walked the city. I read a bunch of Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal. I was pleasantly surprise with how easily it read for me. Sure, I’m not getting every word but I’m reading it with relative ease. I stayed reading until the end of the first chapter. The taco place that I went to last night wasn’t open. I walked some more, noticing more and more that this seems to be a slow paced town where a lot of old, white vacationers come to visit. There doesn’t seem to be a lot for me here. I started into the Mercado de Artesanias and found a place to each lunch. I got a torta which in Mexico, sometimes, doesn’t mean cake and actually means sandwich. I also had a strawberry licuado.
I got back to the hostel and decided I would dedicate the rest of the day to Spanish. I spent most of my time watching Youtube videos, listening to random Spanish audio, and trying to learn the lyrics to A Dios le Pido by Juanes. Soon enough a couple of German girls came into the room who speak Spanish quite well. Granted, they also speak English, however, they prefer speaking in Spanish because they think they’re English is worse. Perfect for me. We chatted for a bit about they usual topics and they headed out. I would have gone with them but they said they were going through the market again and that doesn’t interest me much, especially because they told me they needed to by presents for their impending return home to Germany. Though I suppose I missed out on more Spanish practice. Shit.
Now I’m on the terrace writing this post thinking about whether or not I should read more HP, yeah I’m abbreviating it now, or go out for dinner, or wait for the others to come back and then have dinner, or go out for dinner with the singing couple I saw in Guanajuato that are staying in the hostel. My mind is swimming. I’ll probably end up watching completely useless videos on the internet. It’s funny how easily hold habits come back to life.
Some photos for your viewing pleasure.
After a bit more waiting I was at the hostel where my other roommate, Michael, from South Africa was sitting. The German girls were also in the common area. I talked for Michael for a bit even though my main goal was more Spanish practice with the girls. Eventually, I decided that I would cancel my last night and head to Mexico City with the Germans.
Two Germans and a Canadian Speaking Spanish - Mar 16
After breakfast and a bit of waiting, the Germans and I were setting out to the market to shop for some presents. I didn’t buy anything because I’m not at the end of my trip like they are. This was a great day for Spanish conversation practice and that’s exactly what I did. I showed them Anki and used a it few times when I heard some words I wasn’t familiar with, took a picture to help remind me and Miriam told me that I was here dream student Both of the Germans are in a Spanish program in university in Germany with a minor in physical education. Confidence boost.
Once we were done with the market we walked up to the lookout of San Miguel de Allende, through the Bonito Juarez Park. Both places I’ve already visited but that didn’t matter because I had nothing to do with my day anyway and the amount of improvement you get from speaking Spanish instead of reading or listening is immense. We grabbed some lunch at the torta place I went to yesterday and arrived at the hostel, called a cab, and got tickets for the earlier, less expensive, longer bus to Mexico City.
All I did on the bus was relax and watch movies and chat with the Germans a little bit. When we arrived at the bus station they bought their tickets and we said goodbye. I took a cab to my hostel which has less than impressive beds but both breakfast and lunch are included. Since Nick was in town, we went out for some tacos and beer. Good times were had. I’m basically just following his trail through Mexico at this point, I’m just taking a few more days in the towns he visits. We’ll be seeing each other in Merida for sure but I’m not sure where else in between.
Acapulco Reunion - Mar 17
I spent most of the morning doing close to nothing today as I had made plans to meet up with a girl I met in Acapulco named Carla. So I passed my time confirming my CS accommodations in Mexico City, four nights with a girl named Abi. Check. I did some reading. Check. I watched some Spanish Youtube videos. Check. I read up a bit on Mexico City even though I don’t have anything in particular that I want to do here. I more so want the people I know to take me places they like. I did most of my touristy stuff during the last visit. The two things I want to do are pyramids which Carla and I plan on doing and the Monarch butterfly reserve which might actually be closed now, who knows.
I spent my time like this until about 3pm when I went stir crazy and had to leave. I grabbed some 10 peso tacos de pastor and went to Alameda Central to chill. I spent almost an hour and a half just watching people pass by. People watching is one of my favourite pass times while travelling so this was enjoyable for me. I had stopped to sit at a spot near a fountain and for some reason a lot of teenagers would either play in it or attempt to push each other in because, you know, it’s fun being drenched in water on a typical Mexico City, not that warm, late in the day, day. There were also a few free style rappers that were walking around rapping for money which was pretty cool. At one point they approached the kids next to me on the bench and I’m pretty sure they made a few cracks about me, the gringo, and how I probably don’t speak Spanish. I sure showed them by not saying anything.
