Only in Mexico

Barely a day goes by here in Mexico City without my noticing at least one thing that strikes me as peculiar, interesting, or at least different from how things are in Europe. Sights, sounds, behaviours; Mexico is certainly not short on idiosyncrasies. Of course many of these things are probably not really unique to Mexico--they strike me as quirks because I'm comparing to Sweden and the UK, and not to other Latin American countries or elsewhere (an example: the 37 different options for type of coffee, type of milk, size and shape of cup, and toppings, all of which add a few cents to the price of your drink without you realising it, are also common in the US). So the title of this post is surely misleading, but the idea is to compile a list of stuff I've only seen here (as well as a couple of things that are noticeable by their absence--bus stops I'm looking at you).

In the flat

Looking around our apartment, there are a few objects that would immediately stand out at home, not least the giant plastic water bottles known as garrafones (according to Google Translate the English translation of which is 'carboy'--I can honestly say I've never heard that word before). Tap water is not potable here, so roughly once a week we go through the rigmarole of fetching two of these monsters from a local shop to ensure that I don't go through the horrid experience of waking up in the morning and not being able to make a cup of tea (I'm still an Englishman at heart). The garrafon even sits in its own special ingeniously designed piece of furniture ensuring that water can be poured with minimal effort using the magic of physics.

Also in the kitchen we find the comal, a handy extension to the stove used to re-heat tortillas, which are bought by the kilo here and consumed with pretty much every meal. Even imported dishes have to be accompanied by a healthy pile of at least 3-4 tortillas (I once wondered out loud why on earth my milanesa and chips came with extra tortillas only to be immediately and fiercely rebuked by my Mexican wife). 

Mexicans also go through a pretty impressive number of lemons, bought in a kind of bulk that would bankrupt you in Europe (20 pesos for 3 lemons on special offer in Sweden, 10 pesos for a kilo here). Along with the tastiest tomatoes I've ever eaten and a range of exotic fruits such as papaya and vegetables like jicama, they certainly give the kitchen a bright cheerful feel.

Looking further around our place things are relatively normal, two bedrooms, a decent lounge, and a little office/TV room with all the regular amenities. Even the bathrooms are the same for the most part, with one disturbing detail: cushioned toilet seats. I haven't seen these in public places but they're weirdly popular in people's homes. Some even go as far as decorative flowery covers for the lid and tank. I suppose it's supposed to hide the horror of what really goes on there, but I find it more disconcerting than anything.

While the visual differences between our place here in Mexico and our apartment in Sweden may be minimal, it's the audio component that perhaps is most striking. It's hard to overstate just how bombarded we are with sound 24 hours a day. Firstly, the non-human culpables: dogs. Several of our neighbours have dogs cooped up in their apartments all day, and the poor buggers take out their frustration by barking incessantly at each other throughout the night. People seem to actively treat their pets badly here to deliberately make them more aggressive; it's incredibly sad, and frankly scary to be startled every other house you walk past by a frantic animal.

Then there are the human culprits with their cohetes, a type of small firework. It's remarkable just how often they find a reason to celebrate by letting these instruments of mild torture off at semi-regular intervals. Mostly religious festivals, I'm led to understand, being observed at the local church. What better way to celebrate the feast day of St. Whoever-the-fuck by keeping the whole neighbourhood awake all night. Surely one of these people must be the patron saint of sleep? 

On the street

The range of sounds on stepping out into the real world is equally impressive. As well as the constant background noise created by the well-documented traffic chaos, there are the cries of 'viene, viene' from the gangs helping you (obligatorily) to park or negotiate a narrow street in return for a few pesos, the gentlemen playing highly irritating music boxes on every corner (I'm often tempted but haven't yet dared to offer them money to stop), the variety of entertainers and sellers at every set of traffic lights, someone walking along a street ringing a bell (which I've now learnt means the rubbish man is coming) and the now oddly reassuring sound of the guys driving round in trucks filled with random bits of scrap blasting out a pre-recorded tape over the speakers, the exact same one all over the city, requesting people to sell their old washing machines, microwaves, fridges, etc ("lavadoooras, micro-oooondas, refrigeradoooores"). 

As well as parking cars and buying and selling second-hand junk, the number of different ways in which people make a living in Mexico City is striking. There's someone for every little job here, to open the door for you, to pack your supermarket bags, even to hand you your toilet paper (just smile politely and try to avoid eye contact). There are little stalls all over the place open all hours selling everything you might need in an emergency. Fancy some tacos at 2am in the middle of a sleepy residential area? You can guarantee someone is selling them out of their kitchen window three doors down.

Shops and services tend to be highly-specialised, so rather than taking your car to the garage for example, you need to take it to the tyre place, or the suspension place, or the brake place. There's a weird clustering effect where similar shops tend to be found on the same street. We live opposite a row of about 12 flower stalls and just up the road are a number of dog-grooming places; recently I stumbled across a mariachi street with an inexplicable number of mariachi bands for hire, and even a funeral street with a generous sprinkling of funeral parlours. I don't remember if one of the chapters of Freakonomics was 'Why do funeral parlours cluster together in Mexico City?', but I feel like it should have been.

Then there are the weird combinations of services that people offer: the man in the park near my parents-in-law's house selling ice lollies and rat poison, the stall by our place selling quesadillas and cigarettes, the "polleria-joyeria" (poulterer/jeweller) I once saw, and the place in Coyoacán tripling up as a vet surgery, café and gallery (to be fair, the sign "Coffee & Dogs" is at least accurate).

If you decide to venture into a store here, even after being forced to leave your bag or backpack at the entrance in the "paquetería", you'll likely experience the sensation of two eyes burning into the back of your head. There are security guards everywhere, and they have no qualms about following you at five yards while you browse. At least if you and your partner disagree whether or not that T-shirt suits you, there's a burly dude on hand to cast a deciding vote. Along with the large number of armed police and military sporting massive guns, this security overkill will either make you feel extremely protected or extremely paranoid, depending on your take on things.

Nowhere to be found

As promised we come to a few things that you won't find in Mexico City. As I hinted at earlier, bus stops, and for that matter bus timetables, are practically non-existent here. The buses, which are often little more than knackered combi vans, fly past at arbitrary moments with half-arsed signs stuck in the windows telling you roughly where they're heading, and you just hail them down wherever you happen to be standing. No worries if stopping in the middle lane of a busy road causes chaos and near-crashes all around you, that's just part of the fun. I actually quite like the system, being able to just step out of my front door and accost the nearest bus. Hell, the world is my bus stop. It's going to be tough to get used to having to walk 500 meters and form an orderly queue when we finally head back to Europe.

Sticking with the travel-related theme, you'll be lucky to see a seatbelt in your time in Mexico City if you only travel by taxi and public transport. We've actually gone as far as to ask several taxi drivers why they removed the seatbelts from the back seats, and were told, unbelievably, that they get in people's way. Apparently they're only legally required in the front seats anyway, so why the hell bother. These days Uber is widely used here and I'm pleased to report we've had a better success rate with seatbelts there, not 100% mind, but a lot better than in your bog-standard taxis. Probably safer in a load of other respects too, so it's really worth getting on Uber if you're coming to Mexico.

Finally a guest observation from my wife about something you'll never see in Mexico. Not something that I would have ever noticed, but she swears that people don't eat bananas in public here. And that it's common back in Europe. Apparently bananas have a completely different status here; it's perfectly acceptable to eat an apple on the street for example but a banana is a big no-no. There's presumably all sorts of interesting cultural and historical reasons why that might be the case, so much so that she's hoping to study the phenomenon as part of a post-doctoral project.