A shot of Novocain

So my 49ers are 3-3 so far this season. They still look better than last year and it looks like Alex Smith is on the cusp of a renaissance.

… The night I got back from Mexico City it rained. Coming from an area where temperatures where in the mid 70s and humid to a cooler rainy night with the windows opened only meant one thing for me, a cold.

Sure enough I got one. Making matter worse was the night I drove home from work the next day in the rain; I got a flat tire and had to change it … on the side of the freeway. Well that was until the CHP came by and told me that it would be better if I drove my car another half mile to an off ramp and complete the tire change.

So, welcome back home. I’m just now getting over being sick; almost two weeks later.

… The dentist is something I’ve been avoiding since I got my crown done in 1997. Well a week before my trip I had a tooth crack. I went three weeks before getting the crown placed. Of course, doing that, they are going to find other things wrong.

In a way, my teeth are better than I thought; I only need three fillings redone. My gums are another problem.

I’m going to need a scaling. For those of you that don’t know what that is, it is where they really clean your gums so good that you need Novocain. So yes, it’s painful. The other thing is that it can only be done in four parts with a different quadrant of your mouth done at a time.

So I got that going for me, which is nice.

… Since getting back I’ve been reading about my sister’s adventures in Mexico with my dad and family. She got there after two days after I left and was there longer than me also traveling from Mexico City to Guadalajara. Looking all the photos and reading the stories she wrote about the trip makes me want to go to the state of Jalisco even more. She got to see the pueblos my parents came from and meet family.

Seeing what she got to see and the people she meet has given me more incentive to tell my dad the next time I talk to him: When are we going back?

So yes, I’m looking forward to my next trip to Mexico with my dad.

Day eight, Mexico City: Home

The day was quiet for the most part, other than me leaving of course. I walked around the neighborhood for a while just to see what was going on. My aunt made me a light breakfast and I sat around talking with family.

I saw my cousin from Jalisco for the first time since he brought my Tia Irene on Saturday. We talked for a little bit before they went to the downtown area and I said goodbye. I also told them when my dad decides to come back to Mexico; I’ll go with him to Jalisco to spend time with family there.

I waited around while my nephew was playing with my PSP until my cousin that showed me around for the better part of the trip to give me a ride to the airport.

On the flight home I thought a lot about the trip and remember things I wanted to write about, but didn’t have the time. Well, now I do.

. . . One morning my uncle asked me if I wanted to see the local newspaper, and of course, I wanted to see how it looked. It was a tabloid newspaper by every definition. The most glaring part – and there were plenty – was the front page photo. It showed a dead man after he was shot in the head with what was inside coming out. I told my uncle that there would be no way this photo would run in the newspaper where I worked.

The newspaper is still an important place for people to get news in Mexico City. Most newsstands I saw had many different newspapers to choose from; unlike in Los Angeles where there are only two newspapers, for the most part.

. . . I was asked several times by my family: “Do you think you could live here?” Well yes and no. I can adjust for the most part but what frightens me the most are the drivers. There are several times I told myself while in the back of a car, “I’d never do that in my car!” Now, I’m not saying I’m a letter perfect driver, but I will say there are certain things I saw that I would never do, like run a red light after stopping at it. The amazing thing is that at some intersections where there are police helping to direct traffic at a light, you could run it and get away with it; pedestrians be damned.

. . . What I will remember the most is I got to experience the day-to-day living of Mexico. When I went to Tokyo last year, I came back to a hotel every night that had a neutral feel where I wasn’t in Japan.

Every day for the past week I woke up, ate and slept like my cousins. It wasn’t that foreign to me at all. I grew up in a migrant farm house, a rustic environment. Much of what I experienced this past week when I was at my Tia Chuy’s house was what I experienced when I grew up in that red farm house on Union Island. The only real difference is was I was in a metropolitan city.

I have always dogged by the thought that I wasn’t Mexican enough. Yes, I don’t speak Spanish as well as I should and I’m not as cultural as some would like. I was brought up by my parents that where born and raised in Mexico for the most part and I believe they raised me and my family in the U.S. as if they would have raised us in Mexico. My parents always accepted me and I know I did not disappoint them.

As my flight approached the gate, the stewardess said if Los Angeles was your destination, “Welcome home.”

For the past week, I was home.

Day seven, Mexico City: It’s a family thing

On my final full day, my father and I along with my Tia Irene and cousin went to Basilica de Guadalupe for mass by taxi. As I said earlier, it is the most visited Catholic Church in the world. So how do you give service to many people with a limited amount of space; you shorten the mass.

