Kate from Texas, and the subway experience

Our walking tour lead us on an indirect route to the subway system, via a huge park area about five blocks out of the way. So as we sit on the park bench checking our map and talking about what where we should go on the subway, we were spoted by the only other person we would see all day that was not from Mexico. She was obviously as suprised to se us as we were to see here. Turns out her name is Kate (from Texas) and she is an english teacher in a local public school. We talked to her for a few minutes and she seemed to enjoy our stories and gave us a few good bits of advice, such as the "rule of three" which I will explain in a later entry.

After our little side trip that happened to take us by the McDonalds with the largest play area I have ever seen, we were off to check out the subway system. The subway system is really a good one, it just happens to be super over taxed by so many passengers. Having rode the various subway systems from across many of the large cities from around the world I had thought that I had seen most everything that subway systems have to offer. I now realize how wrong I was now. This particular trip started as any other trip on a public transport system, purchase of tickets, finding the correct train and direction, and even local police for security. We found our train and rode to the first stop with really nothing of interest happening. But at the first stop, that all changed. It started with a young man and his backpack with a large speaker hanging out of it. In his hand he had a diskman and it was attached to the backpack and speaker, in order to turn himself into a one man stereo system. As he boarded the train his backpack had American Oldies rock and roll music playing. He had quite a large library of songs to play for us, everything from CCR, Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Grateful Dead, and even a little Pink Floyd mixed in for good measure. Up until this time we were just thinking that this was just a young man from Mexico City that happened to really like Oldies rock and roll and enjoyed listening to it at a loud volume and in public places. When the doors of the train shut this young man went to work , He had what sounded to me like a very convincing sales pitch, although I cant be sure because of my poor spanish skills and his ability to talk fast. (a trait that seems to help salesmen around the world regardless of location or language). Shortly after finishing his speech a couple of people purchased a compact disk that appeared to be copied from a computer, and a photo copy of the cover of the original CD. After arriving at the next stop the young man quickly exited the train, only to be quickly replaced by another young man also selling CD’s only this time all the songs were in spanish. This repeated itself at all the train stops with the only difference being the product that each were selling.

I had thought that I had seen all the subway sales men had to offer, and was surprised that we only came across one group of performers (in the form of a two man band playing guitars). But then….I had a conversation with a girl in the hostel in Oaxaca. Apparently I had missed what I might have considered the best performer/ street artist in the Mexico City Subway System. Apparently this man carries a rolled up t-shirt with broken glass all over it. He gives his obligatory speech in spanish to all passengers who will bother to listen while laying his shirt out and arranging the glass all over the shirt while it is on the ground. He then proceeds to lie down on the shirt for a short period of time, getting up with only minor cuts and scrapes on his chest and torso. Apparently a few people tipped him, and much to my surprise not even one single person yelled “Dog Pile” and jumped on the mans back, although in my opinion this would have earned him twice the tips.

I guess in summary that what I thought was a complete subway journey, turns out to be incomplete and I am now considering returning to Mexico City on my way back to the States in order to ride the subway and see the “Glass Shirt Man” show and see if this time anyone starts the much anticipated dog pile.

12 Nov 2008