First steps in Mexico City

 

Our sons have described Mexico City as very cosmopolitan and somewhat reminiscent of Europe but at first glance the similarities were offset by a third world feel (somewhat like in South Africa).

There are streets with apartment buildings all adjoined, between three to five floors high.  

This does feel distinctly European.  Most of these buildings have a roll down door that allows cars into the ground floor parking place - in some cases a car elevator to take cars down to a lower ground floor as well.  In many cases these open garages have been converted into small shops that are brightly lit at night offering street food and any number of services from motor repair to upholstery, pedicures and veterinary care.  

This makes for fairly lively main roads teaming with people for most of the day.

 

Our AirBnb has a small narrow balcony out of a large window wide enough to stand and barely wide enough for a chair.  Wooden stairs take you up to an empty concrete roof that Anne has been using to soak up the warm winter sun.

 

 Most of the apartments have access to a flat concrete roof for hanging out on, entertaining and for hanging clothes out to dry.

The third world-feel comes from peeling paint and graffiti on the walls and from sidewalks that are designed to trip you up as soon as you look down at your phone to see the map.  

There are many  trees in Mexico City.  Great big old trees that have heaved the sidewalk asphalt and cement up in blocks that you have to watch out for.  

Apartment entrances have also contributed to the uneven sidewalk with driveways almost a foot above the sidewalk that force pedestrians to step up to cross them.

There is a distinct smell in the streets during the day.  I think it comes from the corn that is cooked in various forms in the small shops along the street.  Corn in the USA is pretty singular - a sweet corn from what we knew as “mielies” in South Africa - small yellow kernels.  The corn in Mexico is more varied in color and size, and with more distinctive tastes and smells.  
Tortillas - the flat wraps for a lot of street food - are made from corn rather than wheat flour here.  A delicacy is a corn that has a fungus that grows on it - think of it as corn mushroom - that my conservative tastes won’t allow me to try.

The Spanish speaking experience has been unsettling for me.  I was a little cocky after our experience in Spain and I found on the second day how out of depth I was with a short conversation at the reception desk of our apartment block when I tried to ask if they could give us a spare key.

I had rehearsed my question fairly carefully:

     “Tiene usted otra llave para nuestra apartamento” (do you have another key for our apartment, sir)

He didn’t hesitate and said something that sounded to me like:

     “Anwe oirah jak oilklp pwaa aklfl adkflj ppiiw epixaf el airbnb”

I said: “¿Que?” and he repeated the sentence slowly enough for me to catch the “AirBnb” - realizing at that moment how lost I was but at the same time I knew what he was telling me to do about the spare key.  So with a “Gracias” I slinked away to lick my wounds and to tell Anne to contact the AirBnb to ask about a spare key.

 

Two days later I was standing in a shopfront store nor really willing to ask the shop attendant a question in case I had a repeat of the previous experience.  All I wanted to do was to buy a coke!  It naturally turned out to be pretty easy.  I even guessed that the shop assistant had said the price was …. well, somewhere between 20 and 30 pesos!  20 pesos = $1 US at the moment.

I have realized that getting really comfortable speaking the language will come slowly through regular repetition of day-to-day things like greetings and ordering food or shopping for household things - later we might start to practice small talk but that feels a long way away.

Our sons are both so fluent it is scary.  I asked them to try not to help us and they too have waited patiently for us to form sentences with butchered tenses and nouns and then left them hanging there for the waitress to work out with us.

We are a few days in, fumbling our way through making ourselves understood.  So far the people we’ve met have been patient with it.  Some speaking English but respecting our continued attempts to reply in Spanish.   The areas we have been in (Condesa, Roma and Escandon) are very cosmopolitan and the people appear to be accepting of people with different lifestyles - and we’ve been treated with good humor.

Roll with it

 

Extended travel has some interesting challenges not the least of which are travel surprises.  There is a reason you are advised to be ready to roll with sudden unexpected hiccups because these can be really stressful.

Our trip to Newark airport in New Jersey had been great.  We had missed the earlier overland train from New Haven to the magnificent Grand Central Station, and the next one ended up being really packed, but we heard someone in the isle chatting away in Afrikaans and then an engaging couple sitting with us started chatting about travel - the husband is an art teacher and was reminiscing about traveling as a student.  He had taken a lot of heavy art materials with him and then his mother had kept adding “you have to take this” items to his luggage until it had become impossible for him to carry them all by himself!  He ended up having to shuffle the bags in relay two at a time. 

