Mexico, Part 6 - Puebla

Fresh off of buying a pill designed to kill any living sperm left in the tummy of a Mexi-German nutbar, Milo was finally ready to check out some other cities...so we were off to Puebla. First off, Mexico City is so big it has 5 bus stations. We took a taxi to the closest one. The entire taxi ride involved Manuel, our driver, trying to talk us into taking his taxi...just about everywhere. "Pyramids? Xochilmilco? Museum? You go with Manuel! No tour! Manuel take you everywhere, you no have to wait! Manuel allow you take your time! Manuel good price!" When we got out, he gave us his cell phone AND home number, just in case. Too funny.

We managed to get ourselves tickets to Puebla without too much of a problem, despite the lady and me going back and forth for 2 minutes about when we were coming back. I kept saying we weren't, she kept saying we had to. "No returno!" "Una dia!" "NO RETURNO!" "UNA DIA!" Turns out the discount fare was for same-day returns, not one-way. And obviously the old "add an O to the end of an English word and it becomes the equivalent word in Spanish!" idea doesn't work so well in practical application. Oh wello. Hardly a big deal anyway, it was like 11 bucks to get there...o.

The ride out there was pretty interesting. Mexico City started to fade from houses, to buildings, to older buildings, to...shacks. With tin roofs. Then just concrete foundations with thousands of laundry lines. And people everywhere. It got pretty ghetto. It was a looooong time before the city finally faded into the distance and we went into the mountains. Most people don't know that Central Mexico is actually really fucking nice. Rob and I sure didn't.

"Dude, Mexico has forests? When did that happen?"
"1973."
"What?"
"I dunno, I just said something random. How the fuck am I supposed to know? I'm as shocked as you are."
"Reaaal funny, Timmy. Reeeal funny."

We arrived in Puebla about 2 hours later, at a fairly large bus station on the edge of the city. One thing about Mexico that's awesome is that it's really fucking easy to take a cab if you don't really know where to go. Just say "Zocalo". He'll drop you off in the central square. Problem solved. After going through some slightly sketchy suburbs, we got dropped off in the Zocalo - and it was fucking awesome. We got out, gave the cabbie 40 pesos, took one look around on the spot, and yelled "AWESOME!" in unison, and high fived each other. This was even better than we expected.

The central square has a pseudo-amphitheater in the middle, with a huge fountain in front and a massive church behind it. It was super leafy, with trees and shrubs and stuff all over the place, plus a bunch of statues and sculptures. On either side, the entire blocks were lined with street cafes and restaurants, and the front side was a pedestrian walkway. It was...for lack of a more manly term, beautiful. Here's a couple of stolen pics.





Our first order of business was to find a hotel. After walking for a couple of blocks, we found one that seemed worthy. We walked in and I asked how much a room was, which made Milo laugh.

"Dude, the prices are on the wall right behind her head."
"Oh. Oops. Maybe they changed?"

They hadn't. Milo 1, Tim 0.

Our room was pretty funny. 20 foot ceilings, but the bathroom walls were only 10 feet high. Okay. Cool patio looking out onto the street, but a legit huge padlock for the door. Sure, whatever. It was like 31 bucks a night though, and had 2 beds and a TV. Tough to complain. Well, for now anyway.

After that, it was exploring time. Puebla is known as a pretty religious city, and supposedly has 365 churches, one for each day of the year. We found three things out on our initial trip around the city -

1. Yup, lotsa churches. Very nice.
2. Outside of the zocalo, there seemingly wasn't much goin on.
3. Puebla was hotter than Laura Vandervoort. (Look her up, you'll be happy you did).

Food/beers seemed like a good idea, so we went to a restaurant bordering the zocalo. I guess we weren't there during a regular mealtime, because an entire block of empty chairs awaited us. Luckily, a pretty lady offering 2-for-1 cervezas helped us make up our mind quickly. We grabbed some enchiladas with mole sauce, which Puebla is famous for. They were awesome. Watching the waitress try to explain the whole "red or green chili" thing to Milo was pretty amusing though, because neither of them had a fucking clue what the other one was talking about. I knew, because I went through it in New Mexico a couple of months before that, but awkward misunderstandings are pretty funny when you're not involved in them, so I stayed silent.

