Today was a good example of how quickly strange adventures can crop up on an undertaking like this. The previous evening I was talking to some folks about the discovery that this creepy island of dead dolls was actually not far from Mexico City. I had always assumed it’d be near the coast. The excitement at this realization led to us setting out in the morning to try and find it. We called an Uber and drove an hour or so outside of town to this area of lakes and canals called Lago De Xochimilco. This doll island is somewhere in the canals, we weren’t really sure where. We ended up getting dropped off at a dock and looked into hiring a boat. We were informed it would take something like four hours to get there and back which we didn’t have time for. We took another Uber around the park to the north side to see if that would work better. We were told the same thing… which we were baffled by since our map seemed to indicate that the island was closer to this dock than the other. Then we were informed that for extra money we could hire a second guy to help push our boat along and that we could make it in half the time. With that we were on our way. These boats that are for hire are technically intended for people to have parties on the canal. So the three of us set out through the canals on a 20-some person party boat to find this creepy doll island. Which we eventually succeeded at. Apart from that it was a really nice ride through the canals on a nice day. We came back to the city and grabbed tacos for lunch. After that I was beat so I headed home and called it a day.

Since I have an opportunity to do my usual wandering around and getting my bearings last weekend I set out to do that this morning. I walked through Bosque de Chapultepec and up the road to Parque Lincoln before having lunch at P.f. Changs which apparently they have here and I had been missing. In the evening a bunch of us went out for wings at Wing’s Army and then over for beers at a beer garden called Jardín Chapultepec and an unfortunately late evening.

Over to Publico to work in the morning and then downtown to a friends place to power through every Back to the Future movie while doing some “digital nomading.” In the evening we had some birthday celebrations and ended up at a whole series of places including Wallace Whiskey Bar, Kitchen 6 where we got a solid hour of Mariachi music, Niuyorquina and King’s Pub. Sadly, while walking home late that night my phone died and with no directions I ended up getting lost. I had to initiate a grid by grid search of the whole city until I found my place and it turned what should have been a 20 minute walk into a two hour one which meant I didn’t get home until around 5am. Typical.

Breakfast at the Four Seasons which is right near my place here. It’s crazy how busy this place get’s in the morning but they have a great courtyard and terrace for breakfast. Then it was over to Publico to work for the rest of the day. In the evening some of us had dinner at a place called Lucas Local before heading over to Mama Rumba for some salsa lessons and dancing. It was incredibly crowded so I gave up on trying to fight the crowds and still being exhausted from going out every night called it an early one.

Started out the day, as usual, at Publico working. We had an event later that evening so to beat traffic I headed over to work at Cafebreria El Pendulo, a cool cafe/bookshop. After my motivation for work had waned but we still had some time before our event in the evening I tried to meet some folks for a drink at Scotch. While I was waiting for everyone I was struck by how friendly everyone at this bar was. Only to learn that I had crashed a Christmas party for a Mexican bank. But everyone was very friendly about it and offered to let me stay. However, crashing a party by yourself is one thing. Crashing it was a whole crowd is another so I decided to meet everyone at a different place, Limantour. After that we had a really good networking event Hotel Habita with some locals.

Headed over to Publico to work in the morning and then had lunch at Tacos Don Juan, a great place where tacos can be had for something like a buck a piece. In the evening we had a really interesting event where some local independent film makers talked about the film industry in Mexico.

Headed over to our new workspace Publico in the morning. Another nice spot, although not as nice as many of our others. For lunch some of us went to Contramar which is an excellent seafood restaurant not too far from the office nor my place. Afterwards we went to Chuchito Perez and sat on the terrace there and “digital nomaded” for the rest of the day. In the evening we had our official orientation and welcome event back on the roof at Publico which was very well done.

We rolled into Mexico City at 5am. Five hours after we departed Madrid but after a 12 hour plane ride. Passport control was a total mob scene even at 5am and was the last thing anyone wanted to endure after a 12 hour flight. Despite what it felt like things moved at an ok pace and I made it to my new apartment in about three hours from landing. Sadly my keys didn’t work but luckily my roommate had already arrived and she was able to let me in. Some of us went out for breakfast in the neighborhood at Crepes & Waffles. It was amazing after being on a plane for that long but I don’t think I’d go back.

I headed over to Pasion del Cielo, a coffee shop, to try and catch up with work and the world in general after our trip but wasn’t very productive so I opted instead to go for lunch to La Casa de Tono which was totally slammed and had great food. In the evening we had welcome drinks at this place Bellini which is (supposedly) the largest rotating restaurant in the world. As the sign outside was good enough to tell me… It was a cool view but as there were so many of us we were quite packed in! After this… 31 hour day I was beat and headed home.