A quick weeks summary

Well, the week has been pretty uneventful, as I've finally recovered from jet lag, got into the office rhythmn (though not quite the 3 o'clock lunch pattern..) and managed to learn about six new Spanish words (one of which is 'penis' and another which is 'dildo'. I probably didn't need to write those down...vive UNAIDS..)

My only spare time was spent wandering the streets in search of much longed-for blandness. How I long for some blandness in this overly flavoursome country! Even the air is flavoured. I've been haunted by a longing for plain (and not sweet) bread, sandwiches without mayonnaise, coffee without syrup, crisps without chillies, fruit without jalapeños! Try as I might, there's always some flavour lurking in there. Indeed, even in otherwise nonchalent nondescript streets, there're often parked cars selling flavour out of their boot, dribbling on to the pavement out of polystrene boxes. Mexicans have no aversions to picking up their lunch out of the back of a lorry it would seem, provided they can put some alcoholic jelly on their hands before going back to work...
Not that I want to fault them on the hygiene front - many cafés and restaurants ensure their staff are wearing facemasks, if not hairnets. It's like eating on the set of E.R..

On the other hand, for those who are slightly more fussy (don't look at me like that..) there's a whole other population of lunchtime picnickers - whose wares are forked out of a tupperware. The tin of tuna and jalapeño peppers has to win the prize for the least imaginative (not to mention the least appealing...she bothered to carry a plate with her for that?)

Anyway, I'm now comfortably ensconsed on the 23rd floor of the hotel Intercontinental, and strutting around the neighbourhood like some movie star, feeling independent and invincible. So invincible, that I dared walk a block away from the hotel, to 'Lyna's café', where I spent a happy evening with a sopa de verduras and a shwarma del pollo, and last summer's edition of 'People' magazine. Poor Brangelina. And was Jennifer someone, really playing tennis in those heels? I suspect not..

(I did catch myself being surprisingly uncool though, as I reached for the seat belt on my chair once seated in the restaurant! The food is spicy, but racy too? Hmm..)

The weekend ahead looks promising. The Museum of Anthropology, a little jaunt round the Chapultepec park, a roam around the saturday market and hopefully, a spot of shopping!

Buenas noches.