We arrived at the airport at 11:30am for our 1:30pm first leg to Miami en route to Mexico City.  I’ve not had good luck with transit through Newark so it was with sinking hearts that we heard that our 1:30pm flight had been cancelled in September and we had been moved on a 5am flight instead - all of which was news to us.

The American Airlines customer support person (Cynthia) was an angel in a uniform.  She put a hold on two tickets two days later and said she would wait 15 min while we contacted Expedia to see if they could remedy the problem for us.  She was seeing no other options for flights to Mexico for us.

So there we are sitting off to the side - me sitting in the only available chair near an outlet, which happened to be an airport wheelchair, surrounded by our luggage.  I was struggling to connect to Expedia on their web chat using my phone’s hot spot.  You may know that trying to actually call Expedia is the most frustrating way to NOT get your problem solved so web chat has been the go-to, with mixed results.

After 30 min of the person on the other side repeating the obvious - “we see that your flight was changed In September and you were a no-show this morning” - I needed to go to the bathroom and left Anne on the computer chat, never a good idea as she would more than likely rage against the poor impotent faceless person on the other end.  

On my way back I saw panicked messages from Anne who had lost the connection to my hot spot and therefore to the chat! 

I raced back and we managed to reconnect but the person we had been talking to had gone from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde: the apologetic “I’m looking into how to help you” was replaced by a “screw you” tone.  We had been reconnected to a new, less sympathetic person under the original name.

Cynthia had been coming over every now and then to say she’d wait five more minutes but by this time we were out of luck with Expedia (“your tickets were forfeited”) and so Anne went to see if Cynthia could get us on the split flights she had found, one the next day and the other two days ahead (they were all full). 

Cynthia in the meantime had been working some magic and in another few minutes had managed to shift someone else’s economy seat to 1st class to get us two seats on a flight the next day.

The net effect was that we had to get  a hotel room in Newark overnight where we had a minor panic at reception because the reservation had been set for the following day!

I insisted superstitiously on getting to the airport 4 hours early the next day because we had heard that the TSA was going to strike.  The upside was that we sat in a small restaurant watching the World Cup final with an animated mix of French and Argentinian supporters.

The downside was that when our AA flight had to pull back into the gate because of a problem in the cockpit, we’d been at the airport for 7 hours and now faced the problem of missing our flight to Mexico in the evening.

All flights were fully booked to Mexico from all of AA's connecting cities but we met another AA angel who found us seats on different airlines to Austin that night and then to Mexico the next morning. 

This time Expedia was out of the picture (thank God) and we left the desk armed with a hotel voucher and vouchers for food and a taxi to JFK (a hectic 2 hours away in rush hour traffic).

The boarding time for the flight to Austin came and went and then the dreaded announcement that this plane was also grounded due to problems.  A replacement airplane brought us to Austin after a 4 hour delay where our hotel voucher bought us 2 hours of sleep before we had to go back to the airport for the final leg to Mexico City.

Not to be outdone, we asked the air hostess during check-in to verify that our bags were checked through and  it looks like they hadn’t been because she contacted someone who found them and loaded them on the Mexico City flight for us.

This last flight was also delayed (no surprise this time,  only resignation) because the pilot didn’t show up until 15 min after we were supposed to be boarding -  it turned out to be a minor delay and we were off to Mexico with this amazing smoking volcano not long before the final approach into the city.

Cosmos what are you trying to tell us? 

 

Lessons:

• If you book a long time ahead check your flight information a week before and again the day before.
• If you changed airlines between legs verify that the luggage made it onto the new airline. 
• Never ever use expedia again.  Always book directly to avoid being told that you have to fix this with your third party booking agent.
  
• Consider your carry-on luggage a safety net for your checked luggage getting lost - a change of clothes, essential medicines etc. should be part of your carry-on where possible.
• People in Austin are really nice. 

Lights

 

Stopping in London in November and early December was illuminating.  The weather is pretty bad - dark clouds most days and rain.  And it gets dark at around 4pm.  Our friend Steve has pointed out many times that there is a reason it is so green in England - rains most of the time.

It is hard to imagine living there for a long time.  I suppose if we did we’d find ways to equip ourselves for the weather and to stay sane (you can get out and be active in the rain after all) but the prospect doesn’t excite me too much - I think we want somewhere with more days of sunshine than most parts of England.

One of the surprising discoveries when we first moved to the USA in 2000 was that people would light up the outside of their houses with colorful lights during the winter months.  We were perhaps a little scornful of the wasted electricity at first but after spending a winter here we realized that these lights bring cheer into an otherwise pretty dark and depressing time of year.  Apparently outside lights for homes have been a feature of America since the 60’s.

Some people start by putting Halloween themed lights on their houses as November approaches and then swap them out for festive lights in December and keep them there through the darkest months.  Some of these homes go completely over the top and create elaborate decorations coordinated  with music that is broadcast on a little short-range FM transmitter.

There is a house in Massachusetts that causes a traffic jam on their main road every year as people slow down or stop to look at their light display.

When we visited our friends Chris and Beth in North Carolina in 2019 they took us to an incredibly impressive house near theirs that has a drive-though of their amazing display of Christmas lights every year.

Of course this is in stark contrast to our experience in South Africa where the longest days are in December and the shortest days are really not that short in mid-winter (July).  No one lit up the outside of their houses with festive lights there - although it looks like the practice has made its way to South Africa now as well based on a search on the web.

In England people decorate the outside of their homes with lights - although I have to admit that I didn’t see as many nor as extravagant displays in the streets of West Molesey.

Lighting displays in public areas is also popular - mostly, in America, town squares will have a big tree that gets adorned with lights and are lit in a ceremony with choirs and perhaps a school band.  In cities there are often coordinated light displays in the Christmas calendar.

About a 30min drive from Molesey is a botanical garden called Wisley that hosts a Christmas light display that was well worth a visit.  At the entrance were stalls selling Indian curries, Bratwurst in a bagel and Hot Chocolate (with Baileys for the adults) and Mulled wine.

The Christmas lights were spectacular - snaking along a path through the park starting with a beautifully lit building with a classical Christmas music backdrop

and then through wisteria

past a somewhat creepy display of a massive tree above an old building

and then a foggy path

and on to a light display with fountains and a series of ponds with large trees, all illuminated in different colors.

The walk was beautiful.

One of our daughters lives in a crescent that has a group chat that they use to organize ways for the street residents to cooperate and they had a planned street lighting on the night before we flew back the USA.

 

The residents congregated in the street to listen to children singing carol karaoke before a countdown to turning on all the lights in the houses on the street at 5pm - already pitch dark and getting cold.

I am no longer cynical about the lights - they bring plenty of cheer while the days are short and cold and rainy.  

London: Kings and soldiers

There are things that stick with you when you visit historical sites.  These buildings that were built hundreds of years ago and in which famous and very powerful people have lived or worked.

The things that stick are usually weird enough that you still can’t dislodge them days or months after your visit.

For example, when we visited the Hampton Court palace I learned that the there were high-born men whose privilege it was to serve the king as his “Groom of the Stool” - a coveted duty that included monitoring the king’s bowel movements and accompanying him when he took a dump.  Some say the duties included washing the king’s butt, however (but?) while the duties did include bringing towels and water in a washbasin there is no documented proof that the king actually bent over to be washed.

The position was coveted.  Henry VIII’s grooms of the stool  (he had 6 of them over his reign) were honored.  They wielded significant power as a result of their close proximity with the king and often controlled the private and secret finances of the king.

This week we took a trip into London to meet Anne’s second cousin and took some time to visit St Paul’s cathedral, an experience that has been lingering for more somber reasons.

I had visited the cathedral when I first passed through London in 2000 and at that time had found myself overwhelmed by its beauty and architectural majesty.  The structure and vaulted dome has a powerful presence.

On this visit I paid more attention to the sculptures and memorials along the sides and behind the altar and was surprised to see how many of them were memorials to soldiers and war.  I’m nor sure why I expected the memorials to be ancient religious leaders and royalty but the first one I came across was commemorating a soldier who died in the Crimean war.   I started to walk around to look at each of them and I realize with my limited exposure to English history that the names might have meant a lot more to me if I had paid more attention in Grade 9 when they were no doubt mentioned. 

