My ‘Hasta Entonces’ party was almost a slow motion train wreck. At 5:30pm it started to pour, which brought everything in CDMX to a standstill. It also caused a power outage at the bar, so we had no electricity for lights, music, or air conditioning. We gathered as many candles as we could find and set up a fully-charged laptop to play music. Then the electricity pole outside the bar caught on fire, dropping burning ash onto the sidewalk. When the fire department came to put out the fire, it provided entertainment to the handful of guests who braved the rain. Eventually the skies cleared, the electricity came back on, the bar filled with guests, and we found the bottom of a bottle of bacanora ;p. For the last act, an adorable ringtail appeared in a tree outside the bar and then darted across the street in front of a passing car. Thankfully it reached the far side unscathed. Let’s just say it’s a party I won’t soon forget! 

Below are reflections from the second chapter of my seasonal migration experiment. If you want more of the play by play, join my seasonal migration community on WhatsApp here, where I am sharing more frequent updates. You can also check out photos from my CDMX chapter here. Decided that I need to do the experiment for another year because I won’t know if it’s working unless I go back to each place :p.  

Reflections

Where to begin? I learned so much during this chapter. It was definitely a success overall, but there are a handful of things that seem obvious in hindsight that I didn’t anticipate. Acclimating to the altitude and germs took much longer than I expected. My lack of language skills prevented me from accessing certain experiences and building more local relationships. Three months wasn’t enough to really put down roots. 

One of the main goals of spending time in Mexico City was to connect more with family and friends from North America. I didn’t realise that goal would often be at odds with another goal of integration (e.g. re-learning Spanish, building local community, learning the city). In order to balance this out, I introduced visitors to local friends where possible and chose activities that helped me learn. This worked sometimes, but that tension remains.      

In hindsight it should have been obvious, but I just didn’t expect that the ratio of Americans to other foreigners in CDMX would be quite so high. I haven’t hung out with so many Americans in over 15 years. Gotta be honest, it was a little weird at first, but I think I got used to it :p.   

Another thing that surprised me is that while 30% of the people I met were directly connected to the coliving space, I didn’t meet as many people through them as I did in other contexts. It could be that my definition of “indirectly” is too narrow, but I think a couple of things contributed to this. First, I proactively tried to connect with people outside of that community to provide some balance through direct introductions and hobbies. Second, I think that we are more intentional about getting contact information in public situations than private ones – we just expect that we’ll see the person again at a future event if they are connected to people we already know. 

Interestingly, the number of people that I saw 3 or more times was very high in CDMX compared to HK. Since a large portion of my friend group grew out of the densely interconnected coliving community, I would see people at activities and events hosted by other members of that group. Usually my friends are much less interconnected these days, so it felt very novel.    

The Stats

Here is the data I’m currently collecting about each chapter of my experiment. Thanks to all of you who offered other ideas. I’m working on integrating some of them :].

• Days I spent in CDMX: 89 (50% more than HK)
• Days of family time in CDMX: 27 (not to mention the 15 days with my mom in Cabo, compared to 0 in HK)
• People I saw in CDMX: 8 (20% of HK, mostly visitors)
• People I met for the first time in CDMX: 103 (on average >1 per day, similar to HK)
• People I hung out with 3 or more times in CDMX: 50 (more than double HK)
• Kids I met in CDMX: 6 (all in one day from 2 families, compared to 10 in HK spread across 6 families)
• Direct, local intros I received: 10 (didn’t manage to connect with 3 of them, didn’t ask for any intros in HK)
• Visitors passing through CDMX that I was able to see: 9 (about the same as HK)
• Total number of people I connected with in CDMX: 120

Since this was my first time living in CDMX, I also tracked some other characteristics of the people I met.  

• People I met directly through Covive, my coliving space: 30%
• People I met indirectly through Covive: 10% (e.g. housemates’ partners, former housemates)
• People I met through other contexts: 60%
• Mexicans I met: 40%
• Americans I met: 20%

Here are my “Stop Start Continue Change” reflections for Mexico City:

Stop

• Eating food that makes me sick – sorry street food, you’re delicious but you have to go :/
• Moving to a different place each month

Start

• Kick off my next stint in Mexico with some sort of language immersion in either Mexico or Peru
• Sign up for latin dance lessons (Salsa or Bachata)

Continue

• Going to Wolf Terrace (or somewhere similar) for functional training and yoga 
• Eating healthy and cooking regularly
• Drinking mezcal ;]
• Practicing my Spanish language skills with a tutor
• Hosting a Wed Dinner Club series in CDMX for 4 weeks (if you want to read more about the Wed Dinner Club experiments, you can read about London here, Hong Kong here, and Mexico City here)

Change

• Lengthen my time in CDMX (5 months) relative to London and Hong Kong (3 months each) to put down more stable roots, at least for the next year 
• Consider moving into a more local neighborhood like Cuauhtémoc, Escandon, or San Miguel Chapultepec
• Hike more regularly (at least once a week)
• Take advantage of hotel pool day passes more regularly (I missed water!)
• Plan more regional travel (e.g. visit some pueblos magicos)

That’s a wrap! If you’re interested in the stats and reflections from my first chapter in Hong Kong, you can find them here. Look forward to sharing how my return to London goes after many months away. Hope you have summer plans that you are looking forward to!