Got up about 12:30 but after I fucked around booking flights (expedia still screwed, so I had to get a 6:55pm flight arriving 8:55pm) I didn't leave til maybe 2.
I then went and had an enormous plate of beansprouts with homeopathic proprortions of chicken masquerading as chop suey and after getting a bit lost in some horrible metal-panelled area on Paseo de la Reforma walked over to the anthropological museum.
It was quite good if not absolutely gripping. Ridiculous security measures to get in, more involved that getting into the national palace (a government building, FFS). Free today for Mexicans, MXN51 (fifty ONE?) for foreigners as always.
I got there about four what with taking ages to get the bill after forcing down the beansprouts and getting lost on the way, maybe a bit earlier, but they don't shut til 7. I left at 6:40 and there were still a few people coming in. I had seen enough and I was starting to 'skim' heavily and my feet were hurting.
Walked over to Auditorio metro (huge, and ridiculously deep level - think Westminster Jubilee-District interchange) and came back to Insurgentes. Found a net cafe where I was just about able to print what I hope will pass as an e-ticket for tomorrow.
There are a few in the central roundabout area but I didn't bother asking about getting a DVD burned. I may do that tomorrow or I may wait til I am elsewhere.
Went to KFC afterwards and now here. Feeling a bit down. I think it's a combination of:
- Sunday evening
- the weather (rainy and a bit cold)
- leaving here and feeling I could have done more
- the upheval of moving on tomorrow with all it entails in terms of leaving bags at the hotel, getting taxis to the airport, etc
I still haven't booked a hostel for tomorrow but I can do that tonight.
20:25. Feeling a bit shivery. Maybe my mood and maybe genuine. With it being so wet and my right shoe having a big hole in I got my sock quite wet and though I can't consciously feel it being damp now I may literally have cold feet.
20:30. Jesus wept. Leaning on the table and my beer nearly went over. This is my first so there's no question of drunkenness. This bar must specialise in wobbly tables...
21:40. Still feeling a bit shit. I had no choice but it sucks a bit flying so late tomorrow. It sort of gives me an extra day here but I will be worried about getting to the airport and stuff and can't risk going too far afield and I have a nasty feeling a lot of museumy places will be shut on a Monday (the anthropological museum is, at least, though of course I probably wouldn't go back anyway - though I definitely didn't see everything and another visit if I return to Mexico City prior to flying back may well be on the cards).
I am half tempted to just go back home, I feel mentally pretty terrible, but I don't think I will. I don't really want to be back this early (even though the suite is very comfortable) in this 'last night' mood.
22:00. Oh, if I read it right, there was a sign at the ticket office at Auditorio metro saying that the true cost of a journey is MXN9 but they subsidise it down to 3. If that's true, I am surprised there aren't more ads down there. There are some on the stations and I think on the trains, but on my limited observation nowhere near as many as on the tube.
22:15. There is some Spanish-language but international dance competition on the TV. They just had an English couple on. The hostess asked them something in Spanish and they replied in English to be translated by voiceover. Bit odd. I assume they were told what the question would mean before it was asked.
22:35. I am a bit worried about the baggage limits on the flight tomorrow, you only get 25kg and I am sure my suitcase is heavier. I guess I will have to try to put some books in my hand baggage in place of the cables and stuff I normally have in there to try to reduce the weight, even if I don't get away with it completely I should at least reduce the excess charge. I was similarly worried about the Panama-Mexico flight when I had no chance to try to shift stuff round (I only noticed the stingy limits in the check in queue) and no one said anything, but I don't want to rely on that. I can't quite believe I got away with it then, I am sure my bag was over the limit and I assume airlines are chiselling bastards who will take you for all they can, but maybe I'm being too cynical.
It can't be helped, no one else offered the flight and even if I am rushing a little as apparently Zheyla is on holiday now so it's a good time to try to meet her, I would probably have had to fly one way even if I'd made my way over there by bus (as it is I shall fly out and make my way back by bus, probably via Oaxaca City). Bussing it both ways would probably be too repetitive given the country (and almost certainly the bus routes) is a bit 'narrow' down towards Yucatan. Just doing a solid run in one direction isn't really an option as I believe it's 24h from here to Cancun by bus, which would not be much fun.
