Mexico - Home Spicy Home

I lived in Mexico for two years. Two long, mouth-burning years. I had a job, an apartment, two relationships (not simultaneous), a gaggle of friends, and two languages clattering around my brain.

Now, after a year and a half of London life - the tube, rush hour, fast-paced culture and actually eating vegetables, I get to return to Mexico and see my friends, attend a Mexican wedding, have amazing coffee that was grown and farmed two metres away from me and see what those crazy cartels have been up to (we're not Facebook friends so it's hard to keep in touch).

Traveling - the worst part of travel
This is unnatural. I'm eating a sandwich in the sky.

Whenever I'm on a plane, I get the distinct feeling that Nature is looking the other way, and if she were to notice what we're doing, there would be a terrible shift in science. Humans aren't supposed to fly - if Nature notices, the spell will be broken and the thousand tons of steel, flesh and luggage would plummet, quite rightly, to the ground.

Advances in technology have made life so much safer - yet while cuts, scrapes and colds are no longer lethal, technology has created new and more exciting ways for us to die. In the days of Shakespeare and Columbus no one died falling from cloud level. But today, I might.
St Peter will say to me "How did you die, my child?"
"I got into a giant thousand ton steel bird and went up into the sky."
"Well, that was silly wasn't it? How did you THINK you would get away with it?"

Yes, I am a slightly nervous flier. Good sandwich though.

The First Cat-Call
Ah, home again. Not being able to finish a thought as you walk down the road because men in their cars feel it is imperative that you know they find you attractive.

The quintessential wolf-whistle and cry of "Mamacita!" keeps me informed, with no regard for the fact that I am trying to construct the perfect segue in my head - I'm trying to link a bit about bicep-flexing to a bit about Boris Johnson, dammit, stop whistling!

Never write comedy while walking along a Mexican high street.

Never walk past a car that has purposefully stopped in front of you either. When I lived in Mexico and was walking down my residential street - palm trees, birds chirping, lizards scuttling about - a car screeched to a stop in front of me. Thinking it was someone wanting directions, I glanced in as I reached it, and through the open window was greeted by a complete wanker. He was literally masturbating. Like a chimp at the zoo, in a baseball cap. I ran - as much to give him the privacy he should have wanted for himself as to distance myself from the emaciated nutter.

My boyfriend thought it was hilarious.

The Cartels
Fucked the place.

Bilingual Night Out
It's a magical thing, switching between languages, sometimes mid-sentence.
Three girlfriends and I, in a bar, doing muppets (tequila slammer, poured down your throat and then having your head shaken rapidly from side to side, usually blindfolded. Viva Mexico!)

With the pleasant dizzy drunkenness that comes wih this bizarre method of consumption, we catch up and chat and giggle, switching languages to our hearts' content. It is wonderful.

But that's all I can tell you. The weird thing about bilingual nights out is that you have a great time, but afterwards you have no stories. You can't go tell all your friends about the hilarious joke you heard about a chicken policeman because it will make no sense. You can't repeat the 'way she said it' because you're not sure which language was being used at the time and you might screw it up. Which would create that awkward 'guess you had to be there' silence, so you have to quickly add some lies to the story, but you're in such a flap that the thing you pick is some childish slapstick that is VERY much 'you had to be there', and they say "Oh my god, she fell on her face? Is she ok?" and you, not wanting to admit you screwed up, say "No, she lost four teeth and she's still getting spontaneous spurt-bleeds from her eyelid. It's gross.", and they say "How awful! I should go and visit her!" and you say "No you can't, she's also got swine flu and it's really contagious and life-threatening."

Now you have a dying friend, all because of this incessant language-switching.

Being bilingual sucks.

The Ex Boyfriend
Meeting up with an ex is always bad news. Is there anything worse than the awkward small talk reserved specifically for the people who've seen you naked? The who's-life-is-worse-off-without-the-other competitions? The not-so-subtle, sligtly desperate boasting about how lovely, funny and satisfying our new relationships are?

Luckily, there was none of that. There was, however, a lot of demanding to know why my current boyfriend didn't want to meet him.

Gentlemen readers, especially the terribly English ones, could you answer that one? Why don't you want to meet your girlfriend's ex? Your girlfriend's American, baseball-cap-wearing, dude-saying, Blink 1-8-2-loving, rollerblading, Angels and Demons-reading, thinking-pizza-was-invented-in-Chicago...ing, ex?

Back to London
This coffee sucks.

But at least I can say 'trousers' and 'bollocks' again.