How to Survive a 5 Hour Layover in Mexico City Airport

This post is in honor of my good friend and roommate (Roomie #1), who leaves tomorrow for a week-long adventure in Nicaragua (which she insists on calling Nicas Ricas because that is what the locals call it... or so she claims, personally I think it's annoying and I've started doing it too which really annoys me). She is about to embark upon an active vacation where she will kayak, mountain bike, sail, and hike a volcano. I can't wait to send her annoying emails about my trivial life in LA while she is giving out crayons to the children in Nicaraguan villages and dodging bullets at small bodegas, because isn't there like a civil war going on in Nicaragua or something?

Anyways, here is a little guide I've created to help her out during her five hour layover in Mexico City in the wee hours of the morning. Please note that she doesn't really need this guide and is perfectly capable of surviving this potentially dangerous but likely exciting visit to the airport en el capital. Also, she's really ethnic looking. Usually people assume she is Persian (she's Italian) and I think she'll easily pass for Mexican (please take that as a compliment).

1. Do not do anything that pegs you as American. This includes speaking loudly, carrying an iPod, or wearing anything that contains any of the following images: eagles, the American flag, George W. Bush, or the Canadian flag (because then you will instantly be tagged as American who is posing as a Canadian because no one cares about Canadians).
2. I can't really think of anything else right now.

Okay so that wasn't really very helpful to Ashleigh or to anyone, at all, but I guess if all else fails just say "Lo ciento" if someone threatening approaches. Oh and I recommend going to some sort of newsstand and buying lots of Mexican candy. I spent a summer in Mexico at a summer camp in a random village two hours north of Mexico City and every week we had "Tienda" which was some weird sort of candy store we got to get all sorts of goods from. The candy in Mexico is fantastic. I especially recommend these things called Kranky (if I remember correctly... maybe they were Krispy), which are like chocolate covered corn flakes and they are delicious.

Those are my wise words of the day. Adios.