Tim 1, Milo 1.

The best part of lunch was the relentless shoe shiner. He attacked Milo like a Jew attacks a bargain. Milo said no about 30 times, but the guy just started shining like Milo wasn't even talking. Milo was wearing soccer shoes or something too, which made it even funnier. I think he even kicked the guy at one point, but Shiny wouldn't be denied. Finally Rob gave up fighting, and he did his thing...then tried to charge him some ridiculous amount like 100 pesos. I couldn't help myself anymore, I just about fell over laughing at the look on Milo's face. Utter shock. Milo's ended up giving Shiny 40 pesos or something like that, which was good enough for him. Shiny then took one look at me, and I just said "FUCK NO." And he walked away, just like that.

"How'd you do that?"
"I have no idea. I'm more awesome than you, I guess."
"Yeah right...it's because your shoes are brown, asshole! It wasn't you! It was them!"

Shiny 40, Milo 1.

Milo was pretty tired at this point, so we headed back to the hotel. He couldn't fall asleep though, so we discussed whether it was even worth it to stay the night here. We figured we had seen most of what there was to see, and it didn't seem like much was going on. It was only 3:30pm so we had time to go somewhere else. I was indifferent, but Milo decided we should give it a second chance and stay.

Hands down, best decision of the trip. For all the jokes and teasing I send Milo's way in these blogs, he deserves even more credit - he made some genius decisions and pulled the trigger on a lot of things I would have either passed up or been too timid and/or indecisive to do, and the trip was sooo much better because of it. Props, buddy. You're still a jackass though. : )

So, we stayed. And it didn't take long for the decision to pay off. After wandering around for a little while, we found the mother of all interesting streets. It was a wide pedestrian-only street, PACKED with all sorts of people. Deviants, clowns, tourists, salesman, elephants, vendors, sluts, everything. Okay, no elephants, but everything else is legit. It also had tons of interesting shops, people selling all different kinds of balloons (balloon sales are huge in Puebla for some reason), street performers, music blasting out of different places...then a beautiful church. Then more of the same. And another crazy church. For blocks and blocks. It was a people watcher's dream come true.

We spent over two hours walking up and down this street and checking out churches and markets and whores and stuff. I think some people were as amused by us as we were by them. Besides being gringos, they were laughing at us for being so entertained by the stuff they see every day - a stuffed body done up like a corpse, hanging from a tree; a church covered in balloons and decorations; either a street performer or a statue of Death outside a church (we couldn't tell if it was a real person or not, and we stared for at least 5 minutes); morally flexible ladies; and clowns. Fucking clowns. Everywhere. It was just the sort of authentic Mexico we were looking for, and we were pretty happy we stayed. And once the touristy shit was done...it was drinking time!

While we drank at a cafe on the street facing the zocalo and laughed at the cops driving golf carts and smart cars (seriously), people started showing up at the amphitheater. More, and more...and more. Pretty soon the seats were full, as were the cafes. A pretty good band came on stage and rocked out for a bit, while the Mexicans in the amphitheater sang along and danced. It was starting to get dark, and Milo decided it was tequila time.

Ruh roh.

Two double shots of white tequila later, we were flying. Right around then, the band stopped and a lady got on stage and started giving a fiery speech. We understood approximately none of it, but the crowd was pretty fired up. At this point, we started to notice all the red posters all over the place, with a guy's face on it. A guy who just happened to come out on stage right while we were coming to the realization that...we were in the middle of a political rally. Turns out this guy was running for governor of the state, and the election was 3 days away. Cool...or is it?

