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So, I'd been in Vancouver for 6 months, Canada for nearly a year. Vancouver was getting ridiculously expensive. I could have hopped over to Montreal for another 1.5 months, which in one sense would have been prudent -- summer in the north, yes? But I ended up going to Mexico City: cheap, not too hot (altitude), practice my Spanish, still American time zones for work. Drawbacks: air pollution, can't trust the tap water.
I had identified the 'nice' neighborhoods to live in, but I'd also procrastinated, and given new country/language stress, I ended up getting a 'hotel room' on booking.com, with a 9.9 rating and an airport shuttle, Safe, eh?
Well, I was told to take Uber, not a shuttle. In retrospect, I don't think there was a shuttle. I wasn't sure Uber could tell where I was or what level I was on, so I took a pre-paid registered taxi, which worked. I noticed I was going pretty far. In fact this "hotel" is in the south part of Coyoacan, itself to the south of the center, and I was a 40 minute walk beyond train stations. Whooops.
I arrived, and discovered that the air conditioning in the listing did not exist either. My host said it was a mistake that kept happening. Hrm. Also, the building was a classing condo building, so rather than a real hotel, it felt more like someone owned 1 or more apartments and was renting them out -- and in fact I found an Airbnb listing on her Whatsapp profile. Reminded me of my 7 week stay in Montreal.
The apartment itself was pretty nice; missing some kitchen things, but she brought a colander and an electric pump for the multi-liter bottles of water you use here. 2BR. I ended up sleeping in the small middle room, figuring it would be more isolated from adjacent sounds, only later realizing there was only a staircase beyond the big bedroom.
As for the neighborhood... going for a walk did not bring me joy. Narrow sidewalks (1 meter wide), very uneven, right next to traffic (no curbside parking), no pedestrian lights... my longest walk was to a park north and east of me. I've been told Copenhagen went all in on bikes because they couldn't afford car infrastructure mid-century; I wonder why this doesn't apply to actual poor cities.
The nice thing, especially in retrospect, was a supermarket (or hypermarket, Soriana Hiper) right across from me. And a large park-island in the road so you could cross, only needing a break in one direction of traffic.
12 days there, then I moved to my current place, in the Historic Center of Mexico. Where apparently people live on clothes, because almost all the many stores are clothing stores, or jewelry, or even bookstores, but not grocery stores.
You might not believe me. You might go to Google Maps and see many "grocery stores". But then you might look at the photos (1) or reviews (none) for most of them, with no evidence that they sell food. And in person... I can say they mostly sell clothes. Or don't exist. "Supermarkets" are no better. There's a "Super Sol" supermarket, with a 5.0 rating even, east of me, that does not seem to be there, even after asking a guard. There is a Plaza de Sol, full of shops selling... clothes.
There are a few convenience stores, but they suck. Best is Oxxo, where I found some whole wheat bread that wasn't 10% sugar, and some eggs (aged eggs, I'm hard boiling them and they're all standing up.) There's also a indoor market close to me, which my host suggested, and I had already checked out; there were some produce stands, and reviews mention meat but not fish stands, but it seemed to mostly be cooked food.
I know it's a touristy area but doesn't anyone live here? Hell, I'm in another apartment building again, do none of them cook? Not sure my current host does, it's another one of those Airbnb Potemkin kitchens, apparently stocked by someone who has a vague idea of what goes in kitchens.
Seems my best bet would be to have Walmart delivery groceries, though I'm holding off on big spending in case I want to just run away.
It does seem to be relatively quiet now, at 6:30 pm; lots of restaurants close at 6:30, and I'm not sure I want to be out after dark.
It is nicer to walk here, or at worst different annoying. Some narrow and crowded sidewalks, but not as narrow, and they're flat. Some wider ones too. Pedestrian signals, even.
I did find some anemic fruit/veg shops some blocks south of me, plus one that didn't seem to exist; south of that, multiple nut or candy shops. So some food. Still not supermarket, or even a small equivalent of one. I haven't walked every block but I did a lot, and checked many of the places Google suggested. Similar wanderings in a US/Canada Chinatown would stumble over many grocery stores.