Near the entrance to the right I stood for a few moments at the commemorative sculpture that remembers the 4300 souls who died fighting in South Africa - no doubt in the Boer wars - feeling a little odd at the thought of this monument remembering the losses on the English side.   My father reminded me in my youth that our ancestors had suffered at the hands of the English during the Boer Wars.   Each side steadfastly believed that God was with them and the  here I was at the English memorial thinking about the Boers.

At the back of the church behind the altar is a large banner describing the area commemorating the Americans who died fighting with the English during World War II and the deaths of soldiers in the Gulf war.

The web site of the Cathedral has a disclaimer that not all of the memorials would be considered worthy of inclusion today, without saying which,  and that they are a mark of how they were viewed at their time in history.  I suppose these might be referring to Generals who fought in India and in other British colonies a long time ago.

In the crypt there is a striking tomb to Nelson that was originally made for a Cardinal under Henry VIII who fell out of favor and was executed.  The wooden coffin inside the tomb was made from the mast of a French ship that was captured in the Nile.

Christopher Wren, the famous architect responsible for St Paul's, is buried in the cathedral and there are monuments to John Donne and Florence Nightingale - who’s names stood out as we walked around.  I also noticed that Walter De La Mare’s ashes are in the crypt.  He was a beloved poet of my Grade 7 teacher who had us all learn "The Horseman”.

Before we went down to the crypt Anne and I decided to walk up the stairs that take you to the top of the dome for a 360 degree view of London.  

I had noticed a railing inside the top of the dome from the floor of the cathedral and was disappointed to find out after walking up all the stairs that our views would be the city and not into the dome itself.

The famous whispering gallery - about half-way up - has been closed to visitors because of two “incidents" (one in 2017 and one in 2019).   It was sobering to type into a google search “suicides from the whispering gallery” and see auto complete show up various places around the world that are called “whispering galleries” that have been chosen as a last visiting place. 

 

For us, the Cathedral was a remarkable visit with someone playing the amazing pipe organ during the entire time of our visit. 

 

And a verse from Walter De La Mare that I'd never seen before but was somehow drawn to read.

Poor Tired Tim! It's sad for him.
He lags the long bright morning through,
Ever so tired of nothing to do;
He moons and mopes the livelong day,
Nothing to think about, nothing to say;
Up to bed with his candle to creep,
Too tired to yawn, too tired to sleep:
Poor Tired Tim! It's sad for him.

River Life

 

I mentioned that our daughters live near Hampton Court and the river Thames - west of London and about 30 min on the overland train from the city's central train station - Waterloo.

The walk to the Thames from each of their houses is only a few minutes and on their side of the river (South Bank) there is a tow path for long stretches along the bank.  The tow path was created years ago during the industrial revolution (1790’s) for horses to pull riverboats along, and is now a 3 person wide walking and cycling path in the navigable areas of the Thames interrupted only where some boating club or properties managed to get exclusive rights to that section of the river bank.  Although the tow path does not provide access for the entire trip there is a 17 day/16 night walking trail that covers the Thames from its source to London with many sections along the tow path.

In West Molesey there are houses right on the edge of the water on the North Bank that appear to be built to float on the river and in some places, small islands on the Thames that are covered by properties with access to the islands only by boat.

A floating house on the river raises a bunch of questions (my granddaughter asked “if you jump really hard in there will the house bounce?”) and of course I’m interested in how you dispose of trash and how the sewage works - particularly if you have one of these houses on an island!

The floating houses are cheaper than the built houses on solid land - in this part of London houses sell for around 875 000 pounds for a family-sized semi-detached, whereas a floating house might cost around 375 000 pounds but comes with the catch that you have long term leases of the river frontage that have to be renewed (and it is not clear how much these leases cost).  20 years is described as a rare long-term lease.

Floating houses take on a new meaning when you come across some of the riverboats moored along the Thames.

  These are like van-life sized boats that are sometimes permanently moored and sometimes living under the threat of action because they are moored illegally.  Boats on the non-tidal part of the Thames (above the many locks that are used for navigation) are allowed to be moored for no longer than 24 hours at a time but owners often park their boats and wait to be cautioned about their mooring before moving a few feet along. 

 In some places the riverboats have little fences and barriers set up to mark off their private property and appear to have been moored there for years. 

 I don’t know if they have special permits or are simple moored somewhere where a blind eye is turned to their illegal mooring.

In January 2022 a man was fined 800 pounds for illegally mooring two riverboats near to a lock in Molesey.  He refused to move other than for a few feet when he was ordered to .  The order claimed that he was blocking navigation at the lock and he was eventually towed while on one of the boats, having refused to speak to the officers.  He “showed contempt for the rules” according to a newspaper report of the court case and had previously been ordered to move.  It took between October 2018 and March 2019 to get him to move and then the court battle took until Jan 2022 where he ended up having to pay the fines and court costs amounting a total of 21 000 pounds.

It is possible to buy a riverboat for less than 100 000 pounds but getting a permanent berth is a big extra expense although it looks like in some areas near here you can get a berth with electricity and a sewage and water hookup for around 11 000 pounds a year.  These are very rare and in high demand.  It looks like for around 200 000 pounds you can buy a boat that has an established mooring agreement but it is not clear how long the mooring leases are in this case either.

The description of what appears to be the perfect mooring arrangement that includes electricity, water and sewage came alongside another that described the preferred sewage mechanism of “cassette” style toilet waste disposal and made me wonder about the summer swims and stand up paddle boards on the Thames in this area…. how many of the people on illegally parked riverboats take the trouble to dispose of their sewage safely?

I'm pretty convinced that living on a boat or on a floating house is not going to be a compelling argument for us - though I can imagine spending maybe six months on one at some point in the future as a potential long vacation... it might have to wait till I retire because I doubt there'll be reliable internet along the way unless the 5G rollout gets us a mobile option.

Bland food in England

 

Our daughters live in West Molesey which is very close to Hampton Court, a castle mostly associated with Henry VIII who must have contemplated ridding himself of his wives during his summer vacations up on his hunting grounds near the River Thames.

We’ve visited here a good few times since we moved to the USA in 2001.  One of the biggest miscalculations in our move to the USA was failing to realize how hard it would be to get visas for our daughters to live there with us.  It turned out to be nearly impossible.

The US immigration rules for my initial work visa (and later as Green Card applicants)  included children under 21 and so Emma (who was already 21) was ruled out and Jess (who was 18) ended up going to University in South Africa and then had to get a visitor’s visa to visit us after she turned 21.  Applying for family members to get across had an approximately 10 year long process time in 2001 when we arrived and if their circumstances changed (marriage and 2 children each) it would set the clock back on the application.   So we gave up on the idea by 2005.  

They both were able to work in the UK on the strength of their grandfather’s birth certificate and each ended up settling here permanently, Emma in 2003 and Jess in 2014.

I remember telling Anne once we had moved to the USA that we had, by implication of being willing to relocate all of us to the USA, given our children permission to settle anywhere in the world and Matt and Nick have embraced traveling since they graduated from university - first Matt (Senegal, Vietnam, South Korea, Vietnam, Guatemala, Mexico) and then Nick (Guatemala, Argentina, Mexico).  Who knows where they’ll settle?

Today I had a ‘brilliant’ breakfast at a cafe down the road from where we are staying:  steak and kidney pie, chips and peas.

 It tasted like cardboard with a soggy wood filling covered in a gravy of warmed wood glue.  They say that English food is bland but unfortunately my meal’s taste was no fault of the chef.  I tested positive for COVID last Monday night and began to realize by Thursday that the reason the orange juice wasn’t as great as in valencia had nothing to do with the juice.  I appear to have no sense of smell or taste at the moment.  Maltesers taste pretty bland too which is a big tragedy.

Anne joined me by testing positive on Thursday - and we are now holed up in a hotel for a few days to try to avoid infecting the rest of our families.

We feel ok - flu symptoms that are relatively mild.  Headaches that are annoying but not debilitating and some coughing.

The current approach to COVID in the UK is pretty relaxed for children 

“They can go back to school, college or childcare when they feel better or do not have a high temperature.” - even if they have mild symptoms such as sore throats and runny noses.

Adults are cautioned to avoid contact with others for 5 days after testing positive and avoid contact for at-risk people for 10 days after testing positive.

This has made me much more aware of how lax my precautions have been against COVID - even though we are not very sick it has been a little costly to have to find a hotel for a few days and it has made things miserable for all of us.

