After bidding adieu to Dolores and Isaias on the morning of Saturday, September 23, we left Salamanca for Mexico City at around 10:00 AM. One unpleasant discovery we made while packing up our things that morning was that both of our seemingly-awesome waterproof Aqua Quest duffel bags were coming apart at the seams (which were simply held together with glue). The weather was looking gloomy and there was rain in the forecast so we were fortunate to have waterproof covers that fit over the bags.
We arrived in Mexico City in the early afternoon and, after some circling around, we found our apartment. Since we planned to stay in the city for six weeks, we decided to rent an apartment through Airbnb as that would be cheaper than a decent hotel. It worked out to be half the price of a matchbox in downtown Vancouver for twice the room. Also, the building is around three years old and built to withstand earthquakes so not a single crack was to be found anywhere on the structure. Can we say triple-win?
The next day, we went to the Forum Buenavista Mall because Phil’s iPhone battery is on its deathbed and the mall had a MacStore. He had chatted with Apple online beforehand and, after running some diagnostics, was told that the battery will need to be replaced. Since the phone was no longer under warranty, it would cost 1699 pesos (~116 CAD) to do it. Unfortunately, the store couldn’t do it then because it was a Sunday so we spent some time at the mall, bought a few groceries, and then headed back to the apartment to have a home-cooked dinner and watch some American Horror Story.
We ended up returning to the mall on Tuesday, and to our surprise, the MacStore told us they’d replace the battery for 3999 pesos (~273 CAD) or Phil could hand over his phone with 6499 pesos (~444 CAD) to get a refurbished phone with the same specifications as his old one. We decided to take a chance and visit a real Apple store in hopes that we wouldn’t have to harvest our own organs to sell on the black market for an iPhone battery. The closest one was about an hour away at the Via Santa Fe mall; however, the trip was worth it as they quoted the same price as the online agent.
Ice Rink in Via Santa Fe
After a delicious lunch at P.F. Chang’s, we watched American Made at the cinema, and then headed back to the Apple store to get an iRig Keys Pro keyboard for our favourite biker since he had been missing making music. The money saved from getting the iPhone’s battery replaced at the MacStore was put to good use 🙂
Deliciousness at P.F. Chang’s
Because ice cream is important, we walked around the mall looking for some when we stumbled upon a gourmet food and beverage store. There was no one behind the ice cream counter (boo hoo!) so we went to the wine section where we picked up some good Chilean wine for a surprisingly reasonable price.
If not Starbucks, it has to be gourmet wine
We eventually found a Ben & Jerry’s and decided to have ice cream there. I encountered an awkward situation while there that Starbucks’ unofficial ambassador insisted I put in the blog for all of you to read and chuckle (and maybe roll your eyes) at. I will preface this by saying that while my Spanish is improving, it is no where near the level where I can conduct anything beyond a very simple conversation.
Phil had taken our ice creams and picked a table for us while I was paying at the counter. The server said something and pointed to a poster that had a picture of a bowl with some pesos written across it. Before I could say anything, he pulled out a bowl like the one in the picture and held it out to me. I thought it was a very forward way of asking for a donation and started rummaging around in my coin purse for change.
He started saying “gratis, gratis,” which means “free, free” in Spanish. I was more confused than a vegetarian dog at that point. Phil came to my aid and clarified that the bowl was a gift with purchase when you spend a certain amount. The server was nice enough to not even so much as roll his eyes; however, a certain someone else had a good belly laugh at my expense. I can’t wait to go to India with that someone 😉
The bowl from Ben & Jerry’s that now holds our butter
The rest of our first week was uneventful as the weather was gloomy and threatening of rain. Most of our time was spent catching up on remote work and creating some semblance of a normal life for a little while. Also, Phil had some J-B welding glue that worked incredibly well in fixing our bags so no hunting for new duffel bags for now.
We attempted to film some footage of the city from the rooftop of our apartment’s building, but that attempt failed so we only have pictures for you at this point.
View of Mexico City from our apartment
View of Mexico City from our rooftop
Mexico City is enormous and there’s many things that we want to do and see while we’re here so we should have more fun and exciting posts in the coming weeks.