Kind of torn between booking for properly nice part of town and just running back to Montreal until the winter. With covid surging I don't want more six hour flights, even if I got through the last one. (Premier class on AeroMexico cost what I'd expected to pay for economy, given oil prices, or about as much as Air Canada economy class from Vancouver to Montreal, so I splurged.)
Hmm, no longer quiet, someone's music playing. Well, it is just 6:30 pm.
Oh god, I was just hard boiling the eggs, and realized that if I'm paranoid about the water, I can't rinse them off in cold water from the tap. Argh.
Okay, that's a lot of negativity. Let me try to go off on a positive note. Cost, sure. The first place was expensive, but even a 15 day in this place is like half the per-diem of month stays in Vancouver. Food is cheap (at least when I can find it.) There was a restaurant near the first stay that I used a couple times, for tacos (dine in, one wall was open) or volcan (take out), and they were tasty. (If different: the tacos came as a plate of cut up rib meat, a bunch of hot tortillas, and jars of toppings, for me to make my own tacos.) I *am* in the historic center now, so getting some architecture, and also some Tenochtitlan ruins that I just stumbled past as I ran around looking for groceries. The park I mentioned earlier was unusual design to me, though maybe vaguely reminiscent of Madrid parks, not sure.
[Edit: at least I'm in this place for just 15 days, not my usual whole month.
Positivity: 8 minute walk from a subway station. I haven't been that close since... Montreal, really; Toronto was 10 minutes; Vancouver went from 13 minutes to HA HA HA.]
[Edit 2: there seem to be no bathtubs in Mexico City.]
[Edit 3: the new places *also* said air conditioning in the list, yet lacks. The host claims a confusing interface; there is a floor fan. I am dubious. I also note the kitchen lacks a can opener, ceramic microwave safe bowls, sharp table knives, food containers...]
[Edit 4: another central host confirms no big markets downtown. This in contrast to Santiago, where there was one in the ground story of my apartment building...]
[Edit 5: okay, there's what might be a minimalist can opener. And one big storage container. Still no colander. Current host said "we have a very efficient silent tower ventilator", it is not remotely silent, though that's maybe just as well, white noise for the win.]
I had identified the 'nice' neighborhoods to live in, but I'd also procrastinated, and given new country/language stress, I ended up getting a 'hotel room' on booking.com, with a 9.9 rating and an airport shuttle, Safe, eh?
Well, I was told to take Uber, not a shuttle. In retrospect, I don't think there was a shuttle. I wasn't sure Uber could tell where I was or what level I was on, so I took a pre-paid registered taxi, which worked. I noticed I was going pretty far. In fact this "hotel" is in the south part of Coyoacan, itself to the south of the center, and I was a 40 minute walk beyond train stations. Whooops.
I arrived, and discovered that the air conditioning in the listing did not exist either. My host said it was a mistake that kept happening. Hrm. Also, the building was a classing condo building, so rather than a real hotel, it felt more like someone owned 1 or more apartments and was renting them out -- and in fact I found an Airbnb listing on her Whatsapp profile. Reminded me of my 7 week stay in Montreal.
The apartment itself was pretty nice; missing some kitchen things, but she brought a colander and an electric pump for the multi-liter bottles of water you use here. 2BR. I ended up sleeping in the small middle room, figuring it would be more isolated from adjacent sounds, only later realizing there was only a staircase beyond the big bedroom.
As for the neighborhood... going for a walk did not bring me joy. Narrow sidewalks (1 meter wide), very uneven, right next to traffic (no curbside parking), no pedestrian lights... my longest walk was to a park north and east of me. I've been told Copenhagen went all in on bikes because they couldn't afford car infrastructure mid-century; I wonder why this doesn't apply to actual poor cities.
The nice thing, especially in retrospect, was a supermarket (or hypermarket, Soriana Hiper) right across from me. And a large park-island in the road so you could cross, only needing a break in one direction of traffic.
12 days there, then I moved to my current place, in the Historic Center of Mexico. Where apparently people live on clothes, because almost all the many stores are clothing stores, or jewelry, or even bookstores, but not grocery stores.
