I may give you the impression that I think Mexico is the same
as the United States. Not true. What I actually think is that Mexico is as comfortable
as the United States.
So what's different? Mostly food. Here are some things from the
USA I wish were here:
1. Grape-Nuts and Wheaties cereal. They have "Wheat Bran," but it tastes like
Raisin Bran without raisins.
2. Indian food. Plenty of Native American "indian" food, but no food from India
(maybe in Mexico City).
3. Degree deodorant (unscented). All the deodorant here is loaded with perfume. Great if
you like perfume.
4. Tom's of Maine toothpaste (only toothpaste without saccharin). This is also hard to
find in the USA, so I didn't expect much.
5. Change. No stores ever have change. At a hotel, my room was 160 pesos ($16 US), and she
couldn't change 200 pesos. At a bakery, I bought 12 pesos of bread, and he couldn't change
20 pesos.
6. Single-drawer filing cabinets.
7. Salsa radio station, Old-time Country station. Again, hard to find in the USA.
8. English Muffins. Only in the USA. Not even England knows what English muffins are.
9. Pumpernickel Rye. There is a Spanish word for rye (centeno), but I'm the only person
who knows it.
10. Bagels. Most of the Jewish community is in Mexico City, so I will try looking there.
11. Ethiopian food. I ate it twice a month in Columbus. World's best yellow peas. Good
chicken, too.
12. Safe tap water. Usually, drinking it won't make you sick. I buy bottled water, or boil
it.
13. Uni-ball Gel Impact 1.0mm. My favorite pen. The thickest pens here are only .7mm.
14. White chicken meat. I see them roasting whole chickens, but once served, it's all
thighs and legs. Do they throw it away?
15. Insects. Sounds crazy, yeah, but I have a pet lizard and it's hard to find food. They
say there's more in the summer.
16. 12-packs of soft drinks. You can only buy a single 600 ml bottle or a 2 liter bottle.
17. Personal checks. There literally is no such thing as a checking account in Mexico.
And here are things that are surprisingly easy to find
here:
1. Pizza.
2. Pancakes. they call them "hot cakes," but usually they aren't hot.
3. Waffles. Pronounced "woff-less."
4. Golden Grahams cereal.
5. Granola.
6. Yogurt. There's literally a yogurt (regular or frozen) shop on every corner. Mexicans
are crazy about yogurt (they can't decide how to spell it, though: yoghurt, yogurh,
yhoghurt, even yogurth - they are convinced it needs an "h", even though that
letter is always silent in Spanish).
7. Lite rock of the 1980s. Two radio stations here play this. I'm listening to the theme
from "Fame" right now.
8. A cheap haircut. Hair salons and barber shops compete so fiercely, the fancy
places only charge 50 pesos ($5 US).
9. Any prescription drug, cheap. Usually no doctor needed, just visit a pharmacy.
10. A city bus. Each route comes by every three minutes, it seems.
11. Mass. There are ten churches within three blocks of here. They stagger Mass, so you
can literally go any time.
12. Tiny plastic cards with photos of babies sleeping on bloody skulls. This is a
"child saint", some Mexican thing.
13. Miniature Pikachu and animal costumes for babies. They sell these baby costumes
everywhere, who knows what for.
14. Designer eyeglasses. Gucci, Donna Karan, Versace, every expensive brand, even those
Japanese ones. on every block.
15. Designer shoes. Mostly Italian and French. On every block.
16. Internet cafes. They don't actually serve coffee, but they are also on every block.
17. Foreign language movies. From Iran, China, Brazil, France, and of course, USA. They
are everywhere, every night.
8. Auto body shops and tire stores. Lots of car accidents mean big business.
9. V8 juice, all types. Expensive, though.
10. Wireless phones. Got a table and some brochures? Then you can be a wireless phone
vendor.
11. Middle Eastern food. Lebanese immigrants have opened restaurants in most cities. Bring
on the hummous.
12. Neutrogena soap.
And finally, here are a few ideas I wish the United
States would steal from Mexico:
1. Comfortable buses. Listen up, Greyhound: sandwiches; your choice of cool beverage, plus
tea or coffee; movies; clean bathrooms; cushy seats; automatic tire-pressure adjustment;
cheap (the ugly buses are practically free).
2. Roaming harmony groups. They walk around singing love songs on Sundays.
3. Public display of affection. Not just lovers, not just kissing. Everyone is
affectionate, especially families. Grown men can kiss on the cheek as a greeting.
And no, that doesn't mean they're gay - they simply aren't afraid to touch. Affection is
not weakness.
4. Talking to neighbors. For fun, people walk around and talk to each other. How novel.
5. House calls. Doctors still make them. And still have little black bags.
6. Piņatas at birthday parties.
7. Cantinas. Just like in the old Westerns, they even have those little swinging doors.
8. Hand-made tortillas.
9. Really fresh avocados.
So you may have an idea by now what a typical Mexican city block looks like:
A really old church (Catholic, of course);
a shoe store playing really loud dance music;
an optician;
an internet cafe;
a small, pretty plaza with families walking around holding hands;
a discount pharmacy;
an old woman sitting on a bucket making tortillas and tacos;
a yogurt/natural food store;
a market selling everything from avocados to Michael Jordan t-shirts;
an old indigenous guy playing a flute for money;
a Kinko's-type copy center;
an old statue of a guy on a horse;
a bakery with plenty of pastries but no change;
some kid wearing a Mickey Mouse costume;
a cantina;
a wireless phone table;
a scruffy little hardware store;
and a cheap hair salon.
Every once in a while you find a big hardware store, a big grocery store, a bank, a
museum, a big plaza, a pizza shop, a movie theatre, a disco, and some government office.
Overall, it doesn't really sound that foreign, does it? More like a really big
small-town-USA.
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