After Carla’s class in the Zocalo ended, I met up with her, her professor, and a good portion of her classmates in a bar called La Burra Blanca. They serve pulque there which is an “alcoholic drink made by fermenting sap from the maguey” [1]. They had several flavours, some of which were good and others which were not good. One tip, don’t smell it. It always smells bad but once you get it down they can be pretty OK. At one point a man sitting behind us was drinking out of one of the leaves of a maguey plant. He showed us how to do it so Carla gave it a shot. No issues. I had some. No issues. Then, as I was holding it, he filled it to the brim. I tried to hand it to one of Carla’s friends and managed to spill both on myself and the girl. I felt bad because that stuff stinks. Woops.
We hung out for a couple hours drinking pulque and beer, just talking about languages again. I seriously cannot get enough of it especially when I’m talking about it in a language I’m learning. Heaven. People left bit by bit and eventually so did we. The plan was to go to Bar27 that night so we hung out at Carla’s place for a bit and headed out. I had a lot of fun at this bar. Though I’ve been told it is usually more packed. But still, not bad for a Thursday. Good times were had. Thanks Carla!
Squeezing Through the Subway - Mar 18
I got out of bed as late as possible in order to get as much sleep as I could considering the fact that I got back to the hostel at 3am. I had breakfast and packed up everything because I was changing from a hostel to my CS host. I stored my bags in the hostel and head for the metrobus. Google mislead me a little bit with its directions. There is a line that goes straight to the UNAM campus but it told me to take two different lines and a bus. I don’t know what that was about but I eventually got on the straight to UNAM line. Five pesos, super cheat, super easy.
The UNAM campus is quite nice, quite large, and there were a lot of people out and about just doing activities. I’m not sure how else to put that. There was ping pong, dance classes, copoeira class, volleyball, basketball, soccer, frisbee, group discussions, tons of couples, etc. It seems like a cool place to learn, though I still got a bunch of looks that said “We don’t get a lot of white folk around these parts.” After checking out the main library and the stadium I met up with Carla. We grabbed some lunch and then tried to visit a bar for some variation of micheladas because I told her that I didn’t like the one I had in Merida. Her friend picked us up in her car and we found the restaurant. The drinks were not like I had before, they were incredibly sweet and it was hard to tell there was any beer in them. A bit later Carla’s sister arrived as well and we chatted for a while.
Later on Carla’s sister dropped me off at the subway. Once I got off at my stop it was hard to get off the thing. There was a wall of people waiting and in order to get off you have to fight your way through the people. Not quite like a busy Vancouver Skytrain. I grabbed my things from the hostel and took an Uber to Abi’s apartment. Upon arrival I was greeted by Abi and her six friends who were all drinking in preparation for the night we were about to have. Cool.
We ended up hanging out and going out to a bunch of bars via Uber. It was a great night but it did go on for quite a while, quite late. I don’t remember what time it was we got back but I think it was in the order of 5am. Wooo!
Little Sleep and Lots of Stairs - Mar 19
A few hours after going to sleep and I woke up. Woo! I quickly sent Carla my location via WhatsApp so she could find me for our day at Teotihuacan, ate my oats, and waited in the street for her to pick me up. And so began our day together.
This is what I woke up to. He was fully asleep.
I got along with Carla well. We didn’t stop talking during the entire trip out to Teotihuacan. It was a bit easier to do this because today I had promised to speak English with her. After all, I got almost two full days of Spanish from her so it was only fair. We walked all around the site, scaling the large pyramids with ease of course. We took some time to sit and relax on the Pyramid of the Sun and continued chatting. It was an awesome time and I can’t thank her enough for taking me out there. Also it was the first time there for both of us, so there you go.
After the road trip back we got some late lunch/early dinner and then a frappe with tapioca balls, chocolate chip mint, tasty. We spent around two hours sitting in the cafe talking about what we should do next before we realized that we should go close to Abi’s house and grab a tea. Another great idea. We spent the next few hours sitting and lying in the big gazeobo-like thing (I’ve forgotten what they’re called) talking about stuff and trying tongue twisters in English and Spanish, eventually switching to French and German but those didn’t go well. One interesting and sort of disappointing topic that came up was that since we had been speaking English the entire day, when I tried to speak Spanish I had more of a Canadian accent than normal. This scared me a bit because I think having a good accent is one of the most important parts of the language learning process for me. I hope it doesn’t stick around for too long. Another sad thing was that Carla leaves for Peru tomorrow and won’t be around while I’m still in Mexico City. Bummer. Thanks for being super awesome, Carla! I hope we can meet up again sometime in the future.
The rest of the night was spent finding Abi, bailing on the party because I was too tired, getting keys to the apartment and falling asleep. Woo?
References
[1] Yeah I Don’t. (2016, March, 18) Give a Shit [About Citations]. http://www.atall.com