Day 1

Today, I left Atlanta and flew to México City's Benito Juarez International Airport. As I walked along the jetway, I began to wonder why the airports in developing countries outside the States always seem to look so much nicer than Hartsfield-Jackson, LaGuardia, Dulles, whatever. México City International and Beijing International were both state-of-the-art fancy, with glass, stainless steel, and modernist, ergonomic architecture everywhere I looked. Rubén, my friend from la Ciudad, told me that the México City airport had recently renovated, like China's Beijing International. My theory is that since countries like China and Mexico were introduced later to flight, and thus built airports later, that they were therefore more modern, being brand-new at the time of their opening.

But I digress.

I got to the airport, gracias-ed my way through customs, and proceeded to wait for 20 minutes for my bag to come off of the extremely slow baggage claim. While I was waiting, I met a pair of Chinese businesspeople who told me about their company based in México City, that manufactured and exported textiles. The Chinese guy I talked to spoke Chinese, English, and Spanish, and had just come back from a client meeting in Atlanta to his base in México City. He told me that he had studied Spanish at university in China, and within 2 years had enough of a working knowledge of the language to get started in Latin America as an entrepreneur. It was really interesting-- and then my bag finally came.

While going through customs for the second time, I got an orange that I had forgotten to declare taken from me... :(. I met Rubén and his brother, Adrian, right outside of customs. Because of the luggage debacle i had kept them waiting for almost a half hour. When we left the airport parking deck, I was immediately reminded of Beijing. The bustle and confusion of the hundreds of cars trying to exit through the bottleneck under the burning sun struck me as a complete parallel to the way China was.

The first stop from the airport was Adrian's house. His mother-in-law has a salon in the front of her house and the house in the back... pretty cool. Afterwards we went to the business that Rubén's family owns, a car dealership in Texcoco, a district in the northeastern part of the city. I met his abuelo and his family, and then we went to his house.

Rubén's house is divided between 5 rooms on two floors, all off of a central courtyard, or patio. To go from room to room, you walk outside under the shades to the next room. Same for the toilet. And the well. Sometimes the house's water supply is cut off (for maintenance or whatever), so they get their water from a well in their courtyard. Pretty exotic. I ate some beef and homemade guacamole and then went to play soccer. I played street soccer with kids from the neighborhood until we were banished by a grouchy woman who complained about the ball hitting her door. Naturally, we threw the ball at her door again a few more times, and then took off down the street. Running for cover on dirt roads was a slumdog millionaire kind of experience. Crazy.

After we were done running, we continued for a little ways until we got to the soccer fields. The Ciudad has tons of soccer fields that are free and open to use, so we did. I discovered my body's intolerance for the high, mountainous altitudes of México City as i panted and wheezed up up and down the soccer field. As the sun set I could see the mountains rising around me. This city is surrounded by mountains, and at night they light up. Too cool.

I met Rubén's other brother, Axel, and his wife and kids. Tomorrow, Rubén and I will go to Texcoco, to his college, UAEM, for an English class, and then to explore the city. Looking forward to that too.