Doin' Fun Things

Coming up on 2 months living here in Mexico City, and my weekends have been packed with trips and adventures all over Mexico.  A quick note about where I live.  I live in Mexico City but it's incredibly big, so the area I live in is referred to as the "el DF" (or the distrito federal, which mean the central downtown area).  So if I refer to "the DF" that is what I mean.

Check out the places I've visited...

Jalcomulco
My first trip in Mexico, and it was an incredible trip.  Jalcomulco is a small town near Veracruz, Mexico (which is on the east coast of Mexico, almost directly east of Mexico City).  I undertook this journey with a number of people I didn't know, but by the end of the trip we were great friends.  The purpose of this trip was to go rafting but we did much more than that.

Our adventure began Friday afternoon when we (my french friend, Marie Laure, and I) left directly from work to an Avis to rent a car.  We got a nice bright blue hatchback, though it may not have been the coolest

thing, it got great gas mileage.  We did get stuck in the Friday rush hour traffic leaving Mexico City, which is just terrible, and it was even worse because it was raining and that slows everything down even more.  But after getting out of the mountains surrounding Mexico City it was smooth driving the rest of the way.  We finally arrived around midnight, and I was pleasantly surprised to our living accommodations.  The pictures are a bit blurry (camera problems) but it was basically a tent with four beds raised on a wooden platform with a huge awning over it to protect the tent from rain.  But the tent did its job and protected us from mosquitoes and rain.

Our accommodation

The pool

Saturday was an early morning with the guides walking around the "campsite" with pots, pans, and drums telling everyone to get up.  After a great breakfast of a bunch of local Mexican breakfast foods, we got a gear and headed to the river.  The river was a nice muddy brown color but when you're in the rapids the color doesn't matter too much.

Breakfast

As some of you know, I have had many experiences with white water rafting, but I am embarrassed to say that I fell off in the first rapid.  But I will say that these rapids where HUGE and we got stuck in huge wave and everyone except the guide and one of my friends fell out.  Well the actual story is that we got stuck in the wave and I started to laugh as my buddy fell over the side, then all of sudden the next thing I know I'm being flipped backwards off the boat.  Luckily I got a grip on the rope on the side of the boat so I didn't lose the boat.  What can I say, karma is a bitc*.  The rest of the river was incredible and everyone had a great time.

After the fall.  I'm the only one in the front haha

The rest of Saturday was spent at the pool with some Dos Equis.  Dinner was awesome with more Mexican cuisines.  Think I'm getting used to the spicy food, even throwing on some spicy salsa onto just about everything I ate that night.

Dinner with spicy guac on everything!

We were able to escape from the pot and pan wake up call on Sunday, but we still had an early morning because our activity of the day was "canyoning".  Basically they put us up in the mountains and we had a follow a stream/river down the mountain.  We spent a lot of time in the water and climbing over the river rocks.  It was a long day of walking but time flew because there was always something new to look at or a new obstacle to get past.

After returning to the campsite we hung out by the pool for a while then packed up and evened out the check then headed back home.  A fairly uneventful trip home, but we didn't get back until midnight.  So Monday was a rough day.

Reppin 'Merica

A nice glass of tequila reposado

Ocotal & La Marquesa
Ocotal is the name locals use for a running trail in one of the forest preserves in the south side of Mexico City.  I was a bit out of shape and the high altitude made it difficult for me to run for a good distance but I was able to get in about 2 miles (sorry for the excuses haha).

This site is in Spanish but will give you an idea of what the trail looks like:
http://www.endondecorrer.com/Donde-correr-en-Mexico/Correr-en-el-Distrito-Federal-o-DF/el-ocotal

The prime time to go running is in the morning so we got there around 8.  And after about an hour we sat down by one of the juice stands that makes fresh juices.  I got "el verde" (means "the green") which was apples, pineapple, and I want to say parsley but not entirely sure.  Regardless it was delicious.

After Ocotal we headed further away form Mexico City to La Marquesa which is small town with a lot of tourist stores and outdoor activity centers.  We stopped for lunch, and like any good local I had a beer at 10:30 AM.  But the highlight of this trip was my lunch, grilled fresh trout. WOW it was so good.  I got the whole fish including the head and bones so I ended up using my fingers to get all the meat I could.  It was just too good to waste.

Xochimilco
This was an incredible day trip coordinated by a local student agency that sets up excursions/trip for incredibly cheap and OPEN BAR.  Well the open bar part I was a bit unsure about so initially expected this trip to be a two hour trip on "las trajineras" which can best be described by the picture below.  Normally these boats fit around 10-12 people on them, we had about 30.  The boats are piloted by a single man with a pole to push off the bottom of the river.  The only problem was that the boats were overloaded with people and the river is really shallow so there was a lot of moving around to help balance the weight of the boat.

It was an incredibly fun trip with a decent amount of tequila, which everyone drinks like water here.  And I made a bunch of friends from the many games of flip cup we played on the boat.

All the trajineras ready to go

Camping in Pichacua La Isla
This was another weekend excursion set up by the student agency, and wow was it a wild weekend.  My weekend began by arriving 10 minutes late to the meeting point where we were supposed to leave and finding no one there.  I was a bit confused because when has any trip in Mexico left right on time.  For some reason everyone had decided to meet at a different place so I was extremely happy that I didn't get left behind.  Turned out 10 minutes late wasn't a problem because the bus didn't come till an hour later.

The bus ride was an adventure in itself with beers, tequila, and loud music.  Basically a moving club.  We didn't arrive to our campsite until 1 AM, and after throwing our stuff into tents we headed to the beach party.  It was neon party that last late into the night/early into the morning.

