First impression of Mexico… City

There are too many museums. If you are a museum freak you could come to Mexico just to see them. Personally I think I’m just going to see the biggest ones and hopefully find some nice photo exhibitions.

There are too many policemen on the streets. I’m sorry but this isn’t Mogadishu or Baghdad. So there might be lot of crime in this city but too much is just too much. No police officer walks here alone. The metro is packed with them, there are more police there than people trying to sell you something. That’s a lot. Almost every store has at least one police officer. An hour ago I went to buy some fruits to a super market and there were 4 policemen all of them carrying shotguns and all of them held their index finger on the trigger.

That’s another thing. There are too many policemen with too heavy weapons. You don’t need a machine gun or a shotgun to stop a thief. These guns aren’t for them. The guns are meant to intimidate people. The guns are meant to tell: Don’t even think about rising above us, above the law.

This country isn’t the same as Mexico City and this authority issue is probably biggest here. The same can be seen in Guadalajara but not so clearly. Still this country is in many ways kept in order with force and it seems if something big is going to happen it’s going to happen right here in this city. How big of a push it needs? I have no idea.

One more thing about the guns. Even the traffic cops that TRY to keep the cars moving have pistols and sticks. Again, this isn’t Baghdad or Mogadishu, there can’t be demand for that.

All this might sound a bit negative but I hope you see the issue from my perspective. I just got to this city from a beach that was full of really nice people and where I didn’t have to lock my stuff to lockers and where air was clean to breath and nights were quiet. And I’ve been sick for 5 days so I haven’t really done anything apart from trying to get better. And I really hate police states.

I reserve the right to change or revise my opinion about this city. And I will probably do it someday.

Oh, and I can only say what it’s like in the center of this little town. I’m quite sure if I would take a taxi to some poorer neighborhood it wouldn’t be the police that was in charge of things. Or at least the local super market wouldn’t have 4 cops with shotguns.