Mexico City, the city of love. Oh wait, that’s Paris.

Mexico City, the city of dirt. No, that’s Egypt.

Mexico City, the city of no dentists. True, but London surpasses Mexico City 7 days a week and twice on Sunday.

Mexico City, our poor neighbors to the south. That works.

As I write this from 29,000 feet in the air (but you’ll get this e-mail after I have landed), I have the occasion to reflect on my travels to Mexico City. What is interesting is that we seem to be getting closer to the ground before our time, indicating to me that the Captain and First Officer enjoyed one too many pre-flight cocktails. You know we are in trouble when the Captain says ‘and to your right you’ll see we are flying over the airport in Little Rock, Ark…poor Brett…hey, did they forget to remove his carcass from the runway when our plane crashed a couple of weeks ago?’ My seat is right in front of the curtain, so I get that special look (with a Smirk) from the Flight Attendant that says ‘so close, Rodney, but yet so far, far away.’

I guess I should say what I’ve learned on my vacation…uh, work assignment. Think of it as a Top 10 List:

10. You will always get to your destination faster on a burrow then on Mexico City’s crowded road. Renting a borrow cost $200 pesos. Taking the damn animal off the owner’s hand is $40 pesos.

9. Personal hygine, like traffic lights, is discretionary.

8. Just like people think they see Elvis, people in Mexico swear they’ve seen Juan Valdez and his coffee burrow.

7. ACELAB Ted is scary and should be avoided at all times. If you have a gun available, shoot him with it. If not, ask the police guard with the m-16 outside of the ‘Candy Store’ (it is really a money laundering operation) to borrow his. One look at Ted and he’ll do it for you.

6. Don’t drink the water. Don’t eat the food. Just live off of phlegm. Like everything else, it probably tastes like chicken.

5. When people say hello to you, reply with ‘turkey sandwich.’ Keep doing for several days…you’ll see why later.

4. Say hello to the person in #5. They should reply with turkey sandwich. Give them a thumbs up, go into your office/room and laugh. Tell others to say hello as well.

3. Most English-speaking tour guides recommend a healthy dose of pencillin before going out to the clubs.

2. Rich Bozzuto is a clown. I guess I’ve always known that, but the fact that his clownness crosses international boundaries was previously an unknown fact.

1. Most Mexican people have very light skin. However, you’ll never know because of #9. It’s really just dirt and exhaust from the cars that give them that roasted turkey color.

TIME PASSES

Now I am writing from the U.S. Shuttle. My CD player is not working and I need to listen to my Pure Moods CD before I throttle the driver. He took a wrong turn an now he is not sure where we are going. This would be amusing if it were not 11:30pm and had he not spent a full hour looking for other passengers to try and fit into the van. At one point, everyone in the van threatened to take Boston Coach if he tried to pick up one more passenger. We think he got the point and decided to get himself lost so that we’d pay for our mutiny. One brave soul asked to be let off on a corner in Revere so that he could catch a cab. In Revere? We’ll never see him again.

Anyway, that’s my story and I am sticking to it. See you around.

–RC–

Well Rich started this….

I damn well know that you are not all that interested in my adventures in Mexico because many of you have been (you may not remember it, but you were actually there…that was not just a drunken 4-day daydream). But, I have some time to kill, ACELAB Ted has his fingers up his nose, and Audit Team Leader Sue is blabbering something to the effect of ‘I wish the IBM Cafe here in Mexico made Bloody Marys.” So here you go…

Although in Mexico, I am not fortunate enough to go chasing Geisha Girls around with $1 bills (Mexico would translate them as ‘Fish Girls’ anyway and that is entirely unappealing), I have other wonderous sites to look at. For I am in Mexico City, where every cab smells different. Ah yes Mexico, where their national flag and the fact that no one here vists the dentists binds them together in unity. Glorious Mexico, where I can go shopping for souvenirs at an ancient Aztec city, and be offered a $40 peso discount if I give the vendor my hiking boots. But hey, he’ll throw in the malnourished cat for free so I should have contemplated it. Mexico, where the police abandon the war on drugs and the restaurants intensify the war on the stomach. Mexico City, where I am sure if the inhaitants of the city knew what Immodium AD was, would give that company enough money to run all of Mexico. Come splash in “pea soup” green water, come to the city where everything comes with cheese, come to the country where you can bargain at Macys. Ah Mexico City!

In all seriousness, the place is quite cool. There is lots to do and it is generally a lot of fun. What Mexico lacks in cleanliness it makes up for in nightlife. When my toughest decision of the week is tequila with almond or clear tequila, I ain’t got no complaints. I miss home at times, but not Jon’s bastard cat from hell (the only, and I use this term loosely, ‘domesticated,’ cat I know that prefers the taste of human flesh to Meow Mix). Right now, Jon is renting out my $700+/month room at reasonables rates, so jump on it now before he decides to make it the cat’s litterbox. The most interesting challenge each day is trying to speak enough Spanish to get food. Somehow, with every restaurant I go to I end up with: a) A spanish waitress who is the size and has the facial hair equivalent of Barry White; and b) some meat involving chocolate spicy sauce because everything I say (expletives, the word ‘furby,’ and the phrase ‘get those kids out of your headlock…oh you just forgot to shave your armpits…please don’t hurt me’) translates into “ah, he must want the chicken with Mole (spicy chocolate) sauce.” But seriously, all joking aside, they put us up in a very nice hotel, there’s a 55 year old member of the team that wants to do shooters at a bar sometime this week, and I am learning a lot. So it is all very cool.

So now that I have had my taste of Spanish culture, I look forward to my taste of Asian culture. My next assignment brings me to Singapore, land of unnecessary rules like no chewing bubble gum, no spray painting cars, no hanging out with the women who want to “love me long time,” ad nausiem, yadda yadda yadda.

One piece of advice before I go…stay an intern for as long as possible. I work about 55-60 hours a week, while I only get paid for 40 of them. Rich, Shannon and ACELAB Ted might laugh now, but they’ll miss those extra hours once they start full-time. I must resort to purchasing IBM stock to make up the gap. C’est la vie.

Anyway, here’s hoping that Shannon will continue the trend by reporting from Asswater Junction, USA. And I don’t mean Maine because that’s affectionately titled ‘Cousin Country.’

Livin’ La Vida Loca,

-RC–