Bienvenidos a Mexico City!! (Maria Misadventure #479)

Slumped on the airport floor, I was trying to find comfort in my early, Dulce de leche birthday cake. Sixth hour, forth phone card in, but couldn’t reach the hostel. If I’d been a seasoned traveller, I would’ve written down the address. But I was 19 and naïve. Tried again: ‘No entiendo!’. I felt sorry for bothering the voice on the end, but not as sorry as I felt for myself.

A cleaner put his arm around me, him muddling through some Spanglish, myself attempting the same through hysteria. I tried to follow his tale: city living is tough, large family, he’s breadwinner, daughter my age, believes I have a guardian angel. Me: almost 20, five months in, overwhelmed, sub-par Spanish, Mother who doesn’t worry enough. There’s nothing like talking to a local to put a teen’s tired tantrum in perspective.

In an attempt to resuscitate some night of this lost day, I took off in search of a specific ATM, landing on Paseo de la Reforma. Feeling weak and small, surrounded by skyscrapers unfamiliar to Mexico I knew: tall, grey, corporate.

The need for comfort led me to McDonald’s. It must've been a tough day to push a 3-year vegetarian into the arms of a multi-national chain for a serving of glocalisation: a burger with Doritos inside. Muy auténtico!

I had lost a day in the city, I had cried on a shoulder of a stranger, I had eaten birthday cake for 2 meals and for the third - had broken the cardinal rule of travelling: NEVER McDonald’s! How did I end up here?

Pleasant surprises met me en route to the hostel: sculpture seats, public bikes, meticulous gardens and impressive statues. I looked up at El Ángel de la Independencia wondering if she was the guardian angel the cleaner spoke of.
Hundreds of canvases by local artists lined the avenue. Thousands of light bulbs created the faces of revolutionaries - Hidalgo, Allende, Zapata – keeping watch over the city. Suddenly in the metropolis I was reminded of the colours, people and histories that had built yesterday’s impression of Mexico.

Later, typing a sulky email to my unworried mother, a man forced conversation on me.
Apparently, LA is tough for an actor. I bit: “So you act?”
“I’m actually the best porn star in the world at the moment… I won this year’s Porn Oscar for Best Actor”.
I laughed and I laughed. Stress melted away as I shook with heavenly glee!
I don’t know how the star of Not Married with Children XXX ended up there, but I was glad he did: I hadn’t laughed all day. Maybe he was my guardian angel.