I arrived to Mexico on Thursday, May 16th, just before a thunderstorm hit the city. In the taxi to my hostel near the city center, I tried in vain to explain how to pronounce and spell my own name to the driver, Hernando.
It was a rude awakening – as much Spanish as I had studied and practiced, I hadn’t used the alphabet since Spanish I back in 8th grade. “Kyle” is a tough name for anyone in Latin America – there is no Spanish equivalent. It took several tries, including a moment where he thought my name was “Kilo”. When I got to the hostel, he said goodbye to “Kilo Kyle”. I’d been in the city for 45 minutes and already had a new nickname.
The next night, I was back at the hostel near the Zócalo, the city center. There was no one on the rooftop terrace, so it seemed like my first proper night in CDMX would be a quiet one. Heading down to my room, I swung by reception with a question about bike rentals.
Before long, I was sitting in the picturesque central foyer with the receptionist, Maggy, and the security guard, Antonio, laughing and learning Chilango1Residents of Mexico City slang. Apparently, you could order a liter of beer by asking for a Kawasaki (just like the bike), and Mexicans were just as afraid of Salvadoran gangs as their Gringo2“Gringo” is what Mexicans call Americans. neighbors. And just like that, a boring night was transformed into something magical.
On Saturday, I had my first date. At least, I hoped it was a date. I’d met Arid the previous day on Tinder, and she’d invited me to an intercambio 3Literally, “exchange” – in this case specifically a language exchange..
Arid was authoritative, kind and scrunched up her nose whenever she talked about something distasteful. I liked her immediately. We chatted about her career and mine, and then she invited me to go out with her friends that night.
We went our separate ways and then I met her and friends at a bar after dinner. Her friends Ximena and Diego were equally kind and welcoming. Still, a 1 on 1 conversation in Spanish was tough enough; group conversation was even more challenging. Topics changed quickly; there might be 2 or 3 people saying something at once, and they spoke rapidly. Still, great practice!
We moved on to meet with even more friends at a nearby club. We got a table, and drinks started flowing. I met one, two, six, nine more of Arid’s friends. Four drinks in now, and my Spanish was flowing – the inhibition around the language was gone. I had a heart to heart with Ximena about the work grind, and leaving it behind to travel. Arid and I discussed her friends and Mexican hospitality, in between reggaeton bangers that had everyone on their feet.
At some point in the night, I learned the phrase “Estoy flamas”. In Chilango slang, it means “I’m tipsy”, but literally it means “I’m flames”. Type it into Google Translate, that’s what you’ll see. And so, around 3:30am, the music was swelling, the vibe was right, I had new friends around me, and I was flames. Only more adventures to come.
Miscellaneous Notes:
- Generally, this blog is going cover these sorts of stories – meeting people and going out with them, insightful conversations over dinner, coincidences, etc. I’m a firm believer that relationships are the foundation of travel, so I’m focusing my writing on them. As I learned at USC, travel is not about seeing new landscapes, but developing new eyes (Thanks Carl and Stacy!)
- Other stuff I did this weekend: Zócalo, also known as the Plaza de la Constitución; Parque Hidalgo, Museo de Templo Mayor4It was very interesting that by building the Templo Mayor in successive stages – etapa II, then etapa III, all the way up to etapa VII – the Maya and later the Aztecs were essentially covering up the most ancient parts of the temple; not even the Conquistadores saw them. Small consolation for being conquered and subjugated mercilessly, but still. Also interesting that the reason Cortez was able to conquer so quickly was by forming alliances with the locals, who were pissed because the Aztecs were imposing overly high taxes., Torre Latino 5Tallest building in CDMX apparently, Palacio de Bellas Artes, and Mercado la Merced.
- Expanding on the challenge of speaking Spanish in a group: Saturday night was the first time that I was the only non-native speaker hanging out with a bunch of native speakers in their native language. It gives me so much more respect for every time I was ever in a hostel and was chatting with Europeans, whose first language was not English. It’s tough. I had to be so focused for every part of the conversation, and even then I felt like there were certainly finer points that I wasn’t getting. I felt embarrassed to ask “what?” too many times in a row, so often on the 2nd or 3rd time, I found myself doing something noncommittal based on the vibe to keep the conversation going.
- Ironically, whenever we did switch over to English, I felt a mixture of disappointment and relaxation. Disappointment because clearly they felt like it would be easier to just chat in English, which is an indirect commentary on the poor state of my Spanish. Relaxation because I knew I could express myself better that way and that I would understand everything they said. I imagine this is universal for people living or working in places that don’t speak their language, but it’s essentially a new experience for me, and was eye-opening.
- Another thing I particularly noted during the afternoon chat with Arid was how often I messed up verb tenses, or how often I had to restate something I said, because I realized I’d messed up. But thinking about it, this is fairly similar to how others sounded when they were speaking in English; there were significant pauses and times where they didn’t know the right word, so I guess it’s fairly similar. I’m also able to understand people generally in English, even if they don’t speak correct grammar, so I imagine it’s the same thing the other way around.
- I have felt my brain re-wiring for Spanish though and it has been fantastic. While walking around, all my brain does is compose things in Spanish, which is great – I’m actively re-wiring those synapses (though it is exhausting at times, since the internal monologue won’t shut up).
- I do feel some shyness about my accent – I love how the Spanish language sounds when the locals speak it. Arid mentioned that everyone non-native has accents, it’s just a fact of life and not a big deal, and that I’m still very easy to understand, but I can’t help but feel a bit bashful about the whole thing. I definitely see the value now in going to a Spanish school to work on things like grammar and my accent.