Holy... well, holy shit, Batman! (Go to the bathroom and get a drink before reading this beast)

My God, I have had a thoroughly exhausting four days. I don't have much time to post (or email - tomorrow, Seuss) because the lab closes, so it'll be bit by bit.

Thursday night was El Grito, The Cry. Shit - I'm a little rusty on the names here, so forgive me. At 11pm on the original day of independence, a Mexican revolutionary leader (I want to say Morelos, but I live in Morelos) rang the church bells in the village of Dolores to summon his army of malcontents and Indians, who would eventually oust the Spanish. In honor of this, at 11pm on September 15, Mexicans across the nation gather in their respective Zocalos (town squares) for El Grito. I heard that there were some 50 (or was it 500?) THOUSAND people in Mexico City's Zocalo. Cuernavaca's was packed to the brim. People were spraying shaving cream into the air and getting into fights with it; Andrew and I joined in, and it was a blast. Observe the spoogmonation:

At 11, the governor of Morelos came out onto the balcony of his government's building and lead the population in a series of call-and-responses. It culminating with three or four "¡Viva México!", during which the crowd went wild. Fireworks went off - first, from the roof of the palacio, which I thought was a little close for comfort (100 yards or so). Then, I heard a tremendous thud behind me as they started firing the second round off maybe 50 feet behind me. It was deafening, and I had to look straight up to see the fireworks. They were beautiful. I could also see embers floating down into trees.

There aren't many lawsuits in México.

Friday morning, I went to la Ciudad de México, where I had an extremely surreal weekend. I'm going to try to get everything in here, but it's going to take a bit.

I arrived in Mexico City around noon. It's ridiculously easy to get to there from Cuernavaca. Buses (costing about 5.80 USD - and I'm talking coaches, complete with bathrooms and a movie) leave from Cuernavaca every fifteen minutes or so. An hour and 45 minutes later, there I was. Hopped on the metro (less than 20 cents) and arrived shortly in El Centro. Practically everything in the city (known simply as México to Mexicans) was closed, because Thursday night and Friday are when Mexicans celebrate their independence. Museums and everything. I found a little hotel that must have been at least 100 or so years old and checked in. 150 pesos a night (which is about 16 bucks), including a bathroom with a shower. And that shower had lots and lots of extremely hot water, which my home shower does not. The trip was worth the two really long, hot showers by themselves.

After I checked in, I set out to find a restaurant; the Tourist Info lady had marked a couple on my map. Well, not surprisingly, they were all closed. I wandered around Mex for something like two hours trying to find somewhere that I could eat without getting sick. Finally, I gave up and headed back to the hotel to ask advice. The clerk told me to go to El Popular, which was "below." Great directions, asshole - I thought. I walked downstairs and turned left, and immediately adjacent to the door of my hotel was the door of El Café Popular (open 365 days, 24 hours). Fuck.

I saw this when I was walking around - el Palacio de Belles Artes:

I sat down, ate some good, cheap food. At one point, this elderly gentleman sat down next to me. After awhile, he asked me for something - it sounded like "sal" to me, which is salt. But he actually asked for "salsa." We shared a polite chuckle, and then I decided to ask him what he thought I should do in the City. He suggested a few places to me, then we chatted a bit. His name is Jesús, from Guadalajara. He's got a daughter living in Dayton, Ohio. He's going to visit his sick sister in, of all places, Cuernavaca.

We finished eating and almost went our separate ways. Then I realized I would be a fool to not get a picture with him, and so we had someone take one.

And then he just decided to give me a tour of what little of the city we could visit Friday. We saw the Cathedral, which is beautiful and huge but slightly inferior to Europe's (too much baroque shit - give me that gothic style). In the same gigantic plaza (the Zocalo) where the Mexico City City Hall, el Palacio de Belles Artes, the Palacio Nacional (a huge Congress-White House-office complex), and El Templo Mayor, the remains of a gigantic Aztec temple where thousands of war prisoners were sacrificed to the gods. Freaking awesome, man. We also saw La Casa de Azulejos, which was a colonial Spanish mansion. It was beautiful. It had a magnificent courtyard, murals, and it takes its name from the beautiful blue tiles that line its exterior and parts of its interior. It's now a Sanborn's, which is the Mexequivalent of Macy's. But they take good care of the place.

After four or five, Jesús and I split up. But since there was nowhere else to be, we found ourselves back at Sanborn's - we bumped into each other in the bathroom there. We went to the Sanborn's cafe and he treated me to a cup of chamomile tea, which seems to be my drink of choice in Mexico. Soothes my stomach after I brutalize it three times a day (chiles for breakfast, lunch and dinner, man).

After that, we went back over to the big plaza, which was suddenly teeming with thousands of people. Vendors everywhere. It was chaotic, and gave some idea of what Times Square must be like on New Year's.

Then I went to sleep. Next day, off to see more sights. I went over to the Cathedral again (now open) and looked around inside. God, the chapels were hideously baroque. That's pretty typical, though. I have the same kind of desensitization to cathedrals that Andrea got towards castles in Wales. After St. Peter's, it takes something special to impress me.

On my way to the Alameda - which is a gigantic park, a la New York's Central - I bumped into yet another grandfather, this time named José.

Funny story about the Alameda. A parade passed by it the night before, and there were a bunch of small crates that people had stood on. At one point, I noticed these two boys playing with them (building forts, towers, etc), which was cool. And then all of a sudden one of these kids jumps up on a crate and starts shaking his ass like he expected people to stuff money in his sweatpants. Hilarious. There was also this statute of a really sad, nude woman who was doubled over in agony. Yet another little boy perched on top of her, laughing. Argh. I couldn't get my camera out in time.

Anyway, José was the opposite of Jesús. Whereas the latter was dignified, well-dressed, spoke slowly and used wit for humor, the former was a hyperactive, nearly incomprehensible school teacher. He saw me looking at my map, and offered to give me a tour of El Paseo de la Reforma, a huge avenue lined with monuments to Mexico's independence (plus the US Embassy, which I wanted to tour - Mexico City is the busiest embassy in the world, because all kinds of Mexicans want to get into the US). I dunno, I guess there are a lot of bored old people in Mexico City.
So after walking around and shooting the shit for a good three or four hours, José got a call from his sister. When she found out that I was with José, she invited me back to dinner. Yeah, I went. It was risky, but it paid off in spades. I got to sit around and chat with three honest-to-God Mexicans: José, his sister Rebeca, and her one-eyed husband Pancho (who knew some English because he had worked in Calgary for awhile). Plus, I got a free and delicious meal out of it, and felt like hot shit for not just being a tourist, for actually getting out there and meeting the people of the place.

The next morning, I ate breakfast. And as I sat at the counter with a bunch of other old, solitary men, I couldn't help but picture myself as one of them, sitting in a cafe somewhere in Latin America, helping to translate for young American couples in love while drinking my millionth cup of chamomile tea and dreaming wistfully of when I was young and in love. Basically, the same weird daydream I've had since my dad died with a new Latin twist.

Afterwards, I met José, who thought of me as one of his students and patronized me a little bit. He didn't think I could make it to the terminal on my own. Bah. We took the subway there, chatted a bit more, and so on. Pretty ordinary. And then outside of the terminal, he suddenly leaned against a trashcan. "¿Qué pasó?" I asked. He mumbled something. Then I noticed...

I really wish I was making this shit up, but I'm not. He was pissing his pants. You see, José is incontinent. I was sick, exhausted, and just wanted to go home, and poor José was pissing his pants. My mind was literally blown, and I couldn't say anything. Then we just walked into the terminal like nothing had happened. I was so mortified, that I just collapsed into my bus seat and passed out while watching the Spanish-dubbed version of "Dodgeball."

Now, I think it's hilarious. Then... it was just more than I could handle. Sick, exhausted, aching, mindblown, and after three straight days with no English (aside from a drunk-dial from Andrea), my Spanish must have been set back a year. I could barely put anything together. I slept like a rock last night, and in the morning, the trip to Mexico had become a really good thing once more. I met two really cool old guys, got huge amounts of Spanish practice, saw some great sights, got to eat a great meal with a slightly more typical Mexican family (one that isn't rich and with a constant stream of foreign students as guests), and picked up a great story. And you know I loves me a good story.

I think that about covers it all. Now that that's out of the way, tomorrow I will attend to the writing of emails. Whew.