22:45. They have a trilingual sign on the back of the toilet door offering advice on tips. The advice is unexceptionable (tips not included, 10-15% recommended) but I find the existence of the sign a bit odd.
Notwithstanding my reluctance to risk myself in the wilds of the suburbs last night, I have stopped worrying overly much while walking around the bits of the city I have been to. I am a little alert on occasion but not much. This is probably more a question of nothing having happened yet, but there you go.
A certain amount of clearing away is happening. About four other customers here, two seem in the depths of a meal but I suspect I won't be here much longer. Bit of a shame but I should probably just go home anyway.
It doesn't feel like it's nearly eleven. I guess I am on a very late cycle.
They only cleared away some hat rack things. Three guys just sat down at a table and I think are trying to order food but they have just been recommended to go somewhere else. I may go somewhere else if I can find anywhere, but I suspect La Chelestia will be shutting and even if I can find it that bar I went to the night I went to the strip club is a little off limits as I am not over-keen to meet those guys again. We will see how it goes.
Just got the bill. Jesus wept. MXN192 for 6 beers! Maybe that's not that high but it strikes me like that.
23:00. Not many other places open but have come to some slightly unpleasant bar down the street. I probably shouldn't be out but I am not drunk.
This place had a woman out front soliciting custom but there is a big crowd out front and I doubt it's a titty bar (if that's the right phrase). I walked past at first but seeing nowhere open (I think the pre-strip club bar is in this street and was vaguely going there, but either I couldn't see it or it's shut, incidentally last night's bar/club is in this street I think, tho I didn't expect that to be open.
I had to ask for a glass. Waitress quite helpful but I have a niggling doubt this may prove pricey.
I just hope not getting back til past midnight won't cause me problems booking a hostel for Monday. I think you can book same-day on hostelworld despite someone telling me you can't, but I am not sure. I guess if push comes to shove I will book at some other site.
I am vaguely planning to try some dormitories in the hope of meeting people on the Mexico leg of the trip but partly as I expect to see Zheyla in Cancun and partly as I am a bit jittery about tomorrow for some reason I will aim for a private if basic room there. I don't want to turn up at 9:30pm or later and be forked into a dormitory full of strangers (although based on past experience I would end up with a dormitory to myself).
Singing coming from inside, there is either a live band or slightly crap karaoke. I will have to go to the bog here whether I want to or not as I need to withdraw cash from my hidden belt. I might meet the demands with what I have in my wallet but I don't want to ask for the bill then have to disappear into the bog as it may look bad.
I am probably being harsh on the bar. It's vaguely down at heel and would normally probably suit me. But the existence of the woman out front touting for business sets my warning flags, though probably incorrectly.
I wish I could relax but those last night, have to travel tomorrow jitters (perhaps augmented by not yet having a hostel sorted) aren't helping.
Sudden burst of half decent live music clarifies there is obviously a band on.
The bar just may be 'cueva de lobos' (wolves' cave) but I am not sure. Waitress just asked if everything was OK. Am sure it's just being nice but it seems a touch overly solicitous in my current frame of mind.
23:20. Just popped into the bog to have a slash and extract 100 pesos from my hidden belt. Clearly not a titty bar. Quite pleasant in a down at heel way. Upstairs deserted but downstairs lively. Bog troll present but I frankly evaded him. Next time I will give him three or four pesos, which is about all the change I have on me. Am frankly surprised at presence of a bog troll somewhere like this. Maybe he was just a guy using his phone in the bog taking advantage of a stool but I suspect not.
23:25. Just ordered another. The waitresses are wearing shirts with a "cueva de lobos" logo so I guess that probably is what the bar is called. I am fairly sure am in calle Genova. The bar name makes me think of cueva del milodon (a literal cave) in Puerto Natales and Los Lobos, one of the bars I went to on a previous Mexico trip, probably in Guanajuato. Man, 2006 was a long time ago.