We walked in as a mass was about to finish and waited until we could find a seat for all of us, which was not easy. Once we were seated, mass pretty much began and it lasted about 30 minutes, about half the time you would get if you were to walk into a Sunday mass at your local Catholic Church. As soon as that finished, the new one began within minutes.

We took a taxi ride back and my dad and I walked around another flea market that closed down a street. There was nothing much happening there so we walked down and picked up the last item I was looking for, mazapans. It is a candy that is tightly packed peanut butter tasting powder.

For the rest of the day we stayed at my Tia Chuy’s house. More family came when another cousin of mine came by. I think it was good for my father to see plenty of family he doesn’t see on a regular basis around him for the past week. He and my aunts have had a good time catching up and remembering things.

I’ve had a good time talking to my cousins that I’ve never seen before. I also found out my Spanish wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. It’s not great, but it is enough for them. We’ve had a good time talking and they have done their best to understand me. It’s frustrating for me since I can understand them; I just have a hard time expressing myself.

It has been great for the past week; we’ve shared some good laughs and I can see that humor is not just an immediate family thing.

Tomorrow I say goodbye to my cousins, tias and my dad and fly home. One of my sisters will meet my father later this week and take him to Guadalajara to see more family.

Day six, Mexico City: ¡El Tri!

When I woke up in the morning I found that my aunt and cousin from Jalisco had arrived. My father had been talking to them for a while. I didn’t know what time they were coming in and tried to sleep in a bit.

There was plenty to do for everyone. They were going to go to Palacio de Bellas Artes while my dad and I had other plans. So we quickly split up as they went downtown and my dad took me to a nearby flea market. I hadn’t been to a flea market in years and this was unlike the ones I remember. About 10 city blocks were closed as vendors sold where cars usually roam during the week. I found some items for friends and my dad bought produce.

We walked back and my aunt from Mexico City made me lunch. During the meal I had some food caught between my teeth around where I had a temporary crown and it popped out. My dad and I were going to a nearby pharmacy to buy denture adhesive – which I was told to do by my dentist if that happened – when my cousin showed up. Fortunately for me, he had to make a delivery to his restaurant which was by the pharmacy. After we were all settled, we were dropped off at the nearest Metro station.

The Metro in Mexico City is unlike any I have been on because they are on pneumatic tires and not the standard rails. It did make for a smoother ride and only cost two pesos or about 15 cents. The other thing I hardly ever see are people trying to sell stuff on the trains. Anything from music to candy is being sold.

We made several transfers, including a complete change in transit systems to get to Estadio Azteca and the closer we got to the stadium, the fuller the train was.

When we arrived I was amazed by the stadium. I can see why opposing nations have a hard time playing there; the sheer size is intimidating.

We sat in the top deck, on a corner. The stadium was designed in a way that every seat can see the center of the field without any difficulty. The stadium was also designed with concrete seats in the upper deck that were not that bad. I have yet to see an official attendance report, but I’m sure there were more than 100,000, if not capacity crowd of 105,000 as people were standing up around the stadium and sitting in the aisles. My cousin was telling me tickets were selling for about five times its face value.

There were also precautions taken by the police as the fans for El Salvador were all guarded by the police and a no man’s land of empty seats.

The crowd was lively before the match as many of the top deck crowd was there 90 minutes before the match. They were fine for the most part, except soccer hooligans are everywhere. There was a beverage battle between the people sitting above us and those sitting below us leaving us in the middle. The second and third goals for Mexico were the worst as they used it as an excuse.

As for the match, it began and after had to be stopped after a minute for nine minutes because bees were flying around the El Salvador goalie. It turned out an entire swarm got loose and unlike getting a bee keeper like the San Diego Padres this year and delaying the game for 45 minutes, they got fire extinguishers.

Mexico was in control throughout the match. They pressured the El Salvador defense often and the only goal of the first half came on an El Salvador own goal. There were four goals in the last 23 minutes as Mexico won 4-1. We joke often in the sport department how that is sort of like a seven touchdown football win. In a way, that’s what it was.

As crowded as it was getting to the stadium, it didn’t compare to leaving. It was the most jam packed I’d ever been just to get to the train station. Getting in the train car was no easy feat either as they were full until we got to the metro station.

Tomorrow is my last full day in Mexico City and I want to stay around for the most part. There is another flea market which I’ll go to. I want to by this candy that I could find in the U.S. but it would be so much cheaper to get here. After that, I really don’t know, but I look forward to it.