Thursday! I receive an email from one of the addresses listed on the Berlitz website, but it is, of course, advising me to email my CV to someone else, who was also listed on the site and thus emailed by me, but I email her again and at the end of the day receive a reply inviting me to take an English test and interview Monday! Woo! I decided to familiarize myself with the "Observatorio" metro stop and bus station hub since it is significantly closer to me than the Norte and Sur bus stations. I make my way down to the Tacubaya metro stop, which was a nice walk, then check the map and try to head for the Observatorio station but veer SE instead of SW and end up at the San Pedro de Los Pinos (orange) station, so I again go down and check the subway map: gotta head a little N and a lotta W. Keep on walkin'. I really don't know where I am by now...it's raining, I find some park and think maybe it's a faction of Chapultepec (which is comprised of three separate areas) since it seems to take up a great deal of acreage. Aka I can't get around it, so I'mma try to go through it. I'm pretty sure this is not Chapultepec. Also, I'm pretty sure it's smaller than I thought and maybe not even a park...it's weird. But I get through it, back on the sweet, misting asphalt, and continue my trek NW. I finally find some sort of ledge overlooking a sunken part of the city (which is funny considering not only is D.F. sinking due to the fact it was built on a swamp, but we're also in a great valley in the middle of the country: Valle de Mexico) which happens to include a huge bus terminal. Voila! One of the great aspects of this city is that you always find what you're looking for, though more often than not in a fashion as circuitous as the majority of the major roads. In essence, this is the "allure" for me:
This City can be mapped out by Oxxos and Sanborns, unlabeled streets and screaming buses; measured in units of taxis and street vendors; aged in terms of dynasties or an individual's minutes and hours spent lost as Fuck; viewed between skyscrapers and parks, abandoned shacks and Argentine restaurants; heard amidst the screams and the laughs, the barks and the rustling of leaves, the airplanes and the metro rails, the suffocating fog and the liberating silence.
This City is oscillating between Alive and Dead: blanched-white walls and technicolored doors. But it cannot be defined.
So I found the bus station and did a little practice walk from the terminal to the metro station. Easy breezy. But I didn't feel like using my three pesos, so I decided to walk back; I remember seeing Av Observatorio fairly close to my apt, so I decided to take that back. However...it was leading me W and I wanted to be going NE, so I veered off the well-beaten path and took a little street perpendicular to Av Observatorio. A few blocks later and whatd'ya know, I'm back on Av Observatorio and it is now taking me in the correct direction! The main streets here are confusing...direction changes, name changes, whatever you can think of. So I stay on Observatorio until I get to the Tacubaya marketplace area that I recognize, hop on Parque Lira and it's easy pickens back home!
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