23:50. If anything getting busier here. Went for another slash and gave the bog troll a few pesos, apologising for my lack of change. He was at least civil. Felt a bit watched at the urinal, doubtless irrationally. As I have done on many an occasion, helped myself through it with humorous recollections of my brother's award-winning (!) radio ad about how "the sound of running water has a strange effect on some people". :-)
It oddly feels both earlier and later than it really is. I half wish I had already booked a hostel for tomorrow but I had enough shit with the flight this morning and didn't want to waste more time on it when I needed to get out and about (even if I simultaneously felt my usual desire not to stir from home). It's genuinely cool but still.
Won't say I am having the time of my life but I am feeling a lot better and almost enjoying myself here.
Reading yet another Angela Brazil novel. There is still novelty but there are certain recurring themes. As with all works of a similar age (even more marked in such classics as "Eric" or "St Winifreds") I find some of the medical stuff freaky. People with chronic diseases of ill defined nature which leave them "prone to shock" and "perpetually weak" (despite "let's not be Victorian" attitudes). In the novel I am reading now a schoolgirl has a touch of *toothache* as a result of being a bit lost in the snow. I mean, surely not? We'll be getting to the frankly implausible case of Daubeny dying of over-work soon.
I do wonder how our contemporary works will appear from a medical perspective in a hundred years. I vaguely hope they may sneer or pity us for our poor treatments but at least not mock our diagnoses.
But then maybe we have ME, so maybe I shouldn't mock. :-)
Band is doing a cover of "your sex is on fire" now. Not sure of real title. Not a bad cover at that.
I do feel a little exotically adventurous being here in Mexico City. Ah well, we must accept our small triumphs. I haven't come far but I've come a long way...
Reading these schoolgirl novels gives me odd recollections of my exam taking days. I remember how I always used to do well in school exams despite (and I am oddly proud of it, despite having been a miserable git at school) my shit position in term work. I have fond memories of coming first in the exams yet 16th out of 25 or so in term. And it also makes me think of university exams, and somehow the one that sticks in my mind is the Linear Algebra exam in the second year where I understood not one word during the lectures but the exam, which I expected to fail, was providentially easy and I got 91% or so. I wouldn't wish myself back in that world of continual measurement for a big clock (though being young again would be nice) but it was a different world with different measures of success.
00:25. Reminded by some soundless music video playing of an exhibit at the anthropological museum which was a wall of faces done so as you moved around (there is a name for the technique which I currently forget) oscillated between faces and skulls. I assume it was made based on some sort of pseudo-medical scans, and it was fascinating to see the relationships between the skulls and the faces. That would make a cool online demonstration with a slider to let you fade between the faces and the underyling bone structure.
The display the museum was the sort of thing I remember having on a ruler as a kid where old and modern forms of transport mixed. I think it works by having the image angled so you see different things as you move around or (in the case of the ruler) tilt the image source. I am not sure if I remembered the name of the technique at the museum, tho I suspect not, but right now it has certainly escaped me. A very brainy presentation nontheless.
Did give me fresh confidence in those reconstructions of proto-human faces done by educated artists from skulls of the relevant 'races'.
00:35. I must be drunk. I am feeling vaguely self-congratulatory that from being that sad little fucker back in Skegness I am drinking in Mexico City and, gasp, am not actually totally freaked out by it. As I said earlier, I have come a long way (baby! :-) ) even if in absolute terms I haven't come that far. I wish I'd been like this in my twenties but better late than never and I can take heart from Cortez. :-)
The hostel booking is grating at the back of my mind but it's cool. I think the banker's solution is available if all else fails. I don't like to use it, both as it's inelegant and I'm naturally a tight git, but it's nice to know I can use it if push comes to shove.
00:45. I am irrationally reminded by the flat screen at the bar that my suite has a huge CRT TV in the bedroom. And for that matter, smaller ones in the lounge and (FFS!) the bathroom. I have not turned any of them on. I am sure watching Spanish TV would be good practice but I am just not a TV person. I need to make an effort when I am back in the UK and trying to get my Spanish up to that elusive next level, but I just don't do it here. That's just me, I never watch random TV back home and I am sure if I was in (say) the US I would still never turn the TV on.
