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.