I was in northeastern Mexico (Nuevo Leon) in February and have more to report on than will fit in one post, so I'm going to break it up into more bite-size bits. Today: traveling while old is new to me.
The weather was sunny and warm the whole trip. I juggled three pairs of glasses: bifocal prescription sunglasses, drugstore readers, and screen-reading-distance glasses whose lenses are both Transitions and Progressives, the ones I am accustomed to using. This is one reason why I almost always carried a small shoulder bag (the RS civita).
There were two instances where I could not see the person on the other side of a booth window selling tickets -- once at the star museum MARCO, where a security guard yelled at me about getting a ticket before I came inside and I had to ask him twice to show me where to buy the ticket before I realized that there was even a window there at all below the flatscreen entrance sign, and the second time at the taquilla for the Paseo Santa Lucia boatride back from the Fundidora Park to the Mexican History Museum -- I just talked to the blank (to me) window the same way the people in front of me had. I was pleased (or not) to notice that senior pricing starts at age 60. I had to take whichever pair I had on off over and over to be able to check the world around me against the google map on my phone.
Walking around with a pair of glasses in one hand (my left arm rehab weight limit was 1 lb.) gives off an impression that I preferred to think of as distinguished rather than aged.
On the flight out I asked at the gate podium if the seat on my left was open, and could it stay open, since I wanted to keep my elbow intact. I showed them my fresh scar (cicatriz nuevo o fresco), they cringed for a moment, and then one showed the other how to block out that seat so no-one would be assigned to it. I put my ebags Weekender on that seat and an IFSR said it had to go in the overhead for takeoff, and I said I need help getting it up there (just take a glance at this arm) and another IFSR said we can just clip the seatbelt around the bag. I needed help to do that, too.
Just like Americans visiting France have to be told that slow service is good service, those in places where the water is iffy have to be told that bringing a sealed bottle to the table is a good thing, showing the intact seal, and not a lazy thing. I had to ask for help twisting open bottles a few times during the trip. The mesero was always happy to oblige.
As other Mexico trip reports mention, consistent pavement surfaces and sidewalks are not a priority usually. Better not to walk while checking one's phone. Many crosswalks require assertiveness or you'll never get across, and adding steps to get to a traffic-light-controlled intersection when the weather is sweaty is not always preferable.
I wore shorts for a couple of days, embracing my tourist identity willingly, but my mind changed when I realized that other grown men in shorts were not giving off the best impressions. Slacks and sandals proved a good balance between comfort and presentable-ness.
Many of us have noticed that people appreciate it when you try to use a few words of the local language, but there comes another level of interaction where you can mostly get along in the local language so people give you less allowance and speak in the same shorthand and speed that people usually do. I sometimes had to make little jokes about how my brain doesn't function easily in Español so please speak slower or repeat yourself. I always pick a few verbs or phrases to improve on; in this trip 'tratar' versus 'probar' came up a lot. I was happy to be able to make good use of 'se parece como' and its variants, too. That pairs well with 'suponer' when talking about maybes and perhapses.
I think I got along with a couple of men of a certain age better than I might have in the past. No need to maintain a front of machismo or coolness.