The next morning was a bit rough after sleeping on the bare ground with my backpack as a pillow.  After a quick breakfast we headed to the beach to begin our day of beach volleyball, beach soccer, group games, and ice cold beers.  We did attempt to do some body surfing but the waves were huge and the currents incredible strong so it turned out to be much more of a workout than expected.

That night was another beach party and while being incredibly fun, I was able to see an incredible natural phenomena: a mother sea turtle laying eggs.  I arrived just as she was covering up the eggs, but turns out there were some locals there that collected the eggs and rode off on their horses.  So because the eggs were gone we helped the mother back into the ocean.

Sunday was another rough morning, but by 11 everyone was ready to leave and we were able to leave the campsite by early afternoon.  It was a great weekend with a lot of sun, beach, and beers.

Sorry for the lack of pics for this trip, my phone died before I got there Friday.


Also check out some of the food I've tried down here...

Milanesa (though not as good as my moms or grandmas)

Burrito (I guess this is what burritos look like in the DF)

Flautas con carne

First Month...Still Alive

Hello friends and family!  Don Felipe checking in from Mexico City.

I've now spent my first complete month in Mexico City, and let me tell you that it has been far from boring.  Though I do spend over 40 hours a week at the office I have been able to see and experience a lot of cool things.

I'll split up the rest of this post into sections about different aspects of my life here.  Most importantly....

Work
As many of you know I was lucky enough to get an incredible offer from Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies as part of their Pangeo Program.  This program entails recent graduates a 1-2 year job posting in a different country.  Having a spanish background I was lucky enough to be placed in Mexico City for a 2 year post.

The address of my office:

Avenida Gustavo Baz 2160

Tlalnepantla de Baz, State of Mexico, Mexico

We have a very nice office and I am lucky enough to be working with young people (in their 20s).  It's a great environment for me to pick up Spanish, but as few people speak english its Spanish all day everyday.  For the first two weeks, by the end of the day I was mentally drained and just wanted to watch some american tv.  The days are still long and having to focus 100% of the time to make sure I understand what's going on is still difficult but everyday gets a bit easier.

My work over the next year will be the standardization of a number of water treatment technologies for the western hemisphere.  Basically meaning that I have to work with the US, Canada, and Norway (because those guys know a lot) to create a way for these technologies to be used anywhere in North or South America.  A fairly large project but I've received a lot of help so far from a number of experienced people.

In "Mexican time", their favorite word is "ahorita" meaning "right now".  "ahora" means now, but when you through the "ita" at the end it means even sooner.  Well I've learned that once I ask for something and receive "ahorrita" I'm going to have to wait for a long time.

Probably the most interesting part of my day is taking the two buses to work.  I pick up my first bus across the street from my apartment, and it takes me to the bus station called Tacuba.  This place is similar to any 3rd world bus station, smells like urine and there's dog poop everywhere.  Attached to the bus station is a large market with stands for shoes, clothes, and pirated DVDs.  My first solo trip home from work was a bit crazy because the bus dropped me off in a place I didn't know and had to wander through this market.  Eventually asked a shoe vendor where to go and figured it out.

The bus system really is awesome here, except for the quality of the buses.  I'd say over half don't have a working speedometer or much less a working dashboard.  But there is a bus every 2-3 minutes and they get you to where you need to go very quickly.  Sometimes I do fear for my life.  And it only costs me 26 pesos a day to and from work, so a bit over $2.  Can't complain about that.

Here are some links that may be interesting:

http://www.veoliawater.com/about/locations/mexico.htm

http://www.pangeo.veolia.com/en/

Apartment

Or in Mexico, "departamento".  I'm still holding onto my Spain spanish and calling it "piso" but have already gotten a bunch of weird looks.

http://www.torreunion.com.mx/

Before anyone sends my anything, please let me know and I'll double check the address and how it should look for the Mexican postal service.

First things first, this apartment is AMAZING!!  Everything is brand new and was more or less set up when I got here.  Thanks to a french girl working in my office she suggested this apartment building as a safe, good place to live for me.  A number of the HR people bought me everything (TV, fridge, microwave, BED).  So apart from some minor things this place was ready to go.  It's taken me this past month to get everything set up and thanks to a visit from my Uncle Dave (and a large bag of american supplies) my apartment is all set.

So why Phill did it take a month for you to set up your apartment?

Well though I may have had everything there was one thing missing...internet.  Thanks to my french friend I was able to use their internet at night when I needed it.  Though only a elevator ride away, by the end of the first week I was feeling like I was intruding.  So it all gets back to "ahorita".

The first company we tried to set up internet made me wait all day Saturday, and they never came.  So we set up another installation time for Thursday.  Well I was lucky enough to miss work but they didn't come until 6 PM, so another wasted day.  And even better they said they couldn't set up internet in my apartment.  Well this is just great.  Needless to say I was a bit frustrated so after a lot of questions and talking to some people around the building we set up another meeting with a different company.  So another week without internet.

The next week and another missed day of work my internet was set up!!  Yet it was short lived, my cleaning lady somehow messed up the wiring and my internet was lost again.  So another Saturday waiting in my apartment for the service guy to come.  Finally at 5 pm everything was fixed, and I haven't touched anything in fear of somehow messing up this sensitive connection.

My apartment building is incredible.  It has 24 hour security, a rec room, a indoor pool, and a gym.  Check out the pictures of my apartment and some of the amenities.  Probably the only bad thing is that my apartment is right above a really busy street and there's honking all day and night.  Though a loud fan has been the simple fix.

Check out the pictures of my apartment and expect more posts soon.

 view from the top of the building, looking north

 sort of jogging track on the roof