public transportation

I spent the weekend traveling about the city via metro, buses and walking... lots and lots of walking.  All in all quite an experience, apparently Mexico City is pretty big.  The weekend essentially started on Saturday since I didn't do much Friday night. I know, my first weekend night in the new city and I stayed home. Lame.  However, I did have my reasons...well mainly just two:

1. I don't know many people here yet.

2. Everyone here speaks spanish, a skill that I am currently lacking.

I'm beginning to think that the two are related...  

Anyways, Saturday I went to go check out Coyoacan and San Angel.  These areas were once their own villages but have since become engulfed by the city.  The quickest way there was by bus, so off I went give the mexican bus system a go.  

Before I get into the bus ride itself, let me give you a run-down of traffic in general.  All the main roads here are 6-7 lane monstrosities, each of which would be fairly intimidating in the States.  Throw in a population of around 20 million and a general disregard for any kind of traffic laws and you'll start to see where I'm coming from.    

Other than the strange look from the bus driver for attempting to grossly over pay the bus fare (coins here are different and apparently buses are very cost effective) things started fairly smoothly. I took a seat all the way in the back (I didn't really fit anywhere else) and spent most of the 20 minutes it took to get there observing everything.  

My directions were to get on the bus take it to a street, go 3 or 4 stoplights beyond that and look for an intersection with a gas station across the street from a flower stand.  Now this might not be so bad if say, the buses followed the speed limit, or came to a complete stop when dropping less than 2 people off but since none of these actions were taken I was a bit nervous about where I was going to end up.  Fortunately, there was a large group getting off at my stop and the bus stopped long enough for me to recognize my surroundings and disembark without much trouble.

I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon walking around through different markets, parks and churches in the San Angel area.  Not doing much really, taking the occasional picture, trying not to be so obvious about the map I needed to consult every 5 minutes (A folded map placed in a notebook works well), etc, etc.  This part of the city was really nice to walk around in, little cafe's and restaurants all over the place.  

Once I had gotten my fair share of the area I went to go check out the next part of town, Coyoacan.  In my quest to move about the city efficiently I put together a plan which more or less involved finding a bus on a particular street and hoping on it for a while.  This plan worked well in theory but once I got there it became very apparent that the street I had found was a one-way in the wrong direction and there were no other direct routes.  Damn.  I consulted my map and saw that the two areas weren't that far apart, so I decided to walk.  On the way I came across huge monuments, parks and mansions that alone were worth the hike over, which as it turned out was a bit further than I anticipated.  I blame this on the map scale.

Coyoacan was also another nice area of town, plenty of nice houses, town squares and markets.  A favorite of the tourists (which I am not) because of all the restaurants and museums in the area.  I stopped here, got a bite to eat, walked around some more and decided to call it a day.

From here the walk back to the closest metro station was considerable, not nearly as far as my previous jaunt but a decent hike regardless.  On the way to metro the area started to change a bit from nice, quaint village to major metropolitan city, nothing drastic but still rather noticeable.  As I turned up the street for the final leg of the trip I ran into a rather enormous shopping mall.  Mexico never ceases to amaze me.  This mall was nicer than most malls I know of in the States, complete with interactive touch screen guides and multi-level fountains. At this point I was a bit tired from all the walking,  and coupled with the fact that I am gainfully un-employed I didn't have many reasons to stick around.

I finally got to the metro and was on my way home.  I'm a big fan of the metro system here, it's really cheap, very efficient and generally clean, not to mention entertaining.  On separate occasions there have been political activists shouting their political beliefs (I presume, language thing again), little kids selling various food and the omnipresent CDadores (my own creation).  The CDadores are guys/girls who go from car to car with a backpack and a cd player playing music.  When I say "playing music" I don't mean with any ipod grade speaker system, they have a single speaker which takes up the entire volume of the backpack and I'm fully convinced it has two levels, "off" and "ear drum shattering loud".  The latter is usually preferred.   They go around playing different mixes they've made selling them to people in the car.  I've heard everything from Elton John to Led Zeppelin to mexican folk songs, it's really quite intriguing.  I might even pick up a mix myself once I get my speaking skills up to the bartering level.

Well, I'm off to work on the espanol.  Hopefully this finds everyone doing well.

Adios