Is easy.

This city has an established subway system, which is called the Metro. For most tourists, the Metro is more than sufficient. Between the metro station and your final destination may be a pleasant walk and if you find walking around is too much of an undertaking, you may be like me and hop onto one of the privately-operated buses that are very common in town.

That said, I used either the Metro or my legs to get virtually everywhere, including the airport and the bus stations, when I was in Mexico City. There were only a couple of occasions when I took a bus. To begin with, there was a Metro station almost at the doorstep of the hostel where I stayed. Taking the Metro to get around was a convenient option for me.

These are the stations of the Pink Line, or Line #1, that stops by my hostel. Each station has its own graphical representation. You need only to look out for that to know your stop. (Though I prefer to know the name of the station too.)

The DF’s (Districto Federal, what Mexico City is called) Metro is, in all sense of the term, a mass transit system. It is among the mass transit systems in the world that transport the most people around. We are looking at ridership that is comparable to those of NYC and Paris.

In the DF’s Metro, you encounter people from all walks of life. Well, maybe not those who would be riding in their Benz or BMWs anyway, but there are so many others who ride the Metro. It is interesting to watch people in the trains.

One day, in a crowded train at a crowded station, a Tío (uncle in Spanish) was wrestling his way into the carriage, holding a piñata in the shape of Wall-E over his head in both his hands. Christmas was near. Perhaps that was meant for the little ones at home? Tío managed to find some standing room next to a seated passenger but as the train left the station, he lost his balance and one of his hands had to grab on to a handle bar so that he could stabalise himself. Wall-E fell onto the laps of the seated Señor Passajero (passenger in Spanish) and Tío conveniently left it to his charge, now freeing both hands to hang on to the handle bars. When Tío arrived at his station, Señor Passajero gladly handed over Wall-E and the two warmly exchanged smiles and a melodious ¡Gracias!

The Metro is also a place for hawking stuff. Tidbits, tissue paper, pirated CDs or DVDs… and I have seen someone selling nail clippers. The hawkers would make sure that they did not go unnoticed. They would announce their presence once on board by crying out what they were selling and would walk from one end of the carriage to the other end repeating what they said so that everybody had a chance to hear them. The CD and DVD hawkers would inject some lively music to the commuters’ ride by having ‘live’ demos of their goods. They had music blasting from their backpacks, where they carried their speakers and players. If you observe carefully, they do not just have their speakers kept in the backpacks. The backpacks were designed, maybe even improvised, such that a piece of meshed fabric was used in place of a solid one, exactly where the speakers sat, so that sound that came out would not be muffled.

Observations of gross behaviour can be made in the Metro too, for one day, I saw a man who was seated facing me pinching some bodily substance from his face using his fingers and wiped them off a handle bar next to him. Eeeks! He repeated that two more times and the bodily substance left on the bar each time remained very visible to me from where I sat.

While that was definitely disgusting, different people may have different ideas on what an agreeable train ride is like. To me, a reliable and accessible public transport system is like arteries in the body. It is vital to giving a city its life. As city dwellers belonging to the same city, we may not all live in the same neighbourhood, but we can share this common experience of commuting and being part of the city. The public transport system connects people to people and people to places. This is what the city I live now so lacks.

An important business I had to do in Mexico was to have my expired work visa for the US renewed. With some research and preparation, it was not too difficult a process. It just called for some due diligence… and stamina.

I arrived in Mexico City on 14 December, a Sunday. The visa business was the first thing I wanted to attend to and get off my mind before I could really enjoy my vacation. Today, almost all US visa applicants need to go through an interview at an embassy or consulate. I had made my interview appointment at 10 am on Monday. I brought with me all the documents I knew I needed and I was all ready for my embassy outing.

The embassy was only about 15-20 minutes’ walk from where I stayed. I arrived early – that was the good news. The bad news was there were so many people, like me, who were trying to get a US visa at the embassy that day, that there were already people waiting in line outside the embassy.

The embassy staff must have been very used to dealing with situations like that. The entrance to the visa department was right next to Marriott, separated by a street. That street had been cordonned off and one was not allowed access unless one could show that he or she had an interview appointment. There was a designated queuing space outside the embassy, in this restricted area. There were lines drawn on the ground, where visitors could form 5 files. Since there was a limit of 5 files and there were really many people that day, we had to form a line outside the restricted area before we were let in as the files clear.

When I was let into the restricted area, the embassy staff directed me to stand in File Number 5. There were already people standing in Files Number 1, 2, 3 and 4, each file probably some 25 metres long. As I joined those people, another embassy staff was talking to them through a loudspeaker, apparently in the process of going through the fields of the DS-156 (jargon for the visa application form), instructing them what to fill in the fields. A while later, the people standing in File Number 1 were asked to proceed into the visa department’s office.

The rest of us stood and waited in our files. After a long while, another embassy staff came out and addressed us. He instructed applicants who met certain requirements to step up and join File Number 1. With my limited Spanish, I had to strain my ears hard to listen to him and verify with people next to me that I understood correctly what he was saying. I confirmed that the instructions had nothing to do with me – it was for first-time applicants, applicants with infants, lost visas or something like that. So I contentedly remained in my position in File Number 5.

It was only not long after that it began to dawn on me what it meant to be in File Number 5. The people who just joined File Number 1 were soon asked to proceed into the office. As for the rest of us, people in File Number 2 was asked to shift themselves to File Number 1, File Number 3 to File Number 2, Number 4 to Number 3 and my line moved from Number 5 to Number 4. So, File Number 1 was where I needed to be for entry to the office to be imminent. I was still so far away.

I probably stood in the line for 2 hours or more before being signalled to proceed towards the visa department’s building. Before entering the office, the embassy staff checked each of our documents to make sure that everything was in order. We had to leave cellphones, metallic objects and other prohibited items at the baggage check before we were allowed to enter the building. There, we each received a “queue number” and had whatever was left is our bags screened.

I could understand that they were keeping people out of the building because of limited capacity in the office. However, I was still surprised by the number of applicants present in the visa department after they let us in. There were so many people! I waited for my “queue number” to be called to have my photograph and fingerprints taken and then I had to go to another section to wait to be called for my interview with the consular officer. I was not holding much hope that it would be quick and when I saw there there were some 200 “queue numbers” to be called before me, I was telling myself that luckily I brought with me something to read.

For a wait that long, the interview itself was quick! Just a few questions from the consular officer, who happened to have lived in Atlanta before, and presto! She approved my application!

With this volume of applications they handle in a day, it was understandable that the embassy did not have the policy to have applicants return to collect their passports. They engage a courier service to have the passports delivered to the applicants. This was the next major hurdle I had to go through. That was to somehow communicate to the Spanish speaking staff of the courier service, explain that I did not have an address in Mexico, that the consular officer has expedited the issuance of my visa and that I had to collect it in the next couple of days instead of the normal 7 – 10 days.

I think I managed to communicate that information to the lady at the counter and I managed to catch the instructions she gave, but I was not sure. I thought she was telling me that I could collect my passport from her company’s collection office in Mexico City and that I could call their hotline to find out if my passport was ready for collection. There was no English speaking people within my reach to help me then. After leaving the counter, I went looking for someone from the embassy to validate the information before stepping out. This was such important information.

Finally, I left the embassy with some comfort level of knowing how to retrieve my passport. 6 hours after I arrived in the morning, I felt so drained even though I really did not do much over there. Walking out the embassy, I felt a sense of relief that this business was finally over. A hawker approached me asking if I needed any covers for my passport. I was smiling from ear to ear and told him politely that I did not. There was a Starbucks round the corner from the embassy. I couldn’t help walking right in for a cuppa (mocha, though) and indulge in a cheesecake to take a break from a long day. A long day, just so that I may return to the US to work.

I have been busy vacationing the last three weeks, which explains the lack of new posts on this site.

This is New Year’s Eve in Merida. I am sipping a super-sweet hot chocolate at a corner of a café.

As it turns out, the city of Merida is not organising any special events tonight. New Year’s Eve is pretty much a family event here. People usually have supper with their families at home and maybe attend the midnight mass at the church. Looks like it will be an uneventful night for me.

This vacation is coming to an end and I have accomplished what I had initially set out to do – renew my visa, see Chichen Itza, and I managed to pack in some other stuff as well. Tomorrow, I will visit two more ruins, adding on to the several that I have already been to. I can carry on travelling like that for months, but the inconvenient truth is that I will have to fly home on Friday to report for work next week.

I will put up more posts on this trip after I sort out my pictures. Meanwhile, Happy 2009 to all who are reading.