CDMX historico, day 9

Day 8 also had no part 2.

Today has been very stressful for reasons of Mexico but not Mexico's fault. Employer 1 got bought by Employer 2 which wants to revalidate all I-9; the stress of needing a second person got trumped by today's stress of "oh, you're in Mexico? you have to be on US soil". WTF. "Also you'll need a new laptop but we won't ship it to Mexico."

Went for a late walk, exploring some directions east and south. Nothing too exciting. Though, have I mentioned lots of public bathrooms and WCs? For money? Like "6.00" pesos? And they're usually in the back of buildings and I haven't felt like entering. But I passed one that was shallower, with a money guy and "5.00" so I asked if that were really "cinco pesos" and he said yes. Makes more sense than 500 pesos ($25!) but I don't think there are fractional pesos?

But Mexico got a lick of culture shock in anyway. I ordered some "tacos pollo, para llevar" from a chicken place. I was expected tacos with shredded chicken. What I got was a drumstick (and other boney pieces) in a tortilla. Am I supposed to shred the chicken myself? Well, so far I just ate 3 of the pieces.

Also ordering got weird. I thought I asked for 'tres' tacos but got 'seis', oh well. Then for paying, I heard "ciento ocho", which looks obvious now but I was not processing properly, since I was expecting 3*18 pesos. I handed a 200 peso bill over, and he kept asking for something, I thought more money, which didn't seem right, and I asked him (crudely) to enter the number on my phone, he didn't though he did write on his hand and napkin, doing the math... finally I realized he was just asking if I had an extra 8 pesos. Which I did not, having given all my change to a homeless guy yesterday.

The chicken itself is tasty, I don't mind paying $5.40 for 6 pieces, plus there's some rice and salsa, and a metric buttload of tortillas to use up somehow. Hmm, maybe time to open the can of black beans.

CDMX historico, day 9 part 2

Part 2 Already!

First, a photo of the second set of tacos as they came to me: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/52212707803/

After which I decided to not be whiny gringo and to try to assemble them. Didn't 'shred', of course, but meat fell off the cooked chicken pieces easily enough. Then I added some rice and salsa, and voila, tacos. Undermines the idea of them as a convenient street food, but then my first tacos this trip came with a plate of steak and a plate of tortillas, so.

(Helps to not be whiny after I'd eaten something; hadn't eaten since a morning sandwich and banana, on top of the all the "do I have to fly into covid to keep my job?" stress.)

Then I did open the beans and had a rice+bean+salsa taco. Still have some rice and tortillas left, but after 4 multi-tortilla tacos + 3 more pieces of chicken, I'm filling up.

By the way, research has suggested that the Mexican definition of taco is "food in a tortilla", very generic like "sandwich" in the US. So if you're worried about the authenticity of your tacos, you can relax.