Mexico city is spelled r-e-d-e-m-p-t-i-o-n

Current standings:

Swine flu and drug cartels: 1
Calen and Colten: 14

If you take a look at the scores, it is alarming to see that the opposing team has scored a point. A couple days ago, Calen began to have a sore throat, a clear indication of an H1N1 attack, which required urgent treatment with the Mexican equivalent of Airborne. It worked. This means that we have effectively cured swine flu. The implications for the world at large are profound. No longer do we have to cower in the deepest corner of our homes in fear of fever and other flu-like symptoms. Never again will children have to don their self contained personal quarantine iso-health disease resistante bio-suits just to go out to the cul-de-sac for a game of freeze tag. Everyone can start eating bacon again. Pot bellied pigs can go back to being the lovable and cherished family pets that they once were, rather than being offerings for the daily ritual sacrifices weve been making to the gods of maladies that resemble the flu exactly, but kill way, way, way less people worldwide. You're welcome earth. We'll be here all week. I will continue to include swine flu on the scoreboard in all future posts in order to honor the fallen. Even if the fallen was a highly inconvenient peehole.

Anyway, we're on a bus to Oaxaca right now en route to some beach paradise as described by our gracious hosts, and we can safely sum up our experience of Mexico City without the fear of having to eat our words later when we are attacked by a band of robbers disguised as mariachis or something. The official statement:

Mexico City was a safe and beautiful place with a full gamut of activities for all types of travelers.

I got that off a travel brochure I saw on the sidewalk outside Chapultepec park. But the statement stands up to the grueling, rigorous, gauntlet of truth to which i subject everything i read. So I decided to appropriate it. The empirical evidence just keeps stacking up that Mexico City is a pretty awesome place. I mean even the tourism industry has figured it out. And they are usually pretty reluctant to make broad sweeping statements about places and things and stuff.

We did, finally (maybe) almost get robbed. But in hindsight, im pretty sure the guy that was paying a little too much attention to us, looking at us weird, and acting generally shifty, was only doing so because we were doing the same to him and he probably thought we were going to rob him. Classic misunderstanding. We had gotten off the metro in a part of town usually not reserved for lobster faced gringos (we forgot to wear sunscreen for 1 f***ing day) after being directed to take a certain set of stairs by an all too eager to help subway passanger, from whom we had requested no help. So naturally, my paranoiadar went off and we took a different exit. But there was a man who seemed to be following us. We tried to lose him by slowing down... a lot. He kept pace with us stopping to look at ridiculous items being sold on the street. I knew it was suspicious because i have never seen a local stop to look at a stuffed monkey holding a taco in one hand and praying the rosary with the other. We slowed a lot. And he suddenly became a much more involved shopper. So we did what we learned from video games and movies and ducked into a shoe store. When he walked past, we stepped out right behind him. Now he tried to slow down and get us out from behind him. We didnt bother with the show of shopping and chose instead to slow down blatantly. He crossed to the other alley in the market but still seemed to keeping pace because everytime there was an opening between the tents in the market he would be looking over at us. In the end he turned around. He didnt rob us and we didnt rob him, which is exactly what ive been trying to say the whole time. No one gets robbed. In fact everyone with whom we spoke about the subject of personal crime in Mexico City knew someone who had been a vitim, but not one of them have been a victim themselves. Im beginning to suspect that crime in Mexico City is an urban legend like the loch ness monster in Scotland or the stripper who is just doing it to pay her way through medical school.

In other unconnected news, if you do ever come down here there are a few things worth knowing. The first and most important is that red lights are just a suggestion, and since the police dont generally enforce any traffic controls, suggestion might be too strong of a word. And if you're squeamish, and you ride the subway, and you see a man wearing a shirt with no sleeves get on who doesnt seem to be selling anything like all the other people who get on the subway with sacks of something, and he does, in fact, have a sack of something, and he sets that sack of something on the ground and opens it flat to reveal that the sack of something is actually a sack of broken glass and if the train is coming to a stop for passengers to get on and off... if all these things come to pass, especially the part about being squeamish, look away, because he is about to jump in the air and slam into that pile of broken gass shoulder first, with full commitment. If youre not squeamish, keep looking. It might be the only time you get to see something like that outside of a circus sideshow.

Also, i have successfully acheived the only goal i had regarding my study of the Spanish language. I have mentioned to several people that if i could acheive a moment of genuine humor, not one where people are laughing at me because what im saying is nonsensical madness, but actual cleverness, then i would feel as though i arrived. Yesterday, i made a pun. I belive my exact words as i held up a large handful of Mexican coins were "Mucho peso." Get it? No? Then learn Spanish. You live right next to Mexico. Anyway, it was linguistic premature ejaculation. Sure, i can make jokes now. But i cant get a gatorade from the 7 eleven (that's here, tambien) without needing the clerk to repeat basic phrases for me to fully comprehend what is being said to me. Its way too early for me to have acheived "success." So like with the trying to get robbed thing, I need to reevaluate and come up with a new measure of success.

How about Einstein's Quantum Energy Balls Avenue? Call your congressman. Together, we can acheive anything.