Mexico City - Day 1: Everything is everything

Got picked up in, yes, that pretty epic airport reunion. Back to Casa de Carlos squared in the "limo" driven by the driver who also lives at this hotel owned by his dad. Carlos senior is jolly, intelligent, and warm-hearted. I think he's more than a little bewildered by me, but treats me like family anyway. The hotel is more of a guest house, with only 8 or 10 rooms, typically only rented to airline staff. It's clean, very secure, and I get the idea that it's in a near constant state of construction. Carlos and I are a little nervous of each other at first, but we quickly fall back into old banter, and stay up late sharing stories and catching up on the last 6 months. It's wonderful to be with an old friend. I awake in the morning to 4 car alarms, honking, 2 dogs, and a woman yelling "Basuraaaaaaaa!". She gathers the trash, I'm told. There's also a man selling propane, announcing its availability with a hearty "Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas!" every few minutes. I can only smile, and delight in the little things that make international travel so rich and interesting. All tropical countries smell the same. Breakfast is of a cup full of fruit- papaya, guava, pineapple, banana, honey, and awesome from a small fruit stand where I'm introduced as the girlfriend. Girlfriend I am, then, for a week. It's the best way we can describe this - needing to distill some word out of our complex relationship so that others know how to relate to me... I suppose the reason that the usual labels don't work for me is that I don't follow the script. More than friends, more than just lovers, but not exclusive by any stretch- no commitment, no jealousy, no expectations, just loving as we will. This is perfect. We rode the wonderfully colorful Mexico City subway (the Metro) to the Zocalo. This is the huge square where Christmas happens in Mexico City. It's a caricature of winter, with people making snowmen from manufactured snow, soap-bubble flakes being blown into the air, ice-skating in a slushy rink, and paint-frosted roofs on carnival shacks hawking cup-o-soup, donuts, and questionably edible orange puff treats, all surrounding a huge AstroTurf Christmas tree. The buildings around the square are draped 8 stories tall with parade ornaments and lights. I hope we get to come back at night for the lights. It is a slightly muggy 75 degrees outside. I am wishing I had worn a skirt. We buy fries at the McDonalds to use the bathroom. I have a rule - I never eat at McDonalds in the US, but they have reliably clean bathrooms in other countries. I'll happily eat grease bomb fries for a toilet with a reliable supply of soap and paper. The cathedral across the street from the Zocalo is like many I've seen: made of marble, ornately carved and spectacularly decorated with statue after statue of saint-this and king-that. I remark that I wish I had been raised in the church sometimes, just so that I would have some of that knowledge. Carlos replies that he was, and he still doesn't. On the way out, I'm struck by the enthusiastic spikes on the fence surrounding the cathedral. I suppose it should have frightened me a little- such concern with security at a place of worship- but I was simply amused. Mexicans are a passionate people- living with gusto (literally?). Fences are not simply fences, they are FENCES! Carlos and I laugh about parties being PARTIES!, food is FOOD! and love is LOVE! in Mexico. "We don't do anything half-assed," he says. Me gusto. We meet up with Carlos' colorful friend Eric, who spent some time in prison, and is now teaching English and riding the thin line between macho Latin dude and funny people lover guy. They joke about everything, "use horchata in a sentence" making fun of their students, but they clearly love and devote a lot of time and energy to them. Here, as I'm writing, I hear the gas man shouting "Gaaaaaaaas!" We pick our way through the first few blocks of the market that's around the corner from the Zocalo. All the things are for sale here. The Christmas light store was my favorite. Bullhorns make salespeople more effective, in Mexico. Markets are MARKETS! Everything is designed to be packed up instantly for whenever the police decide they're tired of one or another little stall, or someone neglects to pay the required bribe. It's widely accepted that while the police enforce the laws, they are also highly corrupt and usually involved in breaking them. We eat street meat: fatty, greasy, spicy, amazing. We find a bar, and after one beer worth of ogling the hot blonde girl in tight pants, Eric introduces himself and it's all downhill from there. The thought occurs to me that it's 3pm on a wednesday. I haven't been in Mexico 24 hours, and I'm already drunk and chair-dancing with two pretty Mexican girls and their 4 gay friends. One of the girls takes more than a passing interest in me- she knows enough English to tell me I am "very beautiful" several times. I do my best to skirt the issue, and we eventually exit gracefully, but not without exchanging phone numbers and making friends with about 10 other people in the small bar. (yeah, yeah- run-on sentence and all that.... I write a lot of those. I missed the finer points of grammar, hoping I could make up for it in spelling and content. Don't judge me.) We decide we are, so far, winning Mexico. Evening was spent giggling for 5 hours with Carlos' family. His dad, stepmom, bouncy aunt and cute teenaged cousin treated me like family instantly. We cranked up the volume and flipped through someone's iPod, singing along and making up dances. After consuming a respectable amount of beer, we made our way to his grandparents' house- a nice place in the suburbs. Everyone curses heavily in Spanish. I understand enough to get most of the humor. Carlos tells everyone that I am trying to learn more of the language, that I understand a lot and to not bother with English. I think he thinks I understand more than I do but laughter doesn't need translation. And, I think it puts everyone at ease if they don't have to stop and wait for me to catch up on the meaning. Really, I would have had a wonderful time if I hadn't gotten even a word. I was able to get in on the jokes now and then, and everyone laughed even more. The humor here is pretty crude, by our standards: I would never make poo and sex jokes in front of my grandmother, but the graceful matriarch of this family pulled no punches. By the end of the night, we had inside jokes galore, a good beer buzz, and sore cheeks from laughing. This family reminds me of mine, only louder. I was so tired from jet lag and the altitude that I slept on Carlos' lap all the way home. I forget how exhausting it is to work in two languages, listening intently to every word that's said to catch one out of every five or ten that I understand. Responding is easier; I am able to get my point across pretty well with my relatively limited vocabulary. In Mexico, family is FAMILY!