{"id":33,"date":"2008-08-04T19:18:07","date_gmt":"2008-08-05T00:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/pov\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/2008\/08\/04\/drive-on-the-right-most-of-the-time\/"},"modified":"2008-08-04T19:18:07","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T00:18:07","slug":"drive-on-the-right-most-of-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/drive-on-the-right-most-of-the-time\/2008\/08\/04\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico City:  Drive on the right &#8230; most of the time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some\u00a0early and completely non-scientific observations from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aids2008.org\">XVII AIDS Conference<\/a>, taking place now in Mexico City:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Everyone said getting to and from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centrobanamex.com.mx\/english\/homeing.html\">Banamex Convention Center <\/a>would be difficult, and of course they were right.\u00a0 Mexico City is the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, has a road\/traffic system that makes driving in Boston seem downright peaceful by comparison (that is hard to do), and of course none of the hotels are anywhere near\u00a0the meeting.\u00a0 But it&#8217;s not as if we haven&#8217;t been through this before &#8212; namely, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aids2004.org\/\">here in Bangkok\u00a0<\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ias-2005.org\/\">here\u00a0in Rio<\/a>, to cite some recent examples.\u00a0 So no big deal.\u00a0 <strong>But<\/strong> &#8230; I did experience something traffic-wise that was truly bizarre:\u00a0 On the drive in from the airport, the cab driver took a right turn onto a street and drove on the left for around a tenth of a mile, while the oncoming traffic was on the right &#8212; and it was actually planned that way, pefectly legal.\u00a0 To repeat (if that wasn&#8217;t clear):\u00a0 we were driving British style.\u00a0 According to the cab driver, it&#8217;s because left turns off some roads have become so congested that they simply moved that\u00a0lane from\u00a0the right\u00a0to the left; after the busy\u00a0intersection passed, we moved back to the right.\u00a0 I kid\u00a0you not.<\/li>\n<li>What do Infectious Diseases specialists from the United States\u00a0eat and drink when they&#8217;re in Mexico City?\u00a0 If my completely haphazard survey is any guide, we&#8217;re all over the map (ahem) when it comes to food safety while traveling.\u00a0 One colleague said she couldn&#8217;t live without salad, and the idea of visiting Mexico without a margarita (<em>requires<\/em> ice)\u00a0was too depressing even to\u00a0consider; another said he was sticking by the rules, eating only thoroughly cooked foods and drinking bottled beverages from &#8220;reputable sources,&#8221; whatever that means.\u00a0 (Maybe <a href=\"http:\/\/www.corona.com\/\">this<\/a>.)\u00a0 One other said that the street food was one of the best\u00a0reasons to visit Mexico to begin with.\u00a0 So far my approach has been pure pragmatism and selfishness: if there&#8217;s a\u00a0tasty low <em>E coli<\/em> option available, great &#8212; but if\u00a0not, and something looks too delicious to pass up, I&#8217;ll take my chances.<\/li>\n<li>The weather in Mexico City is <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mexico_City#Geography\">wonderfully, delightfully cool in August<\/a>.\u00a0 For some reason, I expected a summertime furnace, but it&#8217;s much cooler here than in Boston due to the altitude.\u00a0 Was I the only one in the world who didn&#8217;t know that?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Back with more later, maybe with some &#8220;real&#8221; content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some\u00a0early and completely non-scientific observations from the XVII AIDS Conference, taking place now in Mexico City: Everyone said getting to and from the Banamex Convention Center would be difficult, and of course they were right.\u00a0 Mexico City is the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, has a road\/traffic system that makes driving in Boston seem [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care","category-hiv","category-infectious-diseases"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}