Normally political rallies in third world countries sounds like bad news bears for tourists, but this just seemed like a pretty killer party to us. Milo's infinite wisdom decides we're not gonna sit on the sidelines of this party though - we're going into the eye of the party hurricane, dammit! He drags me (okay okay, a tugboat probably couldn't drag me anywhere, I went willingly) right up the front of the stage as buddy's hitting the crescendo of his message. The people are hanging on his every word, screaming and yelling in unison, and jumping up and down.

"Timmy, count to five, look at me, and take a picture, okay?"
"Oka...what? Where the fuck are you going?"

Milo runs right up to the front of the crowd and starts jumping up and down with them.

Whoa.

I didn't take the picture at five. I was laughing way too hard. Basically Rob was surrounded by elderly Mexican ladies, who didn't give a shit that he was a gringo, three feet taller than them, and didn't understand a fucking thing that was going on. They were jumping and cheering. He was jumping and cheering. He became one of them. I finally managed to take a pic, which was even funnier than I expected. His eyes are closed, he's jumping and hitting his head on the gazebo thinger, balloons are all around his head, and people all around him are looking at him with the happiest looks on their faces. It was fucking priceless. Reason number 196935 why losing my camera sucked so bad.

Finally MexObama wrapped up and the music started again. Right when it started to rain. You think we got strange looks before? Well, Mexicans scattered in every direction like those cop shows where they pull over a van and 58 of them pile out and run in every direction. We had retired to a sidewalk restaurant, sitting at an uncovered table out in the open, sipping beers and tequila. I'm not a mind-reader, but it's pretty clear what these people were thinking: "Stupid Americans". Why do I think that? I distinctly heard "Americano" and "stupido" in the same sentence from multiple people. I guess the O rule does work sometimes. Bastards.

After a while, we tried to decide where to go the next day. We got it down to Taxco or Veracruz. The guidebook said Taxco was one of the coolest cities in Mexico. It said Veracruz was cool too, and on the beach. After weighing the pros and cons, we did what all hardened travelers do when they're forced to make hard decisions...

We flipped a coin. Veracruz won. And we high-fived for no particular reason. We didn't even end up going to Veracruz because I'm a baby, which makes it even funnier looking back on it.

After a few more drinks, we retired back to the hotel as very happy gringos. Puebla was awesome. Milo's decision was fucking brilliant. We were gonna get up in the morning and go somewhere just as awesome. You'd think the story ends there...but it doesn't.

Not even close.

See, I neglected to mention the reason why we came to Puebla in the first place. Yes, it's a nice place that a lot of people check out. But that's not why we were here. Oh, no. It was something WAY more lame than that. It was because of the Legend of El Gas. Milo's Holy Grail of Mexico.

El Gas you say? What the hell is that, Tim?

The Legend of El Gas has been told a few times (duh, it's a fucking legend!)...but the full story has never been revealed. The retarded, humorous, and slightly smelly truth will be revealed...

In my next blog. What? This one is long enough already. I'm a tease, am I? Don't give attitude, bitches. I'll cut you. Wait a couple days, anticipation is a good thing. The Legend of El Gas awaits....

Mexico City, Part 5

"You're an asshole."
"HAHA I know, but it was really funny!"
"No it wasn't asshole, it was embarrassing! I just saw a lady and got the fuck outta there as fast as possible. You should have seen the look on her face. Okay, okay...maybe it was a little funny."
"YES! I WIN!"
"Don't make me dance again. I'll do it right here, in this bar."
"Okay okay, I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
"Sure it won't. Asshole!"

What the fuck are we talking about? Well, we ended up back at the same bar we were at the night before, with the super cute waitress. I guess Milo didn't remember the night before or something, and asked me which of the two doors was the guys bathroom, "Caballeros" or "Damas". Now I know damn well which is which, but you can guess my answer. "It's Damas dude, the one on the right". Three minutes later, the above conversation went down. That might have been my single biggest victory of the trip.

