Hola! Me llamo Charline y soy una tourista francesa!!I am learning spanish and learning fast! I had not arrived in Mexico City yet that I was already speaking broken spanish to get a SIM card with credit at the airport! Now I have to say that out of all the destinations I chose to visit Mexico City was the one I had a lot of warnings against and therefore I couldn't even try to imagine how it was really and what to expect. It is true that the city is extremely big, extremely crowded and extremely ALIVE! So if you are sleepy forget about it! I had a kind of surreal arrival because I was flying from San Francisco at 1am and arriving at 7am local time which is 5am in SF. So I was considering it would take "all night" but my biggest problem was actually that I didn't get any sleep at all on that flight. So I arrived in Mexico City completely exhausted. The border control was much shorter than in the US and so it wasn't too long to get out. But having read but the altitude and pollution I was trying to make sure I wouldn{t get too much out of breath. It isn't too bad as the weather is not very hot at the moment but I do notice from time to time that I am catching my breath a little bit. As I had so many warnings about taxisI decided to go local and use the metro to get to the hostel. And what an experience!!! it was very simple to find my way around but after a sleepless night, let me tell you that the metro population will not let you have a rest! some guy with loud speakers on his back was blasting dance music out for at least 3 metro stations to sell CDs...Anyway I am glad I went the cheapest way as it was very efficient anyway and the station is so close to the hostel. I had booked the hostel on the internet from London and it was extremely cheap. Well it is just local standards I guess, but it is cosy and clean, in a nice area so it does the job perfectly! As to my spanish it is improving a lot. I can understand already quite a few words, and sorry my dear spanish friends, but Mexican spanish is much clearer to me than Spanish from Spain..I hope I am not starting a controversy!! you will have the pleasure of making fun of me when we next speak in Spanish together!!
So yesterday,I just arrived at the hostel, waited more or less 1pm to check in, shower and sleep 2 hours before I went to meet people I had been in contact with prior to my arrival. We went by foot/bus around main areas of the city: Reforma, and the Zocalo.As it was saturday a lot of people were off and going around the main streets. It is as crowded or even more than central London and traffic is a bit crazy so you have to watch to cross the streets. What is intimidating about the city is that it is very "vribrant" there are a lot of things going at every corner of the streets, in the parks and the crowd and noise make it very oppressing. But on the other hand it is veyr lively and the most amazing thing in this is that, these people are Mexicans, enjoying life as it is. They are in their country/city and they stop in the parks to play all sorts of music and they dance. To see people of all ages dance in the parks made me realise that in London or even in cities in France would be considered slightly weird, you would stop and watch but most probably think "these people are a bit crazy". So I found it refreshing as well that people enjoy quie simple things just happening in public areas. The streets are yours!! make the most of it!!
Today I met another couchsurfer: Andrea. She is Mexican from Mexico DF and she took me around by car and it was an amazing day! We went to the South of the city to Coyoacan, followed a free guide into a church and the Corte House. We had amazing street food which name I cannot remeber already! I think it might have been quesadillas with the special spicy chocolate sauce and some special cheese too. And there was another thing beginning with B.. but can{t really remeber the name. Then we met some other people as well from Couchsurfing. Coyoacan is supposed to be a fancy hippie district with a little market place. I found really pretty. Later on we went back to La Condesa and had some hot chocolate and corn cake. I think tourism in Mexico turns very quickly into food tourism!!! I just hope my stomach will take it nicely! So far not toruble but I don't want to jinx it. And I hope not to put on too much weight either, I have to fit in my bikini for the end of my trip in Mexico!! It is very interesting to go around with locals because they know the history of the city!
Anyway, now I am quite glad to learn so many things and meet new people quite easily. I am also glad that I will be staying longer in the country rather than flying again too soon.
So the story will continue in Mexico soon!!