We are responding as we would have in America - where half the population still believe that wearing masks is a good idea in these circumstances - and so we are masking up when we go into the lobby and eating outdoors or in our room. 

 I am on day 6 today but still diligently putting my mask on.  Like the English I want to avoid the embarrassment of looking odd with a mask on but my genuine desire to not inflict COVID on others wins every time.   The net of which is I’d probably rather not leave the room at all for a while if I can help it.

I have been testing how poorly Anne feels by asking her a few "Do you feel like?" questions.

• A long walk?
• A roll in the hay?
• A swim in the Mediterranean?
•  Watching a movie?

This morning the only one Anne agreed she felt like was a swim in the Mediterranean which is pretty impossible right now and so we decided to go for coffee and croissants on the hotel terrace which was immediately ruled out when the hotel staff told me we needed a breakfast voucher from the front desk.  I decided I did not want to pay for a Full English Breakfast if all we wanted was coffee and a fancy French bun and we walked off in a huff.

So, stir crazy with cabin fever, we set off on the long walk that Anne had not wanted - to the nearby town (30min). 

Morning walk back of beyond - photo by Anne

When Anne saw that a large part of this was along a main road she opted to cross the road and go on to a misty field where we re-calibrated our plans after looking at Google Maps.  I found a coffee shop in this direction and it was there that I found my disappointing pot pie breakfast.   

During breakfast I persuaded Anne that we should visit a camera shop in the nearby town - still around 30min walk away - only to find when we were five minutes away that it was closed on Sundays.  

So here we are back in the hotel room and the list of things Anne feels like doing if considerably short.

Valencia

 

We have already decided that we should come back to Valencia despite the celebratory fireworks in the square  outside of the  cathedral “La Seu” causing a momentary panic that there was an active shooter in our vicinity!  As we found in the small towns a string of firecrackers is a common feature punctuating the end of a wedding ceremony.

We caught the train to Valencia from our small village for a 4 day stay right on the beach on the eastern side of the city.  The Mediterranean Sea was warm enough for me to swim a couple of times and the wide, flat beach is a playground and exercise venue for multiple groups who come there every morning.

Daytime temperatures were around 26C (78F) with a cool breeze every evening.  We saw on the news that the October just ended was the warmest on record for Valencia.

Some small palm trees on the edge of the beach promenade made it clear that the wind along this beach is consistent and can be quite strong but the weather was really great for the 4 days we were there.

Our apartment had a little coffee machine but we found it hard to shake the habit of walking to a small breakfast place (we had many to choose from on the beach) for coffee and some toast and the incredible orange juice squeezed fresh from Valencian oranges.

We took advantage of the many bicycle rental places to rent bikes and ride along the old river Turia that was been converted into a green space after it flooded and destroyed a path through the city in 1957. 

The river was diverted to run west of the city and its former path restored.

The city is not massive - it appears to be close in size to what Boston is with 800 000 people in the city and 1.6million including the surrounding areas.  It was founded in 138BC (I know!) by the Romans and has endured tumultuous times through its existence. 

 

The city has an old inner section called the “Centro Historico”

and some really modern museums and artificial edifices in the reclaimed riverbed which were worth a visit.  

We stopped for tapas at a cafe in the Old Town.

 

 

We didn’t visit very many places but the small streets near the beach were as expected, with semi-detached homes crowded against each other in colorful blocks

Riding buses in Valencia is pretty easy if you know which ones to catch.  The paths of the buses are described in an oval on each bus-stop so if you know which bus-stop you need you can probably piece it together.  Our host at the AirBnB was very helpful for our bus-trip into the city on the Saturday which we benefited from because we’d been on a bicycle ride in the vicinity of the central city before we were due to go in for the day.  You can download an app or just hop on and pay one Euro and 50 cents - which you can use over and again for an hour if you need to change buses on your route. 

 

On our last night we were joined by Sharon a friend from Massachusetts who has been traveling since April and had lots to share.  I'd been wanting to eat Paella and we took a vegetarian order for the three of us.  I'll be honest it tasted a little burned but who knows, I'll have to try a few more for comparison when we go back there.

 

Our visit was a little too short but the next stop is West Molesey near London to visit our daughters and their growing children!