Made it to Mexico!

Laura and I are having a blast at our first day of work today, after a tiring whirlwind of re-routed flights, lost luggage, and unauthentic tacos that made our arrival in Mexico yesterday quite eventful. After we finally landed in D.F. last night, we were greeted by the beautiful smiling face of Brenda Obando, one of Laura’s best friends about whom I’ve heard so much and whom it was so awesome to finally meet. 

Her family met us at the airport and escorted us to our apartment in Polanco, a gorgeous new residential complex nestled amidst several swanky malls and a welcoming supermarket. After meeting Adriana, the owner of our apartment, Superama was the first place we went, filling our new fridge with yogurt and mango juice and lots of guacamole.

Then, Adriana gave us a tour of the stunning facilities of our building -- gym, pool, hot tub, bike path -- before we took hot showers and settled in for the night.

We woke this morning at the crack of 6:30, did shots of espresso, and hopped in a cab to meet Isabel, our colleague with whom we’ll be commuting during our time in Mexico. She guided us to Centro Mario Molina, the non-profit think tank where Laura and I will be working on projects related to urban sustainability (my favorite thing in the world) for the next few weeks. 

Isabel introduced us to Ari and Ricardo, who are to be Laura’s and my respective supervisors at CMM, where Laura the engineer is working on the development of a Sustainability Index to be used for housing projects across the country while I am helping to review a Life Cycle Assessment of various commercial buildings in the city. Ricardo then introduced me to Angel, with whom I’ll be working closely on the project, and I dove right into the 151-page Spanish document I’ll be giving all my attention this month. The report is unique in that it looks at the emissions related to the entire "lifespan" of a building, from extraction and transport of materials to its actual construction and use, to demolition.

Well, almost all my attention. Too much intake of caffeine and not enough intake of food soon led to two distracted and hungry interns, who appealed to Ari to show us around the cafes in our beautiful office complex. Oh, by the way, this is the view from our office kitchen.

We strolled around this part of town for awhile before settling for a cafe just beneath our office, where Laura and I ordered some tortas to go before returning to work. I then set out to call the airport and implore them for my suitcase, which hopefully will be arriving soon (wearing yoga pants and sneakers to my first day of work was a tad bit embarrassing -- good thing it's a Friday).

Laura and I are looking forward to celebrating Ari's recent Fulbright scholarship over a second lunch outing, finishing up our day at work, and then going over to Brenda's place for the evening before a weekend packed with Mexico City sightseeing!