Cats!

Life is getting too damn busy! Two weeks since I last had the opportunity to update the website, and a backlog log of emails to match. So if I haven’t replied lately……

Paola hasn’t got a job yet, and I’m not sure who is going the crazier, her or me! I need some quality alone time with my PC!

Anyway, have been up to plenty over the last fortnight. A couple of weeks ago we spent a Sunday in a park outside the city, high up in the hills and forests. Last Saturday, the 19th I think, we went to the Nacional Auditorio and watched Cats, as the Broadway show paid a week long visit to Mexico City. And during the last week we went to the Anthropological Museum, which is one of the cities finest. I got some excellent photos there too (sit comfortably, there’s over 60 of them), along with a bunch of snaps of some dudes practising some ancient rope swinging ritual outside the museum. Four of them climbed to the top of a very tall pole, attached rope to themselves, and then slowly spun around and around until the rope was fully extended and they touched down on planet earth again.

Will have some photos up soon of the Zocalo, which has now been bedecked in national colours in preperation of Independance Day on September the 15th. I will get a week off while the country celebrates, and we are planning to go to Taxco (Tas-co), which is a gorgeous little colonial town between the city and Acapulco.

Earthquake

We had a small earthquake today! All very exciting! I had gone to a coffee shop with Paola in the evening for a drink, having spent the afternoon eating in a Yucatan restaurant with her family, when it happened. It wasn’t that dramatic, and the city gets these minor tremors a few times a year. We were sat on a sofa when the earth just moved gently from side to side. You could distinctly feel it, and it went on for 10 to 20 seconds. The lights and loose hanging things stuck to the ceiling were swaying for a couple of minutes more. Most Mexicans are pretty nervous about earthquakes after the 1985 disaster which killed anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 people. I’m told there isn’t much to worry about unless you hear cracking noises. Paola and her family all survived the 1985 quake without injury, but she remembers it pretty well. Even today the scars are there to be seen - the huge parks around the Zocalo area weren’t always parks. They mark the spot were a good number of the 400 or so destroyed buildings stood.

Baptism Party

Went to a baptism party last night. One of Paola’s neighbours, Sandy, has also been one of her best friends since childhood, and she has a little boy called Sergio….I think thats his name anyway. I still barely speak any Spanish so I don’t always take it all in….

Work, Pollution and Dead Pizza Boy

I have got a job! In fact, I have already finished my first weeks’s work as an English Teacher - technically I am currently an illegal immigrant too, although I am working on getting my FM3 work visa. Not that I think it matters an awful lot anyway. There is little trouble that you can get into that you can’t buy your way out of….!

The job is easy enough and I have half filled my weekly schedule already. I need about 10 classes, each of two hours, to earn roughly 8000 pesos a month (its paid fortnightly in cash, no tax!), and I have six so far. I also have a few substitute positions to get me a few extra hours. But the bottom line is that I only have to work 20 hours a week to earn enough cash to be considered reasonably well off! Our monthly bills for electricity, gas and broadband all come in at less than 500 pesos, and you can buy a huge bag of vegetables that will last a week for less than 100 pesos. Add in a fortnightly trip to Wal-Mart with a 1000 peso spend for all of our luxury foods, and as you can see, we are laughing! I hope to save about 2000 pesos (about £110) each month, for holidays.

Otherwise, life in Mexico City is just fine. Sure, there is bad pollution (some days are fine with blue skies….other days the atmosphere turns a murky brown!), and there are plenty of road accidents - we saw a Pizza Hut boy lying pretty dead in the road the other day - not wearing a helmet. But there are far more pros than cons, and its all good fun!