One uncle’s vivid day

While struggling to look for my boarding gate, I took a quick glance at my email and lo, and behold, my Uncle has one of his write-ups again. I then took time to imagine where he is as I try to detox myself from a stressful airport transfer from Washington, DC to Detroit, MI. I will deal more into that later but for now, I’d rather linger on somebody else’s trip.

My Uncle is known to be straight-forward but he does have a sense of humor. Here’s another of his Mexico City days …

8:45 Mexico City - Another day. I saw the brightest full moon before dawn this morning from my hotel window as it was about to set. The backdrop was the city´s skyscrapers. Truly spectacular. Every full moon where ever one is in the world is truly spectacular. It makes my thoughts fly up.

Let me narrate what I did yesterday.

Walked all the way to Plaza dela Constitution, a major city square like Tianamen
Square in Beijing or Plaza Mendiola in Manila. However in this expansive square
is located the historic, grand, baroque metropolitan Cathedral with 2 main altars,
three side chapelettes on dedicated to a saint, all intricately embellished with gilded gold so the whole interior literally looked like a fort knox.

On the grounds outside the cathedral are preserved diggings of pre-hispanic structures, by the ancient civilization that once occupied the area. Spain literally usurped, and squatted on a land inhabited by an already flourished and thriving culture.

On the other side of the square is the Palacio National, the official presidential structure where the country,s president holds office, but lives outside the area in
chapultepec suburb. The building is only at least 3 stories but occupied the whole
square from end to end. In the center of this massive square is a giant Mexican flag.

The whole area yesterday was agog with activity, security guards all over the area,
and most of the surrounding buildings were fenced off. The French President is in town, obviously expected in the palace, and security was not compromised. Few demonstrators were around chanting something, but their number was sparse.

Continued on with my self guided walking tour, jostling with the crowds, rubbing elbows with many Marimar and Rosalinda-look-alikes with their equally dashing
escorts who are hurrying to somewhere, immersed with daily living.

Here I am, taking things so nonchalantly feeling like above them all as I was free as a bird. Another day to count my blessings.

Moving on, passed the organ grinder minus his monkey but with an aide holding out a cap, of course. Street food is everywhere. People love to eat. It´s not unusual to see guys in office clothes, meaning coat and tie munching down a taco, tamale, torta (Mexican-style sandwich), on a stool in public. An unusual scene if in Makati setting. To these office workers, It’s merely a way of life, no big deal to be seen eating street food.

Street food. Ah, that's caution for me. To be sure I don't get hit by "Montezuma's Revenge" a.k.a. LBM. I eat in established food centers where sanitation is emphasized. The locals are probably immune to whatever's out there but I’m not taking chances. So for lunch I stopped by Burger King, with whopper hamburger for 30 Mexican dollars (about 90+ pesos). I'm not particularly fond of hamburger but it tastes good here.

With all the walking, window shopping, passing districts with specialty stores like old books, religious items, perfumeries, open air cafes, whatever, I felt my muscles longed for rest so I found a good corner bench with headrest in the park facing a fountain and took a quick nap sitting up. Where’s the blind masseur when I need one?

Usually in my overseas travel, I see and chat with many co-patriot Filipinos (OFWs).
but here I realized I haven’t seen one yet.

On my last day in this city, I plan to visit the city museum, Anthropolical museum, and I'm inclined to revisit the exhibit of arts and culture of imperial Russia collection of Hermitage museum. It would be a nice way to cap my visit.

What a day for him. As for me, I got to go now. I still have to check my gate number and run off – Mcnamara terminal and North terminal are sooo huge! --to catch my 2:15 flight to Ontario, Canada.