So while we're discussing all of this, and many other things, Milo kept looking at the girl at the next table, who was sitting with her friend. He apologized to her for our behavior in Milo-Spanish, and she surprised the fuck out of us by responding in English. And telling us that she had been listening to us the entire time and that we're really funny. Heh, interesting. Her name was Lisette. She was from Mexico City, but had lived in Germany for the past 7 years and was home visiting family for a few weeks. Eventually her friend left, but she stayed. Besides being cute, she was super friendly and pretty smart. She definitely had personality too, swearing a lot and emphasizing a lot of what she said with spastic hand movements. A pretty Mexi-tard, if you will.

She wanted to go to the Zona Rosa, which is the main tourist party area in the city. I knew it was kinda sketchy, and we were staying down in that area in a few days anyway, but whatever. It was worth checking out. She went to flag down a cab and I insisted on a sitio (safer) one. "Awww, how sweet, you're trying to protect me!" she said. "Fuck no, we're trying to save our asses!" I said. Ultra-smooth, as always.

The area was pretty much what I expected. Lots of clubs and patio bars, similar to where we were, but way grungier. Kids and women constantly coming to your table trying to sell you trinkets. Waitresses doing their absolute best to rip you off. Weirdos all over the place. The beers were cheap though, so all was not lost. The oddest part of the night was a guy standing outside our bar, face to face with a naked woman statue, motionless, staring at it. For at least a half hour. Nothing distracted him. Weeeeird.

Besides Milo attempting and butchering Spanish with Lisette (he tried to ask about what her father did for work, but ended up basically telling Lisette to call him (Milo) her daddy, which made her laugh uncontrollably while we looked at each other, clueless), he was doing pretty well with her. Eventually we took a cab back to our hood, which consisted of me and the cabbie looking straight ahead awkwardly while Milo tried to swallow her face in the back seat for the entire ride. He then took her to some cheap hotel, while I passed out, envisioning Milo's robbery and death in a variety of ways. As cool as she was, I was still in Mexico Fucking City, and trusted approximately no one. Luckily (or unluckily, as he'd soon come to find out), he was more trusting than I and went off to toss a freaky Mexican chick all night.

Our plan had been to head out of the city to Puebla the next day, but since Milo went Sleepless in Lisette all night, he was in no condition to go anywhere but dream street. So he passed out for a few hours while I went down to make arrangements for the hotel room for another night and grab some food and shit. Eventually I come back, and Milo's awake...and pissed.

"I fucking lost my bank card!"

Oh shit.

After checking the fleabag hotel he was at the night before, he fucked around on the phone for over 2 hours trying to get it canceled. It was a nightmare. Luckily he had his credit card so he wasn't at a loss for money, but DF's not exactly the place you want to lose your bank card. Did she steal it? We dunno!

As you can guess, the high stress level of that led to one thing - more beer drinking! And clowns. There's fucking clowns everywhere in Mexico City for some reason, and no one could explain why. Lisette claimed she didn't notice, even though they're EVERYWHERE. It'd be like coming to Vancouver and not noticing all the taxi drivers wear headgear. It's just another part of the weirdness that is Mexico City, I guess.

Since we had an extra day, we decided to make the most of it and sign up for a tour at a hostel that took people to...Mexican wrestling! Anyone who's seen Nacho Libre likely understands some of it, but Lucha Libre is fucking nuts, and super entertaining. We showed up at the desk ready to go, and were immediately handed tequila shots and a lucha mask to keep. For those not in the know, most Mexican wrestlers wear crazy masks that go back to Mexico's Aztec roots. Getting a free one was cool. So was the free shot - well, free shot for me. Free shotS for Milo. I think he had 4 in about 30 seconds. Needless to say, we were off to a good start.

The drive out there was a trip. Basically, Arena Mexico is in the hood. We spent the trip bullshitting with a Scandinavian couple and pointing out the crazy shit we were driving by, while the two Japanese dudes up front took pictures of everything. The outside of the arena is hilarious...it's designed like a regular apartment block, so you'd have no fucking idea it was an arena at all unless you went around back. Very weird. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take my camera in there for some reason, but since I lost it, it didn't really matter anyway. No matter what though, we got our fucking money's worth.

