Mexico City - Day Three

Lazy day today for the most part, and few pictures taken. V's last conference day and tomorrow we fly to Palenque in Chiapas to begin our week on the road to ruins! Wasn't keen to pay Four Seasons prices to have laundry done, cheaper to throw everything away and buy a new wardrobe so scrubbed stuff in the sink and festooned the bathroom with bits hanging from every knob and projection. Should be in good shape for the next 4 or 5 days. V's group had their formal dinner this evening at a restaurant a kilometre or two from the hotel and once again reminded forcefully of the reality of 5 million cars on the road. Left the hotel about 19:30 in a minivan with a number of the group's members headed for the restaurant. Once again, cars backed up, piled up, stacked every where and once again it tokk about an hour and quarter to arrive at the restaurant.

Once we disembarked, got organized and found our table in the private dining room it was about 21:00. Our Mexican hosts wanted to demonstrate their firm's and country's business hipness so had arranged a panel discussion with a few of their clients to discuss social media and its impact on the business world. Before I say anything else, and in fairness, they were not native english speakers, nonetheless a long, dreary hour ensued; a painful elaboration of the obvious, at great length with not an original thought shared amongst them.

Ever hopeful, we cheered up as the discussion wound down and the expectation of dinner and wine revived everyone wonderfully. Hopes were dashed however when another client was introduced who I believe is the poster boy for the tyranny of Powerpoint who then spent the next 3/4 of an hour, slide after wordy, unreadable, complex slide, demonstrating that while it is extremely easy to trot out every cliche from every best-selling business book about adding value and empowering staff and valuing human potential etc ad nauseum, core character still shines through. Not a nice man and not a nice company to work for I would imagine.

Dinner was served to a much reduced audience at 23:00 and they ran out of wine. 'Nuff said.