Mexico City

I just had the chance to be in Mexico City for the first time. It was quite the experience. You can see the city for miles and miles while flying over it. It's pretty impressive. The airport had some interesting features. They had basically everything in English and Spanish, as well as quite a few messages in other languages (welcome signs in Japanese, etc.). When I just got outside of the airport, it smelled pretty weird. Some of the people I was there with said it kind of smells like dirt. The rest of the city I got to see seemed much better!

When we got to the hotel, a guy was standing outside and offered to take our bags, which were very few. One of our group members told him we were fine. The entryway of the hotel had one wall that had strings of beads covering it completely. It was pretty cool. The key we received was a card and is also used to turn on the electricity in the apartment. It took us a bit to figure it out, especially when the power kept going out after a minute or so. We learned that you have to leave the card in the slot to keep everything on.

I overslept a little bit the next morning. I set two alarms at good wake-up times, but kept hitting snooze. I quickly went down to the hotel restaurant where we had breakfast. I had yogurt with raisins, juice, and a plate with scrambled eggs, ham and re-fried beans with a bit of white cheese sprinkled on it. We then grouped up and walked over to where we had our localization meetings. It was a long but nice walk. The weather was really good during the trip, except for most of Saturday evening.

The building for the conference was a bit run down, but we made due. We had planned to use another one, but ended up having reservation issues. So at the conference, we spent most of the day chatting about various translation and localization topics, hearing presentations and doing some work online. Unfortunately, the internet wasn't too good at the building.

Mexican Food

The food that Americans typically think of when they hear Mexican food is popular, but most of what I had there was a bit different. There's also a good mix of American food too. The pancakes I had were amazing, I'd say some of the best that I have had (not to offend anyone else's pancakes that I've tried). Also, on the first day, our group got a ton of varieties of little pizzas- none of which were pepperoni (although some people I met from Mexico said they like pepperoni pizza). A couple types that I recall are hamburger, barbecue, french fry, buffalo and I think nachos; there were a few more I can't remember.

For breakfast, it was popular to have re-fried beans and french fries. That was surprising to me. They also had fruit and different sorts of rolls or breads.

I had a sandwich with salchichas (hotdogs) inside with a somewhat spicy sauce, jalapeños and some other things. I also got to try a tortilla with Cactus and cheese on it. It tastes and looks pretty similar to a pickle.

I have to say that my experience with the customer service in Mexico was great. The restaurants had everything prepared in great timing and were attentive to our needs. That was something that stuck out to me.

One evening, one of the Mexicans sitting next to me had "seso" which he said is cow brains... I decided to take a picture of it, but it doesn't look too appetizing...

Travel in the City

Traveling around Mexico City can get interesting. A lot of the intersections are complicated, where cars come and go from various directions, and stoplights can be hard to see. Many people cross the street wherever they want and come close to cars. Some people even come up to cars on red lights to sell things. The traffic was crazy, but there were no wrecks when I was there.

The city has a ton of taxis. The taxis have certain zones in the city that they give service to, and the taxis in each district have different colors. I never rode in any when I was there. I was going to take a bus with a few others from our group, but decided not to because they are so crowded. The bus stop we were at also signaled that the sides of the buses are to supposed to be segregated into men and women, but there ended up still being a mix of people inside.

I thought my experience walking around the city was peculiar. A lot of the sidewalks were uneven and very dangerous to walk on. You always got to be aware of where you're walking, or you may end up tripping on something like this:

Overall it was a pretty good experience! I enjoyed the food, the people and the city. I can always share more if you have any questions!

¡Hasta la vista!