Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Day 2 - Closer Look at Mexico City


Only one word describes this day, WOW! Let me go find the napkin with the list of WOW’s for the day. The start of the day was early.. 4am AZ time… ugg. The training we did went well; everyone was very pleasant and understood enough English to get the gist. So after the training ended around one, we went back to the hotel to relax until our next appointment at 3pm.

Our appointment came and picked us up at the hotel to take us to their corporate office. The building was phenomenal; huge the views were great, the technology amazing, and the hospitality wonderful. So the visit started with us parking the car down in the basement. We noticed all the cars are double parked, so we asked how does the person you’re blocking get out, well the keys are left with a gentlemen that watches the cars and he moves them when necessary along with washing them inside and out if desired. Next we are taken upstairs for a presentation and demonstration of the companies’ technologies. The entrance had a red carpet with our name welcoming us. The rooms had seamless doors some even looked like walls and then they would just part. They have ways to text message from a pc to a cell phone or many cell phones as well as scheduling these messages for different days. Then the kicker for Jada was the waiter that came to take drink orders, and one of the gentlemen ordering a cappuccino. So then prior to leaving they showed us a top floor with their eating area and a patio with a spectacular view of tree covered mountains and a lot of city.

On the way back to the hotel traffic was bumper to bumper the entire way... this was around 6pm. I don’t even know where to begin on the things we learned on this ride. Lets start with the police officers... they are everywhere armed with machine guns... and the police cars drive with their lights on a lot and it doesn’t mean you have to pull over. Although we did see a police man without his lights on turn them on to run a red light but then change his mind and turn them back off again... guess he wasn’t in a rush after all. We saw buses that from the front look like armored cars... these buses we also saw driving with the back and front doors open and people hanging out like it was a trolley but the bus wasn’t going that slow. The roads don’t seem to have lane lines and red lights seem to only be suggestions in many cases. There were people in the streets selling everything under the sun... the strangest was masks of the presidential candidates. We saw some amazing houses as well on vertical cliffs along the roads.

An interesting culture thing we found out was a car driving by with flowers on the hood was likely because it was a recent purchase and in their culture they take themselves and the car to the local priest to be blessed.

We ended the evening with a walk to the Hard Rock Café down the street where we made a list on a napkin of all the strange things we did or saw today.

No comments: