Mexico City

If you are familiar with Mexico City, this picture, taken from our hotel window, will tell you where we are staying. This is the Angel Monument. It is the symbol of Mexican Independence, and sits in a circle in the Paseo de la Reforma, one of the city's main thoroughfares, two blocks from our hotel. The strange thing about this circle is that it isn't treated as a traffic circle, but rather as an intersection, so if you want to turn left, you go to the left of the monument, toward oncoming traffic. Somehow, with the traffic lights, it works. Don't try to drive here. (See "traffic tetras" in a previous post.) We found that the Metro is much faster than a taxi.

Our hotel is great. The rooms are very large. Our tour manager says that her room is larger than the Yaletowm apartment that she shares with her partner, but our room is larger. We have a corner suite. The kitchenette is small, but the rest of the suite is the size of our living and dining rooms in Vancouver. The problem is that there is nothing of interest within walking distance.

We are in the financial district and along embassy row. The choices for food here are high end, and not necessarily very good, restaurants or food from street vendors. We favour the vendors, but not all of our group does. We are on the edge of la Zona Rosa, a strange combination of sex shops, fast food places like McDonald's and Burger King, and high fashion stores. After the show ends here on Sunday, and thus our paid for accommodations, we have made arrangements to move into the Historical District for a few days, which will be much more interesting in all ways. (Thanks for the tip Marjorie.)

Speaking of the show, it opened here Friday to a nearly full house. Although it was a slightly older audience than in Pachuca, they were equally enthusiastic. The Mexican audiences have been the best of the tour. I think that Conde is really good at bringing up the level of participation in the Spanish speaking audiences.