What am I doing in Mexico?

(The scene is my office. It is mid-afternoon on a random day of the week in late May. In walks Reese, a senior manager in my department with whom I work quite frequently. He shuts the door and sits down across the desk from me...)

Reese: Hey, how's it going?
Me: Fine. Uh, what's up?
Reese: How would you feel about going to Mexico?
Me: I always say I will go wherever this firm wants to send me...except I won't move to Houston. My hair can't take the weather there. Do I need to go to Monterrey to meet a client or something?
Reese: Um, no, how would you feel about going to Mexico for four to six months?
Me: Oh. Hola. I don't speak ANY Spanish.
(This is so true! I have been here for 2 months now, and I can still barely order food in a restaurant. Rosetta Stone LIES!)
Reese: That may not be a problem.
Me: Okay. Would it be in Monterrey?
Reese: Nope. Mexico City.
(At this point, I was starting to wonder how this was happening. How I, the biggest white-bread, pasty-faced WASP on the planet, was about to be deployed to the depths of the Mexican capital. I had no idea...)
Me: Oh. Okay, sure. When?
(Yes, the decision was just that easy. As a divorced, childless career gal, the only living thing that depends on me for survival is my lawn. And my lawn has been around longer than I have, so I think it will make it.)
Reese: Probably July 1st through around Thanksgiving.
Me: Well, I guess I better renew my passport then!
(I know, this makes me the stereotypical American. My passport was about 4 years out of date, which is getting close to 'unrenewable'. It was always on my 'to-do' list...'renew passport'...right after 'wax car' and before 'run first marathon'.)
Reese (eyes widening in disbelief): Yeah, um, you better do that. Maybe get that going today? I'll let the department head know you are interested.
(Exit Reese...)

And, about six weeks later, I got off a plane at Juarez airport in beautiful Mexico City to embark on what has been one of the most interesting and eye-opening experiences I have had. When I say "beautiful Mexico City", I am not being facetious. It is really one of the neatest cities I have visited. And when I say that, it is not because I've only been to St. Louis, Cleveland, and Omaha or something. I lived in New York for two years, and have visited Tokyo, (and Sapporo, Osaka, Kyoto, etc...tour of Japan) Frankfurt, Seoul, Vienna, as well as many other American cities like Chicago, Miami, and Boston. (Although I have been to St. Louis, Cleveland, and Omaha and they are lovely cities. Go Cardinals! And Cavs! And...um...KC Royals AAA team!!!) So, I have a standard for comparison here. And I gotta say that I genuinely have fallen in love with this city.

Except...one thing.

People here insist upon speaking this strange tongue. They call it...Spanish. (Actually, they call it "Espanol" with the squiggly thing over the 'n'. I call it Spanish.) When I was in high school, we had the choice to take French, German, or Spanish. Spanish was, of course, the most popular language because people thought it was "easiest". French was #2 because so many girls want to go to Paris. German was a distant third because, hey, it's got three genders, more cases than you can shake a stick at, and the verb usually goes to the end. Well, ach du Lieberhimmel, what do you think I signed up for? Ja, Deutsch. It actually served me well when I went to Austria for 2 months the summer between my senior and senior years of college. (Five years...what is it Senior 1 & 2? Senior and senior senior?) But not so much here. Unfortunately, when my brain tries to access the area for 'languages other than English', German is all it can lay its lobe on. As a result, when addressing some unsuspecting Mexican shopkeepers, I have launched into "Ich moechte...er...I would like...er...yo quiero...I DON'T SPEAK SPANISH PLEASE HELP ME!"

Thankfully, it seems that the good people of Mexico City are a fairly helpful bunch. And many people here speak very good English. Even if they can't understand a thing I am saying, they can usually point and play charades enough to communicate with the gringa. I know I am the 'ugly American', and I really am trying to learn. But, once the brain has hardened at age 30-something, it is difficult to become functional in a language you have never studied in the span of a few months.

Gotta go practice some Spanish. Hasta luego!

Oh, and pay attention...