As soon as we sat down, we were accosted by vendors. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't gonna drink there because I thought they'd rip us off. I said that out loud, and the tour leader said "No man, you should buy a beer. You'll get your money's worth." Okay then. I ask for a beer, and the guy goes to fucking work. He pulls out a monsterous cup each for me and Milo, and cracks 4 coronas in about .034 seconds. He then just throws two bottles in each cup, upside down, and hands them to us. Uh, okay. 30 pesos each. Like 2.40, for two bottles of corona in a Big Gulp cup. Sweet. Right when I begin to wonder what we're supposed to do with the the empty bottles, he reaches out, grabs all of them, pulls them out, and walks away. Now that's fucking service.

Then the yelling started.

Lucha has a batch of hardcore fans on either side of the building. One side roots for the technicos (good guys), the other side roots for the rudos (bad guys). We were sitting on the rudo side, right below them...and they were fucking hilarious. It was eerily similar to the English soccer match I went to, with these nutbars singing in unison and chanting ridiculous shit the entire night. Now I don't speak Spanish, but I definitely know some swear words. And I learned about 20 more that night. Despite there being kids all over the place, these guys called everyone and everything the worst names possible, and were super entertaining doing it. For example, there are ring girls, sort of like the UFC, that come out in between matches. Every time they came out, for every second they were out there, 50 guys and one girl chanted "PUTA! PUTA! PUTA!" at her. Whore. Over and over. Eventually me and Milo joined in...having carte blanche to call a chick a whore for no reason is just fucking fun, dammit. I'm trying it at the strip club next time.

And I haven't even talked about the actual wrestling yet. It's super theatrical, with a lot of flips and dives and crazy shit. Way more fake than regular wrestling, but the characters and high flying makes up for it. Our favorite character, by far, was a huge fat dude who did nothing except rub his belly on people and drop belly flops everywhere. His name was Super Porky, and he was our hero. I didn't think I'd get into it, but by the end both Milo and I were cheering and yelling along with the rudo clique and generally making fools of ourselves. It was awesome. I will be Super Porky at the bar one day, and it will rule. Don't lie, you wanna see it.

Meanwhile, Milo was getting his first dose of the Mexi-crazy. Despite telling Lisette three times that we were going to Lucha, she flipped out on him for not meeting up with her in the Zona Rosa. Eventually she came back to the Centro and they took off to their love hotel again, but the crazy seeds were planted. The crazy flower was about to bloom. The crazy fruit was almost ripe. The crazy branches were...okay, enough stupid crazy references.

Eventually, Milo showed up in the morning after taking her to buy the morning after pill. Yes, that was necessary. Yes, Milo's not so bright. Yes, I teased him about his terrible decision making for many, many days. Anyway, after another 3 hour nap, Milo was finally ready to ditch the DF so we could head off to Puebla. Which turned out to be fucking sweet. I'll get to that next time.

Mexico City, Part 4

A new day begins in Mexico City, with what else? A pretty funny Milo story. Our go-to spot in the mornings was the Zocalo, since they were showing all the World Cup games on the huge screens. This was a particularly big day for Milo though, because his beloved Dutch team was playing. He donned his dorky orange jersey, and off we went to sit in the square and watch. He was pissed that there weren't more Dutch fans there, and he was pissed at the ones that were there for not being enthusiastic enough. Milo anger is always humorous, so I was just going along with it. Finally though, one moment made all his frustration evaporate away faster than a Mexican runs out on a bar tab...

The Dutch score a goal. And Rob loses his shit.

Folks, it was embarrassing and hilarious at the same time. First, he screamed like a tard when they hear the school bell. Then he jumped up and decided to tackle me while yelling in my ear. Then he got up and did, quite possibly, the worst dance of all time. As soon as the cameramen saw him (cameramen film the crowd during every game for clips to put on the news and FIFA's website n shit), they all came charging towards us. He was almost done by that point, but Milo's an obvious attention whore, so you can guess what he did.

