Phase I. Ciudad de Mexico

My first thought after deplaning and entering the airport: Whoa, this place is so amazingly, dizzyingly busy (and, um, I kind of like it). The past 24 hours following that first impression have not proven otherwise. This is the most hectic place I’ve ever seen, heard, smelled, and dodged my way through. A population of 20+ million will do that, I guess. On our flight from Miami to Mexico, we sat next to an Argentinean who’s lived in Mexico City the past couple years. He gave us some very helpful advice about good day trips and the like. We told him that we were moving to Santiago de Chile after our time in Mexico. He told us that he thinks Santiago’s nice and all, but that it’s a little too small for him. I almost choked on my lukewarm, weak coffee, and in my head retorted, “Dude, what happens when Mexico City feels too small? You’ve got only Jakarta and Tokyo left!!” Imagine that; a city of more than six million, Santiago, feels a little too quaint.


Our hostel is cute, and the manager is a sweetheart. It’s very small (only four rooms) and no frills. We are staying for $30 USD per night, including breakfast. "Not spendy at all," the Minnesotan in me would say. However, it is quite amusing that our private room has two stiff TWIN beds. I guess we’ll make like Carol and Mike Brady for the next couple nights. In fact, I think the twin beds just give us more incentive to start apartment searching like tomorrow.


Today’s forecast was not “rainy.” “cloudy,” nor “sunny.” Oh, no. It was “SMOKY.” Um, okay. Pray tell, how do you dress for smoky? Last night, it rained like crazy while we walked home from dinner and, thus, left us stranded for some time under a shoddy, leaky business awning. The thunder was amazing, though. Because Mexico City’s surrounded by mountains and inundated with tall, concrete buildings, the thunder just reverberated off everything, to a thrilling degree.


In sum, so far, muy bueno.


Expect cool pictures of sights in the next entry!