Mexico City, Mexico (Week 1)

Hello Family and Friends,

We have started our abroad portion of the trip! We started in Mexico City, Mexico, the 6th largest city in the world (by population). To put in in perspective, Mexico City has 21.9 million people and New York City has 8.3 million people. So yea, it is big. We are staying in the Condesa neighborhood (what is known as a "colonia" in mexico.) It's an old neighborhood that has been taken over by hipsters and tourist. This essentially means there are lots of coffee shops and restaurants. I read in a book about Mexico City that I would get annoyed by how much English is spoken in this neighborhood, but that is not true at all. I would say that about 75% of the restaurants have menus in English and about 50% of our servers know enough English to get by. However, everywhere else you need Spanish. Brett and I are both finding communication more frustrating that we expected.

Another interesting thing about Condesa is that there are dogs everywhere. I don't mean stray dogs, I mean pets ("mascotas" in Spanish). It seems everyone has at least one dog if not two. We thought we were going to be those weird Americans traveling with their pet, but Bruce fits right in. We have also seen a surprising numbers of Schnauzers, which is Bruce's breed.

Other differences we have noticed in Mexico City in our first week is that nothing really moves quickly here. It is rare to see anyone rushing along the sidewalk. If someone is walking quickly, they're probably a tourist. Brett's slow stroll is right at home here. Also services are about half the price as the states. For example, Brett got a 90 min massage for $75 US dollars and I got a gel mani-pedi for $45 US dollars. Food is about a third of the price in the states with most sit down full service meals for the three of us costing about $50 US dollars. Also everything here is just a little later. For example, dinnertime starts at 8pm. We went to this one restaurant that was highly rated for a 7pm dinner. No one was there. We thought maybe because it was a weekday and this place was a little more expensive that this was a slow night. By 8:30pm the place was full. We had just gotten there early.

We are renting an AirBnB in "Edificio Basurto", which is a famous 14 story building that is featured in many soap operas that are filmed in Mexico (also known as "telenovelas"). It's way too much space, 4200 square feet, but we love it. It has 3 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms and 4 decks. Indoor/outdoor living is a reality in Mexico City. And not just in our penthouse (I like to say that word as it is not usually a part of my vocabulary.) Every restaurant we go to has seating that feels more like the outside flows indoors. I think we have only eaten indoors once since being in Mexico City.

One of our decks is being used by a mother pigeon who is nesting.

We don't use this deck so as not to disturb her eggs. We don't mind sharing one of our four decks.

The seamless transition from the 3rd floor movie room to the deck.

The view of the city from our 14th floor deck.

Now one of the negative things about our accommodations is that there is no AC. And I don't mean central AC, I mean AC at all: mini splint, window units, nothing. The weather is pretty temperate here with the temperatures not going above 75 degrees fahrenheit. The locals are wearing sweaters and long puffer jackets. One gentlemen we met on the streets who grew up in Mexico City and was back visiting with his family told us that this is cold to the locals. However, 75 is just tolerable to Brett during the day and he needs it no higher than 68 degrees fahrenheit to sleep. So the first night we slept with all doors and windows open with fans on high. However, the mosquitoes had a feast that night on Brett so we had to find a different solutions. We decided to invest in some window units which got the temperature in our room down to a sleepable degree for Brett.

Even though this is only our first week in Mexico City, and we haven't really explored much outside of Condesa, we're pretty sure we couldn't live here. There are some systemic things that we rather not deal with on a daily basis. For example, you can't drink the tap water. I admit that I'm a little bit of a water snob. In our Florida home we had a full house filter and I still didn't drink the tap. My parents use a filtered pitcher at their home and I don't even drink out of that. Even when it comes to bottle water I have a preference and refuse to drink certain brands of bottled water (cough, cough, Dasani). But in Mexico City even the locals don't drink the tap water. There are two main reasons. One, the pipes are so old that they carry lead and such. Two, the drinking water pipes and the waste water pipes travel very close together and because the pipes are old, and with frequent seismic activity they tend to burst and then waste water leaches into the drinking water. So it's just safer not to drink the tap water. Both Atlas and Brett have already had some digestive issues which we believe came from ice that was not filtered. We have even stopped carrying our water bottles around with us when we are out, because there is no place to fill them and we just end up buying water bottles anyway. We still brush our teeth with tap water, but I have some concern, especially since Mr. Atlas is still in that stage where he is more interested in eating the toothpaste that spitting it out. All this to say that living in a place where we have to be concerned about getting sick from tap water is just not ideal.

