I am insanely tired, though slept for many many hours at my hostel, staring at about 5pm yesterday and with general success until 8:30 am this morning.
Yes, I am finally here.
It was a somewhat hellish trip. I checked in for my flight at 8:30pm on Tuesday night, as the plane was leaving at 10:30. My one brand new backpacker´s backpack was checked in as well. I was flying standby, on a buddy pass, a favor from a friend, who works for Delta. Though she did tell me there was no guarantee of getting on the plane that I wanted to get onto, I figured I had a high chance. Nope. Two planes later I was crashing on a bench for the night in the San Francisco airport. Here I am wearing the nicest light slacks I have from the Gap, a button down short sleeved shirt from Levi´s, a sportcoat, and a striped white hat to cover my mohawk. (I had to look nice in case they stuck me in business class.) In the morning, another plane left without me, and finally I got on the 11:30. Which landed in Atlanta at the same time as another plane was taking NOT ME to Mexico. We landed at 7:40pm, and the next plane to Mexico City was not until 9:45 the next morning. Miserably I wandered through the large Atlanta international airport, leafing through magazines, slurping on an unneccessarily expensive smoothie and munching trailmix. I busied myself with Sudoku until the wee hours of the morning, slept again on a bench, curled up with my hard and square backpack full of guides and a bottle of water. This time it was miserably cold, difficult to fall asleep and stay so. Beyond, there was not a single soul besides me in the large hall, as far as I could see. Creepy. Around 3am I wandered to another hall, where another unfortunate traveler was spending the night. I situated myself not far from him, and slept until 7am. I thawed myself out with a cup of hot green tea, washed my face in the bathroom, then waited another two hours for my plane, which was in fact mine, after all the suffering. This time I flew in businessclass. DAMN! Comfortable large chairs, all the free wine I ordered, good food served in real dishes and with real silverware. Courteous service. Wow. The person sitting next to me turned out to be an aging Atlanta fag on his way to Puerto Vallarta to "relax". We had a nice time chatting.
Upon arriving in Mexico City, my next worry was my backpack, which was supposed to have arrived on a plane 24 hours before me. My anxiety was quickly relieved when I saw it merrily descending down the conveyor belt towards me as one of the first.
I walked to the Metro, figured out how to get to where I was going, got to the hostel of my choice (
http://www.casadelosamigos.org/indexenglish.htm). They thankfully had room, and I got a domitory style bed for ten bucks a day. You can read more about them, but basically they are run by quakers and a lot of volunteer activity happens out of there. Peace and love and activism. The folks who stay there are youngsters like me, but also people in their 30s and 40s, who are professors, philosophers, and generally folk taking a stand for the betterment of the world.
Forgive me, if my English is sounding a bit confused, I am surrounded with Spanish and happily remembering all the words and phrases I learned in High School. Which isn't bad, actually. I have been able to do everything I have needed -- order and pay for food, ask for and understand directions, buy tickets, read signs... excellent. Sunday, though I think I will be setting out on a 14 hour bus trip to a Southern city, where I will take a week long Spanish course, complete with a homestay in a Mexican family.
Today I visited Museo Nacional de Antropologia. It was okay. Honestly, I was bored, though I spent two hours there. I was thinking, I am in the country where all this can be seen and touched. Why am I looking at reinditions through glass? So I left. Walked through town to Palenco -- a rich neighborhood, took the metro to Zona Rosa -- a sleazy and gay neighborhood which I am into. Sat in a youngsters' gay cafe watching teenage same-sex couples furiously making-out without coming up for air. Ate some delicious soup and now am heading back towards my hostel. There is some sort of political conversation at 6:30 in the meditation hall. There is also a library. And I am hella tired.
Anyone and everyone is welcome to reply to my entries here. I will be happy to hear from any and all of you.
exhausted
working
tired
