Day seven

Wed November 5b

Yes, day seven. Well, kinda. Having arrived Thursday night, we haven’t even yet been here a full week and we’ve still got almost another two weeks here. But as Maja says today, we could leave now and the trip would have been a success. We’ve played live five times if you include the house party, which we do. And the radio performance, which we do. And yep. I just alluded to it – The whole Reactor 105 experience of yesterday. 

With all that, I have a massive job myself of just trying to keep up with social media covering all that is happening. And within that, you can forget about trying to write Diary entries about it all. Apart from not being able to find the time to do that, I’m also playing guitar a lot, which uses the same muscles as typing. Which is why I’m frantically trying to catch up on all this back in London in July. Because between then and now we also had the Japan trip to write about.

Me and Maja want to get out and about and have an explore on our own and are aiming at three or four for this. But with so much going on, we don’t manage it until 6pm. This includes a rehearsal because there are a couple of new songs we really want to work into the repertoire – Where Do We Go and 101 Ways To Fly. We also want to get Give Me The World in there, not least because we’re headlining a heavy metal show tomorrow and that is a big chunky number. But we don’t get to that today, instead being happy that we have at least got our heads round the other two. Which is cool actually. Two new songs added and another one still to go.

All of which means we don’t get out until 6pm. This is an adventure as we’ve decided to walk to the centre square and town of Coyocan ourselves tonight. We do have a mis-step or two along the way, but we eventually realise a particularly striking Mexico City centre building shows us the way, and at the same time remember that, as long as we do keep going the right way, the walk follows pretty much a long, straight line. We now know that all we have to do is pretty much keep that just off to the right of us as we look ahead and that will lead us to the main square. Then, on the way back, we have to keep it behind our left shoulders to get back home to Richard’s.

This quite brilliant walk sees us among the town for the first time since our first night here when it was thronged with thousands of people and we spent all our time walking through and among crowds. Now we get to see the place in its more relaxed harmony and splendour and it’s a really cute and still bustling place. It’s all centred around the town square, a lovely decent sized park, but with a few streets also pointing off of each side. We casually wander these streets now looking for a restaurant for tonight. Eventually, and pretty much all walked out, we settle on a lovely Italian place on the corner of the square where we are presented with a wonderful outdoor table by an English speaking waiter who is very keen to hear of our experiences here. There clearly isn’t time for all of them, but he’s hugely impressed enough to hear that we are an act from London on tour and with a full agenda which has already included that epic radio appearance.

Afterwards we do indeed manage to walk directly all the way back with our new building landmark doing its job perfectly. When we do, I’m back on the computer immediately for more social media catchup. This whole thing of playing, rehearsing, interview prepping and interviewing and all the social media-ing really is becoming a full on full time job. And we are totally one hundred per cent loving every minute of it.