Jet-lag is a bit of a bugger but nothing compared to the torture of being confined in an aluminium tube with a bunch of irritating, screaming, children for two hours. Once the plane has taken off you can walk about, sleep, watch the film, and have a pee. Before you take off you’re supposed to sit still and deal with hell.
Luckily, it was only two hours before our plane left the ground in Toronto and headed towards the UK. No children’s lives were taken.
Now we’re back, and reunited with dear Humphrey, we only have our memories to comfort us through the cold rain of London.
Our visit was as perfect as any holiday can be. Apart from spending some quality time with Alex, his family, Tony, Catalina, and everyone else we also enjoyed the food, car-horns, weather, buildings, people and history of Mexico. We even enjoyed our experiences of the locals pre-judging us in the way that we would them in London.
No-one speaks English there. In fact they’re almost as arrogant about their unilinguality as the English. A white face with blonde hair is a signal of massive stupidity combined with a massive wallet. Oh dear.
“How much for this bracelet?”
“For you, as you speak such good Spanish, almost free”
The streets of Mexico City smell pretty similar to those of London except for the overpowering smell of their crap sewage system and the slightly nasty smell of fried corn.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the tortillas and tacos that were in abundance in the streets; it’s just that it turns out to make proper tacos requires the production of some evil smelling gasses. Perhaps this is why so many taco vans were parked up by such smelly sewer outlets.
The amount earned per day on the Mexican minimum wage is around 40 pesos (£2; $4). We were paying more than that for the wireless Internet access in our hotel and it was still a major bargain. In fact, if you ever go to Mexico City (AKA DF) then Casa Gonzales is the place to stay.
In all we loved every minute of the trip. The weather, the wonderful people, the food, the buildings and the weddings. I even managed to indulge in one of my all-time favourite activities: wandering aimlessly around the city, talking all kinds of stuff, with Alex. If you’ve never tried it then perhaps you should. Call Alex, I’m sure he’ll understand.
At the end of it all I managed to leave my mobile in the cab that took us to the airport. We also managed to leave our bedtime MP3 player in the hotel. If ever you’ve doubted the existence of honesty and sociable behaviour, then please know that I’ve been re-united with both items. This is thanks to the cab driver, the cab company, Alex, Alex’s mum and the wonderful people at Casa Gonzales
