A Second Chance at a First Impression

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Coming back to the centre of Mexico City after almost five months living in Guadalajara and I can barely even remember what I thought of it the first time round. U guess jet lag and culture/language shock didnt exactly help but I'm pretty sure I didnt think much of it! It's quite nice therefore to be able to see it again, still with fresh eyes but this time less blurred y sleepiness and language difficulties.

Now reading guidebooks about Mexico City dont exactly help build up one's confidence about staying here - especially considering I'm a young woman and I'm alone. All of the warnings about not taking taxis, not travelling alone, not going out at night, keeping anything worth anything on your person not in a bag - and then the advice on how to avoid hastle is to 'Look confident and purposeful'!! A bit ironic no?

The bottom line is though that it's really not that great to be alone, white and female here. I went out of the hostel for about 10 minutes yesterday afternoon to get a map from the tourist office and a snack from 7 eleven and one guy walking behind me tried to talk to me three times. Where are you from? Welcome to Mexico. Are you looking for anything in particular? dot dot dot. Yes please I am looking to be left in peace!

I took the metro back from Coyoacan at about 2230, a fairly daunting experience but I was doing my best to look confident and knew exactly where I was going. I was quite surprised by just how obvious a lack of women there was! There must have been easily about 8 or 10 times more men than women, and I didnt see any other white girls. I didnt have any problems at all, though I was glad to when an elderly man sat next to me on the first train which I was on for a long time as there were quite a few young guys around. Something about having the older man there made me feel a bit more secure.

In fact on my very first trip on the underground - this one with Uri - an old man started speaking to me. I was talking with Uri in English (it wouldnt feel right talking to him in Spanish after 2 years in English). Anyway so we were talking in English and this man asked me in Spanish if I spoke spanish etc so I told hime about how I had stayed in Guadalajara for 5 months, yes I do like speaking spanish, and that yes DF (mexico city) seems nice although I only arrived today.

I have to say I do feel a lot more confident here now that I am more confident in my spanish. My tourist map is in English only because there were no spanish ones left. I feel confident enough that if anyone were to hastle me I could tell them to get lost in a very mexican way not just with rubbish tourist spanish!!

So what does my second first impression come down to? No, Mexico City is not as awful as it was the first time round - it is possible to survive a day without being mugged, raped or murdered. The metro wasnt too horendous (although I wasnt there at busy times) and the people havent been too scary - in fact I recieved fewer whistles etc yesterday than I used to get in Guadalajara. Yes Mexico City has a lot of things to see, hopefully I'll see some more in the next few days - but in the end this place is just another big city just like all the others. The same crowds of people, the same shops, the same people always trying to rip you off and the same feeling of millions of people passing you by. You dont know anything about them, they dont know anything about you. You are a nobody - just another person crammed into the metro, just another person to push past as you cross the street, just another tourist seeing the sights. So anonymous, so totally impersonal. Once again you're just another face in the crowd, just this time it's a crowd of 20 million!

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