There are so many things happening in Mexico that you just wouldn't see at home:
Around the streets: People driving
high vehicles end up in situations they can't get out of. To get past this stuck
truck on my way to work i had to drive up the 10cm curb.
Mexicans are crazy about sweeping. They get up at 7am to wash the pavement outside their houses and then they sweep all the water away.
You know how the air at petrol stations in England is "not to be used for inflatables", that doesn't apply here and one time i saw an entire Mexican family pumping up their 10ft by 6ft paddling pool at the garage. The pool likely ended up on their roof terrace.
As well as seeing loads of butterflies and the occasional humming bird in Mexico city, every now and again you see enormous black and yellow furry caterpillars crawling along the pavement.
You see people sleeping in their cars all over the place in DF. Is this because they don't have homes? One time a huge group of us drunkenly and loudly staggered out of 7/11 in Condesa. We were hanging around for a taxi in the brightly lit street when i noticed an old couple with grey hair, asleep in the front seats of the car parked right outside the 24 hr shop.
The newspaper stands are great, as well as a small selection of recent publications they ALL have loads and loads of really old faded knitting magazines on display.
Around the house: The electrics in our house aren't that great, you can tell when the kettle has boiled because the lights come back on brighter.
We often blow fuses, but our place is so brilliantly designed that the fuse box is in next door's basement, so we have to go out, knock on their door, get them down from the fourth floor to let us in, then change it. Lets hope they are always in.
I have regularly experienced the feeling of the whole toilet shaking while i am sitting on it. No it's never been an earthquake so far, it's just what happens every time a lorry drives past.
When we finally got around to having our sky tv installed a serious rainstorm stopped play for a while. The guys could not get on the roof during the torrential storm so they came back later. To our dismay, when they went back up to attach the sky dish it had been stolen!!! From the roof of a 5 storey building in the middle of serious, don't leave the house kind of rain.
Fiestas: If you are invited to a Mexican party, you really are invited, and all food and drinks are free.
At a lively party you can expect gimmicks to keep you entertained. The most popular ones are bringing out long balloons or some type of hat or mask. At a ball last year i found myself with several balloons tied round my head, 2 pompoms, a red cardboard mask, as well as one of those things in your mouth that you blow and they uncurl and make a noise, (what the hell are they called???).
Mexicans will celebrate anything. We recently stopped at a random little town where they were having their fourth annual festival of the mojarra. This was a string of makeshift restaurants under tarpaulin along a very windy road. Obviously the only food available was mojarra (i've now leant this fish is perch), but there were some great t-shirts on sale.
Getting things done: The same mechanic who was soldering the hole in my exhaust offered to replace the glass in my window. He clearly didn't really know what he was doing. I was watching them hack away at the door with a screwdriver trying desperately to take it apart and clearly not sparing a though for how the hell they were going to put it back together again. An hour and a half later they did get it back together (in case you were worried).