I have departed Mexico City, landed safely, cleared customs and immigration, and made my way up 95 back to New Haven. A few blog posts and photos will almost certainly come, but first it's important to get off of the Mexican eating/sleeping schedule (large breakfast, larger lunch, essentially a late snack for dinner) and get to sleep soon.

In the meantime, I will only say that I have discovered an airport that is even more of a culinary wasteland than the maligned Philadelphia airport-- Mexico City's. Passing up the one dubious pub-like option for food before clearing security, we found ourselves in the international terminal with very few possibilities for lunch. We picked something called "Medas" that had what appeared to be plausible-looking chilaquiles (overdone nachos) and other basic entrees. The stuff bordered on inedible-- the chilaquiles were cloyingly sweet (I am mystified as to how) and the chicken had been microwaved so many times while on the verge of going bad that it tasted sort of like rancid plastic. And all of this for over 200 pesos for the two of us-- more than we paid for any meal other than the wonderful trip to Contramar.

On the drive home, I tried to think of when I have had a restaurant meal that was worse than this. I think my lunch at Raku in 2003, or dinner at a nameless Salvadorean restaurant in 2005 (both in D.C.) are the only contenders I could think of in the past five years or so. In a city with food that was otherwise so wonderful (more to come) this was particularly galling. This guy apparently wants to boycott the one in Zihua, but I have no idea if it's for the right reason.

UPDATE: Apparently the boycott is to protest overpriced airport monopolies-- basically on the right track.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost