La vida chilanga

It's been about three weeks and life is sweet here in Mexico City, whose inhabitants are known as Chilangos. The city has it all - bars, clubs, great food, live music, galleries, museums, huge parks and of course, Lucha Libre, or Mexican wrestling where mask-clad fighters do choreographed moves a la WWF.

We haven't yet been to a bout, but hope to get there this week.

There is so much to do here that we're getting to it a little at a time, in between class and daily homework assignments. The class sizes are so small that its hard to slip in late or fake having done your homework. But we are learning fast!

We checked out the Bosque de Chapultepec on Saturday, a massive parkland in the centre of the city that is packed with museums, a zoo and a big castle where an Austrian emperor once lived. This is a nice example of how incestuous European royals used to be. In the 1840s, after Mexico had been declared independent from Spain but during a power vacuum of sorts, France invaded and decided to install Maximilian from Austria as emperor, with his wife Charlotte from Belgium. The castle was built Euro style to accommodate them. Unfortunately the reign didn't last and they were executed.

The zoo was fun, although as usual I was saddened to see so many of the animals living alone in such small enclosures, like the poor rhino with his broken horn. But at the same time there were lots of native Mexican and Central American animals, including jaguars, monkeys, tapirs and curious rodent-y looking things whose names I can't remember.

On Saturday night we hung out in the mecca of the Mariachis - plaza Garibaldi in the centre of town. Mariachi groups congregate here to serenade the public with their songs - each group wearing distinctive uniforms. It's not like an en masse performance - the groups weave in and out of the crowd, charging 80 pesos (about $7) for each song. They also wind their way in and out of restaurants playing music for individual tables. Luckily if you don't want to pay for a song you can always listen on to the music being played at other tables.

The people-watching was the best part. Sitting at an outdoor table of a cheap restaurant, we observed a group of trashed uni students trying to dissaude two of their mates from fighting each other. Old couples swooned around, dancing to the Mariachis while hawkers strolled around selling cuban cigars.

We splashed out on a cuban and puffed away for hours, enjoying family-sized coronas and margaritas mesmerized by the action taking place around us.