He fucking started the Downy Dance all over again. That's what.

By this time, we've got 3 camera guys and a few photographers capturing this moment for eternity. He was quite impressed with himself, of course. I was embarrassed, of course...but this is par for the course when you chill with Rob Milo. I've seen the guy fall asleep, faceplanted, against the sliding glass door at the Cambie. Standing up. He's all class. The worst part was, when he finally calmed down and stopped talking about his awesome dance, a photographer came over and asked his name, because they were gonna put him in the local paper. "TIMMY, I'M GONNA BE FUCKIN FAMOUS!" Greeaaaaat. That's okay though, because this led to a better story later on.

Other than his dance and a guy using a bicycle as a pillow while he sprawled out on the ground to watch the game, the rest of the morning was pretty uneventful. Next up for us was the Turista bus. It's one of those hop-on, hop-off tacky tourist buses you see in every big city. Since the DF (Districto Federal, another name of the city/state) was huge, this bus would save us a lot of time trying to find shit on the metro. Our goal was to get off at the Anthropology Museum, one of the best museums in the world. We did a dandy job of that, just to find out...the fucking museum is closed on Mondays. Fack.

The next bus wasn't coming for an hour, so we decided to walk up to the next stop, just to see what was going on. Unfortunately and in true Mexican fashion, the next stop was completely hidden...so after checking out the arena, we had to walk all the fucking way back. I was sweating like a...well, like a fat guy. It's the best analogy I could come up with, fuck off.

Anyway, once we got back on the open-air bus, we climbed up top and took it all the way around the rest of the loop.

Three hours. No sunscreen. Motherfucker.

Other than a horrible sunburn, it was pretty cool. There are a lot of upmarket suburbs that are really nice. That opened our eyes to how awesome DF really is...it's actually one of the nicest cities I've ever seen. Mexico City is like a lot of women though - really pretty, but once you dig a little deeper you just know you're gonna find the crazy eventually.

In Mex City's case, the crazy started with the parks. For some reason, DF turned over park patrols to the military instead of the police, so it's like a full-on war zone in there. Soldiers everywhere, hiding behind trees and shit. And tanks. TANKS. In the middle of parks! It's was fucking insane. At one point while we were waiting for the bus, a massive tank rolled right past us, on the busiest street in the city, with 5 soldiers hanging off of it with AK-47's. And two were swinging a fucking fully loaded GATLING GUN from side to side...and staring at us. Hey, I'm all for security, but I didn't realize that we were in fucking Baghdad. Nuts.

As the tour continued, we got to see more pretty and more crazy, side by side. Beautiful architecture, check. Massive military attack helicopter landing beside it? Check. Amusement park, check. 20 soldiers manning the razor wire fence around the park? Check. It was unreal. We definitely learned about both sides of the city that day. Oh, and Milo got whacked in the face by tree branches about 5 times, since we were on the top of the open-air bus. Every time something freaked me out, he'd get bitchslapped by a tree and everything would back to normal. "Wow, that's some freaky shi - OWW FUCK WHAT THE FUCK!" I laughed out loud just thinking about it right now, and the chick sitting next to me on the train gave me a strange look. She wants me, I know it.

Where was I? Oh yeah, DF. After our big city adventure, we bought some sunscreen (a little late!) and chilled for a bit before heading back to Bar St to down some wobblers. I'll save that for the next part, because...that's where the crazy truly begins. For Milo, anyway.

Tim and Milo Invade Mexico City, Part 3 - Booze and Beaners

Yes, I'm incredibly lazy about writing these things. Deal with it.

The last you heard from us, we had just finished watching the most insane sporting event of all time. After all that madness...we needed some beers, stat. We ended up walking all the way to an area of town known as Plaza Garibaldi. It's normally where shitloads of mariachi bands hang out...people drive up, negotiate a price with them to work a party or whatever, and they take off. Like hookers, but you get shitty music instead of herpes.

