Day 1: Mexico City

10.11.2012

Guess it all starts at the port of departure, this time LAX. Flight to Mexico City is delayed, making our arrival into the city at around midnight. Due to our recent busy-ness and a possibly cocky attitude from our experience in SE Asia, we thought, "things should be fine..." but when imagining our late arrival, I finally start feeling a bit scared.

The United flight attendants are all from the US with knowledge of simple Spanish vocabulary. I chuckle to myself as one of the attendants asks Dad, "leche?" while serving him coffee. To her defense, people have told us that he looks Mexican, and he looked identical to the Mexican gentleman sitting next to him. She must've thought that they were brothers. It was a funny moment.

Mexico airport is super clean! And we had no trouble getting a taxi into the city. Since I made a huge booboo in booking a hotel way out of the way, we decide to test our luck by going straight into the city center for cheap hotels.

We arrive at the Zocalo area at 1am to find that all doors are shut and the streets are dead silent except for construction workers digging up a huge hole. Troubled for directions to the cheapy hotel listed in our books, we ask a police officer sitting in his car for help. For the next 30 minutes, he, along with 2 other officers walk and follow us in their police cars until we find the location of choice. I told them "La policia en Mexico son muy simpaticos (Mexican police are really nice)," the officer gave an embarrassed smile and walked on.

Dad and I settle in, purchase a beer for 20 pesos and call it a good start to our trip.
My Spanish is working amazingly well too :)

Before falling a sleep, I write in my journal, "yudan wa kinnmotsu," which simply means, "don't get cocky."
An easy start, but I still have to be careful.