Mexico City

14 years ago I fell in love/lust with a woman from Mexico City.  Over the next year, I visited Mexico City 5 times, staying anywhere from two to six weeks at a shot, trying to win this woman's love.  It didn't work, for whatever reason.  A lack of dineros, hidden competition, or maybe it was just a case of national pride, it occurs to me now.

Although I didn't win the woman's heart, Mexico City succeeded in stealing mine, along with my wallet (on the subway).  Hello, American Embassy!  Anyway, I look back at this video with a mixture of regret, nostalgia, and something akin to homesickness.  Not sure how all that works together, but there you go -- spend enough time in the Distrito Federal and it grows on you. 

I don't remember the cable cars and thus never rode one, but I do remember seeing houses just crawling up the sides of very steep hills, where none of the land has been leveled -- they just build on the steep pitch.  Another massive earthquake in Mexico City and alot of those structures are going to tumble down.

I love the scenes in the streets and the colorful bazaars full of people, full of life -- that's what I miss about Mexico City, the sense, the pulse of life all around you.  Here in America everything is very white-washed and toned down. Bland. Fake.  Nothing's real here.

I had to laugh when even the guide said, "We are lost now."  You could walk five blocks in Mexico City and go, "Now how in the hell do I get back?"  That said, I used to go running locally in Chapultepec park.  There would be gang members stationed every couple of hundred feet or so, just to stake out their territory.  I mean, other people were running too, but I was obviously the gringo.

I stayed in the Condesa where my friend had inherited the family home, which was originally purchased in 1964, with lots of excursions to the Reforma and Roma districts.  These guys are eating on the street in the Condesa, which I did often.  I miss that.  For some strange reason, it felt like home to me there.

They're having a really interesting conversation over lunch about the economic impact upon the locals of Americans and Europeans moving into neighborhoods like these.  My friend sold her family home and moved far out of the city, on a property nestled up against the volcanoes.

All in all, I miss that time of my life.  Though, as I said, the love affair didn't work out, still it was an exciting, lively, memorable, and often romantic time.  I guess my memories of Mexico City are still entertwined with those of lost love but, strangely enough, I find the memories to be mostly happy.  Go figure!