This music hookers are usually there at night though, and we got there about 4pm on a Sunday, right at the tail end of the biggest Mexican sporting event in many years. So...everything was closed except one bar and one restaurant. One bar is better than no bar though, so it was go time. It turned out to be our first legit cantina, which was awesome. Cantinas are hole-in-the-wall bars where there's usually just a few tables, super cheap beers (20 pesos, or about 1.65), and old Mexican men. We shotgunned a dos Equis, then switched to Indios (really good beer) at the barmaids suggestion. By "suggestion", I mean we said "cerveza" and that's what she brought. Uh, okay.

Milo got hungry and went next door to the restaurant (which involved him playing charades with them for 10 minutes before he actually got any food), while I stayed and watched TV. Outta nowhere, the barmaid showed up with a plate full of what the Spanish call tapas...I dunno what Mexicans call them. Botatas? Bar snacks, basically. This particular one was some sort of fish pate on flat tortilla shells, and they were fucking awesome. There were like 5 of them too...it was a full meal. I couldn't even finish, Milo had to have the last one. We turned back into language failures pretty quick though.

Barmaid, pointing at tray: "Mas?"
Milo: "They were great!"
Barmaid: "Mas?"
Tim: "Yes, very good. Muy bien. Gracias."
Barmaid: "Mas?"
Milo: "Muy bien!"
Tim: "Very tasty!"

...*repeat 3 more times*...

Visibly annoyed Barmaid: "MAS??"
Confused Milo: "What the hell is she saying dude?"
Embarrassed Tim: "I don't...Oh shit."
Milo: "What?"
Barmaid: "MAS?????"
Tim: "...No, gracias."
*barmaid leaves*
Milo: "Dude, what the fuck?"
Tim: "Mas means more, man. More. She was just asking if we want more. I can't believe I didn't remember that."
Milo: "HAHA, oops! Stupid gringos!"

After hightailing it out of there, we walked back towards our hotel, and a side street full of bars that we had noticed the night before. It had a convenient name: Bar Street. Mexican creativity at it's finest. As soon as we sat down at a patio bar, four Mexican guys who were just leaving came over to talk to us. All four were less than sober. Three spoke passable English, the one that couldn't could have passed for a midget. He was like 4'8 or something. We invited them to sit down, and we all bullshitted for a while. They were all from different cities and suburbs, in the city for the day to watch the game. Pretty soon, we were the center of attention, like it or not.

One of the dudes was super chill, I spent most of my time talking to him. The little guy was just randomly yelling the few English words he knew - "Beckham!" "Pantera!" "You fuck!" and freaking out about "Gigante" whenever I stood up to do something. The oldest guy actually had family in Quebec, and freaked the shit out of me when he said "Parlez-vous francais?" He knew more French than English. The last guy, Isaac...well, he was a trip. He was the drunkest of the 4 by far. He was mostly talking to Milo, playing metal songs on his phone and yelling "I'll kill you, motherfuckers!" over and over. Spilling beer all over himself, speaking gibberish (gibberish in Spanish sounds like Portuguese!), the whole deal. Yeah. Everyone around us and everyone walking by was giving us the Mexican stare of death, which I assure you is much angrier (and probably paid less!) than your average stare. We didn't really care though.

At one point, Isaac saw some kid with a soccer ball, so him and Milo went out onto the mini-street to kick the ball around. Milo got 2 chances with the ball, and both were epic wins. The first one, he kicked it straight through the doors of a church. With people entering and exiting at the time. Seriously. People just scattered. I didn't think he could top that, but once it got fished out of the church, he was given another pass, and he just fucking LAUNCHED the ball down the street. Across to the next block. FAR. All the kids just stopped and looked at him like "Whitey, what the fuck?" Typical Milo response: "Sorry dudes! HAHAHAHA!"

