Look closely at an ofrenda and you find more than marigolds and candles. A can of Coke, a plate of mole, his brand of cigarettes. In Mexico you remember people by what they loved.
You think you've learned Spanish, then someone says "ahorita." Five minutes, nothing. An hour, nothing. The mystery isn't linguistic, it's cultural.
The first time someone asked "¿Ya comiste?" I answered the question. Then I realized they weren't asking about food, they were checking on me.
The best taco isn't the most expensive, it's the one the neighborhood has trusted for twenty years. In Mexico, excellence doesn't always announce itself.
The biggest culture shock wasn't the food, it was what happened after. The sobremesa, where plates disappear, coffee arrives, and nobody checks the time.
Coffee is rarely the reason. Conversation is. In Mexico, people aren't interruptions to your schedule, sometimes they are the schedule.
You learn a lot about a place when the plumbing explodes.
Yesterday I had one of those classic Mexican experiences that would have destroyed the old version of me. I had an appointment at INM to renew my residence card. I was running late, so I called an Uber.
Bank lines, supermarkets, government offices, even the coffee queue. Back home silence fills the wait. In Mexico, people do.