We’ve really started doing a lot of walking around here – to the Metro (subway) just around the block, the MetroBus (a few blocks away) as we start to get our bearings.

But walking here isn’t like walking around Ventura!

After a while, I think watching where you’re walking becomes kind of a sub-conscious thing because although I’m aware of dangers (gaping holes where a manhole cover used to be) and lots of things to trip me up, it’s become kind of a second nature to just know where my feet will be on my next step!

Read the rest of this article »

We’ve been here several days now and a highlight of each new day has been meeting an eclectic mix of interesting people! Like who for example?  Check out these 3 good looking guys we met on Wednesday morning (I think it was).

When you’re grabbing that first cup of coffee from the coffee table, filling your cereal bowl boarding house style, grabbing a spoon and fork from the container in the middle of the table, exchanging morning pleasantries, etc, you’ll see a mix of people probably from around the world.  What stories – experiences – there are to be told!

While sitting next to Levi munching my cereal I casually asked where he was from.  The short answer is that he and his 2 amigos graduated from Goshen College in Indiana but the long answer is that the 3 of them have ridden their bicycles all the way up from Paraguay (or was it Uruguay?) – regardless, a super long and highly adventurous journey.  Amazing!  Ultimately, they’ll be riding until they get back to Indiana.  Because of dangerous narco activity in northern Mexico, they’ll fly from Mexico City to Texas then pick up the ride from there.

Never a dull moment around the breakfast table!

The Casa opened at 8 and we found out they also served breakfast starting at 8, so we just dropped off our luggage across the street at the Hotel Texas in our room (as Realtors would say – “cozy”, “intimate” – never “small”) and then walked back across the street to the Casa.

The Casa originally was a large home and the dining room has a table that maybe seats a dozen or more at a time. Multiple groups and individuals come and go, so every morning is an eclectic group of travelers from around the globe.  This Monday morning saw a Mennonite group from Saskatchewan learning about migration issues in Mexico (a future post) at 10, so we asked if we could join in and lesson.  After being up all night it was hard staying completely awake through the PowerPoint, but the topic was fascinating.

At lunch time, we walked back across the street – and crashed!

We knew the guest house was going to be full when we arrived around 7:15 that morning, but Nico (manager) in a prior email had graciously said we could leave our stuff there that morning while we looked around for a temporary hotel.  Well, the guest house door was locked – with us and all our luggage dumped on the sidewalk.  Now what?  Just then a woman came out, saw us gringos and said the place didn’t open until 8.  Hmm….  Nico had said we could probably get a room at the hotel across the narrow street so I walked across while Leslie stayed behind to watch our stuff.

The Hotel Texas reception desk had a bulletin board with their posted rates.  Again, from internet searching I had an idea of what locals would pay for a room and the bulletin board was certainly above what I expected.  But again, Leslie was across the street, we hadn’t slept and I really did need a room.  My negotiating hand wasn’t that strong that morning so we got a room overlooking the street and across to the guest house.

We paid the “rack rate”!

They don’t call those midnight flights “red-eyes” for nothing!  After our daughter’s wedding on Saturday, we flew out of SFO at midnight Sunday night and landed in Mexico City.

1. Customs and Immigration.  During the flight we were handed two documents to fill out – immigration and customs.  I filled them out sometime in the wee hours of the morning.  When we landed we observed most of the passengers going into a long queue – and we almost joined them – until we saw a sign saying “Foreigners” – and almost no one in line.  After a perfunctory inspection of my passport, the control officer stamped the bottom of my FMM form, wrote 180 days, then stamped it. I need to keep this as ID and show it when I leave Mexico – else you pay $$.  So – I’m now good for 180 days in our southern neighbor!

2.  Money changing.  I knew we’d need initial taxi money so I went to the airport money changer window.  I knew the rough rate was 13 to 1, but got about 11 to 1.  Oh well – it’s the price of doing business as it were.

3. My first decision.  We brought enough stuff to live in Mexico for a couple of years – we didn’t pack like this was a 10 day vacation. Because we had several large suitcases I first got a courtesy cart ($5 in SFO) loaded up our stuff and tried to figure out the taxi business.  Prior internet searches said to use one of the companies in the airport because they weren’t “bandits” and the prices were fixed based on the zone of the city you were going to.  So I arbitrarily walked up to one taxi company (several there) and showed a printed address of the guest house where we’d made arrangements.  Then came my first faux pas…

4. My first faux pas.  I started to wheel out our luggage cart when a man came running, gesturing the cart couldn’t go outside to the taxi. Now what?  How was I going to shuttle all those 50 pound suitcases outside after I hadn’t had any sleep, had bloodshot eyes and felt intimidated (vulnerable?) not knowing Spanish? After lots of gesturing I learned there was an inside cart and an outside cart – and the outside cart came with a porter who looked at my paperwork to see which taxi company we’d paid for.  He got us into a line and again I felt vulnerable because I didn’t know how much to tip.  Am I a cheap American or a rich gringo?  Anyway, I tipped him without knowing where I fit in the “bell curve” of tips.

5. Too much luggage to fit into the taxi.  After waiting for maybe 15 minutes a man approached us with an air of authority, asked to see our taxi paperwork, looked at our luggage and got the message across that if all the luggage couldn’t fit in the trunk we’d have to pay more for a van.  What to do?  I paid more for our own personal van! I showed the driver our address and off we went as the sun was rising on our new city.