It is freaky for the characters in the novel to consider a bachelor's degree as something impressive. It half makes me feel proud I have one and half reminds me how the world has moved on. Not just moved on in terms of education, moved beyond that. I know people with master's degrees and PhD's and while they're smart guys, I respect them for their native intelligence not their qualifications. And FFS I know one guy who earns twice what I do who has no degree at all, and while he can be dogmatic he's clearly no moron. Although I guess he is a rarity, in today's world a bachelor's is the baseline standard, nothing to do with intellect, just the way society has moved. I mean, my brother has a bachelor's but I wouldn't say he's smarter than the other chap. Times change and we change with them, as that latin tag I can never remember has it. (Tempora mutantur et nos et mutamur en illis???)
It is vaguely dispiriting to see the limited aspirations of the academic girls in these stories. It's like feminism on marijuana.
Man, I must be drunk to be waffling like this. Sod it. I am reminded by some random comments in the novel about how hard it is to write. I find myself thinking of Orwell, both how damn readable he was and also his essay on poor writing. And I think of the documents I have churned out professionally, albeit my profession is not writing.
I have seldom been proud of any professional document I've produced, so at least I am free of self-congratulation, but there is a weird formalism about professional IT writing that almost encourages wanky shit and discourages clarity for the sake of it. It disheartens me but I can't say I will be able to fight against it when it is once again my lot to churn out such stuff. The expectation that it's written in a certain stultifying style is overwhelming. Of course I don't claim my or anyone else's technical writings could ever be great (though Scott Meyers shows it's possible) but that overarching requirement for insane formalism is annoying. It would take someone better than me to fight against it, but I am sure I could write better if not literary documentation if given the licence. I am sure the hatred of programmers for documentation can be laid in part at the door of this crap.
01:10. I find myself feeling a little pissed. I might overlook it but given my situation tomorrow I must be careful. One more I think then off
Every time I've been to the bog here I've stumbled over some treacherously unobvious step on the entrance to the bogs. It's almost as if the architect wanted to inculcate feelings of drunkenness. :-)
I am out too late in absolute terms but sod it. I have a vague idea checkout is quite late - I will try to ask when I get back - tho that is a mixed blessing as a forced early checkout would help me make the most of my time tomorrow. Tho since I have little idea what to do tomorrow that's a mixed blessing.
01:15. The waitress smiled at me rather disconcertingly when I got the beer. I feel a bit conspicuously foreign.
Waitress just come over and said they were shutting, so I've asked for the bill. Maybe I could have got another beer with the bill - it doesn't *look* like they're about to shut - but under the circumstances no. I have most of a beer left and I need to get back and at least I have the dubious distinction of having seen the night out my last night here.
Probably for the best. I feel a little pissed, never mind what has to be done tomorrow. Wish they would bring the bill so I can settle up and enjoy my last beer.
MXN17x, I will make it 200 unless they happen to give me change. The place is sufficiently decent I don't resent a slight excess of tip and I suspect the staff are more struggling students than professional waiters. (Of course I resent their youth :-) but all the same, it's a bit different.)
Just got brought change and waved it away, as per previous para and liking to reward honesty. The waitress was a bit insistent I took the receipt, I may need it to be allowed to leave, but if so no big deal.
01:35. I suspect it's because I know I have to leave but I am now feeling a little awkwardly drunk. I will probably finish this beer but I suspect it will be a bit forced, whereas if I wasn't about to leave I would have drunk it very relaxedly (shit phrase, but I am drunk and can't put it better, at least I can still type so I know I am not that far gone).
01:40. Just left. Seems v lively for a bar which is nominally shutting but I can't see why they would lie to me, I may be foreign scum but I have money. Guy did insist on seeing my receipt on leaving as I half expected given the waitress's emphasis on it. As I say, a bit weird but I assume they are moving towards closing, I am a bit drunk and I have shit to sort out.
01:50. Just got home. Checkout is at 1pm, I guess that's cool, I suspect I would never do more tomorrow than hang around.
I do love the vague familiarity of Mexico City. Sanborns, the Oxxo stores, the discount pharmacy chains, they all remind me of my earlier visits to other Mexican cities.
I am feeling a bit drunk, perhaps obvious from my semi-melancholic reminiscences. Anyway, let's see if I can sort out a hostel and either pack tonight or promise myself to do it before checkout tomorrow.
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