Bye bye DF ... for now

So, we´re coming towards an end in Distrito Federal and looking forward to heading down south. T´s parents, Geoff and Rita, are winging their way towards us now and we are jolly excited. On Friday we´ll say goodbye to our friends and students who have really helped us get along here. The month´s free accomodation in Escandon was a particular touch, many thanks to Greg and Jen (and Andy Streetdog of course), and to Gavin and Sandra - we were in one lovely flat for a couple of weeks and then simply moved directly upstairs to look after another lovely flat. You couldn´t plan this kind of stuff. How lucky we are.

I was going to write a joke about God´s Pharmacy, but someone beat me to it, unsurprisingly.

So, what´s left to tell you. The chicken mescal is allegedly not flavoured with chicken, but so named (´Pechuga´) because it uses the 'breast' of the agave leaf. I've seen the nutters body slamming broken glass on the metro, for money (I didn´t give) - one looked severely undernourished and had the pallor of a character from 'Twilight'. Greg and Jen did a piece on this church in the rough part of town where 60,000 young glue sniffers make a pilgrimage on 28th of each month to pray to st Jude, the patron of lost causes. The priest tells parables using slang and swear words and burns an offering of glue at the end.

One of my classes took me quite far out and up onto a big hill so I got to see the whole of the valley in which Mexico City sits, from above - something you don´t often see, because of the smog. Damn it´s big. The shape is JUST like the Santa Clara Valley, where we stayed with Jan and Ania back in January - just bigger and more developed. Could almost imagine the start of the San Francisco Bay out of the corner of my eye. Seriously - go up beyond Satelite and look back, looks just like the view from that hill top above Saratoga. Should have taken pics really...

We had some pre-hispanic food, ants eggs and the like, quite pleasant. And we went up to the Desert of the Lions, the 'double lie' (no desert, no lions), a beautiful forest conservation area just 15 minutes from Santa Fe, the rich concrete jungle where T and I both teach. Andydog had a whale of a time, as did we enjoy the fresh air and nature.

I´ve often noticed similarities between Mexico City and Pnhom Penh in Cambodia. The slight unhingedness of it all, crazy traffic, alleged dangers round every corner and late night food sellers using odd instruments to attract attention, like a Jurassic Park 'raptor' skull whistle. So it was great to hear from Lari & Simo, a couple of young Finnish film makers we met in PP while they were making a documentary about a volleyball team, most of the players having lost limbs through landmines. They sent us this trailer for their film 'Scorpions' - can´t wait to see the full version, this really brought back some amazing memories.

Oh and must shout out to my music partner, Aletz Martinez. We´ve been jamming and recording for about 3 months and have done some gigs at the Hostel. It´s been SO MUCH FUN - thanks to Alma and Aletz for letting me help imbue their flat with much sound. Versions of tracks we´ve done are at www.drcolonic.com - and also a cheeky vocal by Greg Brosnan over a house track I did on his equipment (thanks for that, too!). And well ... that´s it.