The Mexican guys wanted us to go down to Xochimilco (a southern suburb of Mexico City) to party there, but we hadn't been there long and didn't trust that it was safe, so we politely declined. Finally the bar staff got sick of us and brought us plastic cups to put our coronas in so they could close up. Apparently our friends were "loco" to the bar staff, but we were "happy gringos". Cool? I guess. We told them we had to go back to the hotel to grab some cash, and we'd be back in 20 minutes. I guess they thought we were ditching, because they weren't there when we got back. Well, most of them weren't...

We came back and hit up a different bar right on the edge of Bar St. Beers were a pricey 35 pesos there (2.90 Canadian), but it had a super cute waitress and a great view of the street, so we just chilled and watched the insanity go by while we sipped some Indios. The waitress laughed at our butchered Spanish and spoke slowly enough that I could somewhat make out what she was saying. She was the only person on the entire trip that made a point of saying "de nada" (you're welcome) every time I butchered "gracias." So cute. At that point, she was the best part of Mexico City so far.

Anyway, speaking of insanity, the two familiar pieces of it showed up pretty much right away.

Contestant number 1 - The sketchcase from New Orleans we had seen both other days so far. "You again? What the fuck dude?" This time he tried to sell us some fake jewels, which was really funny. "Buddy, come on...we're not fucking stupid." "Ehhhh gimme money for a sandwich and I'll leave." "No." "Fine, assholes. ASSHOLES!" He was with a different girl all 3 days we had seen him, which was a running theme for the rest of the trip.

Contestant number 2 chose right then to show up - Isaac. Ruh roh. Milo noticed he was wearing different clothes and seemed somewhat sobered up, but as soon as he saw us, he just stopped in the middle of the street and screamed "MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!" and charged directly towards us. Apparently his friends had taken off too, so it was just him left. Greaaat. We bought him a beer and he chilled with us for a while. He was a lot calmer than before, other than randomly screaming MOTHERFUCKER or FUCKING BITCHES at no one in particular. He told us that he worked at the University, and had to work at 7am the next day. It was now about 10pm, but he figured he'd just drink all night and go to work. Uh, okay. After explaining that, he said he had a "present" for us. Uh oh. He got up and disappeared...

And came back with a mariachi band. Well, 2 members of a band. And made them play for us. Fuuuuck. We had to sit there through 2 LONG songs, with these two dudes about 2 feet from our faces, while Isaac danced around behind them yelling "MOTHERFUUUUCKER!" every 10 seconds. We tried to pawn the 3rd song off on a couple a few tables away, but no dice. So, one more song. 8 more "motherfuckers". Then, Isaac was nice enough to make us pay them too...100 pesos. Only like 8 bucks, but what the hell? Mexican hospitality at it's finest, I guess.

We sat there for the next couple of hours with Isaac, discussing different stuff and listening to him swear and tell us about all the fucking bitches on the street he was going to fucking fuck. Apparently Dana White taught this kid English. He told us we should go to a club across the street that was really good, but it had a 200 peso cover charge. We thought that was retarded, so we declined. Eventually that bar closed, and we went to a bar next to the club. The club was actually a touristy cantina that didn't even charge cover, despite Isaac insisting it did. Milo even walked inside to prove his point...nope, it was 200 pesos to get in. Sure bud. Sure.

At that point, we were fed up with Mexican hospitality for the night and decided to make like babies and head out. After explaining to Isaac for 15 minutes that he couldn't come with us. You ever decided to pet a cat on the sidewalk, then it follows you for 4 blocks? Apparently Mexicans and stray cats have more in common than I thought they did. Besides being FUCKING CRAZY. Just kidding Mexicans!

After a long day of crazy Mexico City, it was off to sleep. We weren't done with that bar, or with crazy Mexicans yet. Far from it. Milo hadn't met the newest love of his life yet. Mexicans like to say they're not crazy at all, and they're just "fiery" and "passionate". And we actually believed them...for a few days at least. I promise I won't keep you waiting long until you get to meet Lisette. You're gonna loooove Lisette.