You might not believe me. You might go to Google Maps and see many "grocery stores". But then you might look at the photos (1) or reviews (none) for most of them, with no evidence that they sell food. And in person... I can say they mostly sell clothes. Or don't exist. "Supermarkets" are no better. There's a "Super Sol" supermarket, with a 5.0 rating even, east of me, that does not seem to be there, even after asking a guard. There is a Plaza de Sol, full of shops selling... clothes.
There are a few convenience stores, but they suck. Best is Oxxo, where I found some whole wheat bread that wasn't 10% sugar, and some eggs (aged eggs, I'm hard boiling them and they're all standing up.) There's also a indoor market close to me, which my host suggested, and I had already checked out; there were some produce stands, and reviews mention meat but not fish stands, but it seemed to mostly be cooked food.
I know it's a touristy area but doesn't anyone live here? Hell, I'm in another apartment building again, do none of them cook? Not sure my current host does, it's another one of those Airbnb Potemkin kitchens, apparently stocked by someone who has a vague idea of what goes in kitchens.
Seems my best bet would be to have Walmart delivery groceries, though I'm holding off on big spending in case I want to just run away.
It does seem to be relatively quiet now, at 6:30 pm; lots of restaurants close at 6:30, and I'm not sure I want to be out after dark.
It is nicer to walk here, or at worst different annoying. Some narrow and crowded sidewalks, but not as narrow, and they're flat. Some wider ones too. Pedestrian signals, even.
I did find some anemic fruit/veg shops some blocks south of me, plus one that didn't seem to exist; south of that, multiple nut or candy shops. So some food. Still not supermarket, or even a small equivalent of one. I haven't walked every block but I did a lot, and checked many of the places Google suggested. Similar wanderings in a US/Canada Chinatown would stumble over many grocery stores.
Kind of torn between booking for properly nice part of town and just running back to Montreal until the winter. With covid surging I don't want more six hour flights, even if I got through the last one. (Premier class on AeroMexico cost what I'd expected to pay for economy, given oil prices, or about as much as Air Canada economy class from Vancouver to Montreal, so I splurged.)
Hmm, no longer quiet, someone's music playing. Well, it is just 6:30 pm.
Oh god, I was just hard boiling the eggs, and realized that if I'm paranoid about the water, I can't rinse them off in cold water from the tap. Argh.
Okay, that's a lot of negativity. Let me try to go off on a positive note. Cost, sure. The first place was expensive, but even a 15 day in this place is like half the per-diem of month stays in Vancouver. Food is cheap (at least when I can find it.) There was a restaurant near the first stay that I used a couple times, for tacos (dine in, one wall was open) or volcan (take out), and they were tasty. (If different: the tacos came as a plate of cut up rib meat, a bunch of hot tortillas, and jars of toppings, for me to make my own tacos.) I *am* in the historic center now, so getting some architecture, and also some Tenochtitlan ruins that I just stumbled past as I ran around looking for groceries. The park I mentioned earlier was unusual design to me, though maybe vaguely reminiscent of Madrid parks, not sure.
[Edit: at least I'm in this place for just 15 days, not my usual whole month.
Positivity: 8 minute walk from a subway station. I haven't been that close since... Montreal, really; Toronto was 10 minutes; Vancouver went from 13 minutes to HA HA HA.]
[Edit 2: there seem to be no bathtubs in Mexico City.]
[Edit 3: the new places *also* said air conditioning in the list, yet lacks. The host claims a confusing interface; there is a floor fan. I am dubious. I also note the kitchen lacks a can opener, ceramic microwave safe bowls, sharp table knives, food containers...]
[Edit 4: another central host confirms no big markets downtown. This in contrast to Santiago, where there was one in the ground story of my apartment building...]
[Edit 5: okay, there's what might be a minimalist can opener. And one big storage container. Still no colander. Current host said "we have a very efficient silent tower ventilator", it is not remotely silent, though that's maybe just as well, white noise for the win.]
no subject
Date: 2022-07-05 00:33 (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2022-07-05 00:49 (UTC)From:A prospective host said "take a taxi to Wal-mart".
(Note I've been adding a bunch of edits to the post.)
no subject
Date: 2022-07-05 07:00 (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2022-07-05 07:38 (UTC)From:In the Philippines I also don't see bathtubs and we don't trust the tapwater.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-05 20:11 (UTC)From: