From Mexíco, con amor
I’m sitting in a tea shop in Mexico City as I write this. I love it here and I love myself here. The food, the drinks and the overall positive mood.
I’ve been drinking a lot this weekend and I guess that was kind of the point of the vacation. To drink and have fun and not feel guilty about this. After all this is what life is, these little moments I can savor and friends I can take with me throughout my life.
I really like the aspect of meeting people and knowing I can get along with them and have things in common even though we are sometimes separated by continents, timezones, and cultures. I don’t think it says anything special about me, I do believe though it further validates our understanding that we are all so much more alike despite any superficial differences. There are some cultural norms that really attract me to Latin America. The warmth of the people makes them approachable. They have a generally relaxed attitude towards life that I’m trying to weave into my own life too.
I’ve found since studying Spanish and spending time in Latin countries I’ve begun to think more like them and I consider this a positive addition to my life. In fact I’ve noticed a shift in my attitude towards people, problems and life since I began to absorb this culture and the language. On the whole it has made me a happier person and has substantially contributed to my personal well being. There’s further research to validate this experience but it’s not the topic for this blog.
I am learning that I enjoy experiencing my vacations like a local person. Rather than running from one attraction to another I prefer to relax at a local coffee shop and just mingle with random people in day to day life. I got a haircut here yesterday for example. Not something that’s on a list of many people to do on their limited vacation. I say there and waited 20 minutes to be admitted. In meantime I made friends with the owner who talked to me about his life here, his travels, places for me to discover and introducing me to his friends as they came by.
Despite its reputation, I’ve found Mexico City to be quite safe as I Uber and walk around town at all hours of the day and night. I have yet to encounter anything as awful as the Tenderloin in SF and even at its most sketchy it feels safer than SOMA, Oakland and other grungier parts of the Bay Area. This won’t necessarily be the case in exurbs of Mexico City and not by a long shot in areas north of the country. But in general, for a city of 20 million it’s a safe place.
That’s another thing, Mexico City is sprawling, sort of like Berlin and it’s difficult to end up in bad areas accidentally. Certainly not by walking. I’ve been told here this isn’t the case for places like Buenos Aires where in a matter of a block you can end up in a very bad situation.
The food here, it measures up to some of the best I’ve had (best being in: Tokyo, Melbourne, Rome).
The reason I put it in the same bucket as those three is because I’ve found that I was able to get consistently excellent food, service and drinks without much effort or research on my part. The risk is ameliorated because the food is cheap at all of these cities and people take special pride in what they put on the table. The most frustrating part is I don’t have the time, the stomach space or caloric intake deficit large enough to take in everything it has to offer and it’s hard to pull away from the spots that have become my staples here.
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