Also, the sidewalks here are absolutely atrocious (probably also from the earthquakes averaging once every other year).

Standard sidewalk condition in Mexico City.

Getting around with a stroller is a whole maze. Even ramps that are for the handicap aren't accessible.

A handicap ramp in front of a pharmacy that I had to pop a wheelie over with Atlas' stroller. Don't really know how someone in a wheelchair would get around this city.

And then the power lines. They are a nest of horror. Brett thinks they put them low on purpose so that permitted street vendor's can tap into them, but they look like a hazard.

A standard powerline grid in Mexico City.

Now, the city is full of trees, which is really nice. And we are staying right on the perimeter of a large park that includes a dog park and a children's park. Walking through the park on Sunday, we saw a large group of people dancing salsa, another group of people doing a choreographed dance and this really awesome street musician.

He was playing the guitar, the drums, two different types of harmonicas, wind chimes and singing.

Another pop up market that I ran into on Friday while taking Atlas to daycare. People were eating at pop up tables outside and venders were selling fresh fruits vegetables and meat.

When you are in a big city, there are random pop up events happening all the time. Brett and I feel like we are missing out on quite a lot because the language barrier makes it difficult to know these things are happening, but we are far from bored. We have been here a whole week and have barely explored 6 blocks past our penthouse. There is just so much right here. We shop at the Walmart, yes I am ashamed that I am in another country shopping at Walmart. But with the language difference, it is just easier. We have more restaurants and cafes than we could ever possibly visit. Pretty much everything we need is walking distance from Atlas daycare to church on Sunday.

We have taken the public bus and it was way too crowded. It was a Sunday afternoon, but I don't think it matters what time, it's always crowded. Everytime the bus pases by me on the street, I look to see if it is crowded and it is. I almost got knocked over by the door opening while riding on the bus. And when that door opens there is a mad dash for the opening, because it will close on you. Those doors are strong and will push people right out of the way. We also rode the metro, which was less crowded on the women and children only car. Yes, they have three cars dedicated to women and children only. There was a sign that indicated that these cars were designed to reduce sexual violence against women on the metro. Not a positive sign that your society is designed where women feel the need to ride in a separate car in order to feel safe on public transportations. I think I only saw one elevator at the 8 metro stops we went to. Most had an escalator, only for the longest out of maybe 3 to 5 staircases needed to access the train. Obviously this is more than a little difficult to navigate with the stroller.

So I have gone through this whole blog and haven't touched on food. We may be in Mexico, but that doesn't mean we are surviving on a diet of rice and beans. Because we are in the 6th largest city in the world, there are all types of cuisine. In fact, most of the restaurants don't serve traditional mexican fare as they believe why would you go out to eat what you can eat at home. We have not yet tried any of the sidewalk vendors as you are more likely to find yourself running to the bathroom so haven't been willing to take the risk yet. But the sidewalk vendors look as if they sell more traditional mexican fare. Ordering food is probably the most stressful daily activity. I'm the kind of person who gets hangry. Then add deciding what type of food I want, where I want it, interpreting the menu and then actually deciding what I want to eat, just not a fun experience. I admit there has been more than once where I opt to feed the family sandwiches at home so I don't have to make all those decisions on a famished stomach. But of all the places we have eaten out, only one place has been amazing. It's probably because we got the chef's five course tasting menu. At other places, it's probably my fault it has just been ok, as most of the time I don't really know what I'm ordering. I even use google translate, but even it seems to have a difficult time with many of the terms. Sometimes I can't even get water right. Once, I was pretty sure I ordered natural water from a bottle and got sparkling water.

Atlas is still on his diet of burger and fries. Though I'm pretty sure this was some kind of veggie burger and not a beef burger. Atlas was not fooled, but he did like his fries in a cart.

This first week has been figuring out the basics like we found a place for Bruce to get a bath, Atlas to go to daycare, Brett to get a massage, me to get a manicure, a gym, a grocery store and a church. But figuring out the basics, especially with the language difference has kept us very busy. Also Mexico City is at an altitude of 7, 350 ft which also took a little getting used to. Our first dinner in Mexico, Brett and I had just one drink and we both felt like we were going to fall asleep right there in our food. Now that we are a little more adjusted, we can start exploring further away from our colonia.