Day five

Monday November 3

Oh wow. After that epic whirlwind of four shows in two days, not to mention the amazing first few days before it all began with the unstated anxious energy and anticipation, we slowly emerge into the morning of what will be a quiet, chilled day. We’ve come through the storm and proved ourselves in front of Mexican audiences and know we can do this and it’s been an incredible experience. We were planning a spa day today, but even that just feels too energetic. Let’s just enjoy the wonderfulness of doing nothing. Not even touristing. Just around in the neighbourhood and in the apartment. 

It’s also an opportunity to me to be able to leisurely catch up on social media. This is all been a flurry of activity up to now and I’ve practically been at full stretch to keep up posting about gigs coming in, and posting about gigs done and keeping up with replying to messages coming in about it all. I’ve even been doing this on my phone in the car on our way here and there. Writing diary about it all at the same time? Forget about it. This has been social media-ing in the apartment, just managing to get finished before it’s time to leave, then just about managing to get us up to date back at the apartment before it’s time for bed or to join in the impromptu party. So yeah. I’m able to just catch up now without any freneticisms. Then we’re out and about walking casually around the neighbourhood as Richard introduces us to the fantastic local market full of exotic fruits and vegetables we’ve never seen before. The most fascinating of which is the green oranges and total lime type things which we’re constantly having to be reminded are lemons. And mini mini mini bananas. And amazing dried fruit which is like having just the most amazing sweet. But it’s fruit. 

Afterwards we have a bit more of an introductory walk around the neighbourhood and Richard takes us to the centrepiece of it all. A small and beautifully kept Japanese park, presented some years before by the Japanese ambassador to Mexico. There are a few wonderful little foot bridges over koi carp ponds and over there is a girl dressed in full on princess outfit getting her picture taken. Totally a thing here and we’re told to expect to see that a lot. With Maja’s Japanese experience and with our next travel plans set to be Japan, this is a really appropriate thing to have at our doorstep.

Among all this, Richard explains some of what we see walking around. Which is pavements suddenly burst upwards like mini mountains. Like some giant mole has sprung through the concrete and run away. This kind of thing is everywhere. Raised curbs, smashed up stones. Apparently it’s little earthquakes which happen just all the time, and it’s totally possible to wake up one day and just see your driveway totally broken up. That, and the fact that Mexico is built upon an enormous lake, and the splashing and moving water activity below sometimes causes things to break up above. And it all happens so much and so relentlessly that so much of the time, clean up or reparation just isn’t done. It just isn’t possible to keep up, and it’s probably going to happen again in a month or two anyway. So we’re just surrounded by fractures and the constant refrain to ‘Watch your step.’ Really. Do that. It could be so easy to just trip down a hole that, in our relatively pristine London surroundings, just wouldn’t be there. And we understand that this is one of the things that fascinated some of our friends here so much when they were in London. Everything was just tidy and not all broken up. 

Into the serene evening and Richard introduces us to a wonderfully Mexican film and a hugely appropriate one for us – Coco. An animated movie all centred around The Day of the Dead. What a perfect way to round off our first experience of the whole thing and, to use the word again, what an incredible privilege and experience it has been to be part of it all.

But just before putting the film on, we go through a little more prep for tomorrow morning. Which is to be an interview on national Spanish radio with celebrity interviewer Maria Letona. Celebrity in both senses of the word. Which is, she’s the one who gets all the big interviews whenever a major band is in town, and indeed, the one by whom all the major bands want to be interviewed, and she is also a celebrity in her own right. I’ve been watching videos of her and she really is cool, and is also a club DJ and magazine journalist. This is who we’ll be meeting tomorrow. After getting through our first few gigs, this feels like the last really big challenge hurdle. But again, Richard prepares us properly and says it will be a standard 10 minute piece; how did you form, what gigs are you doing, tell us about your music. So that’s what we prep. With that, we’re ready. Play Coco. So I watch that and try not to be nervous about tomorrow. I really have been working on my Spanish in the few months before coming here, and tomorrow will be the first big test of that. In front of a national audience. Go Coco.