Onward to Mexico City
When I moved to Mexico, I could have never imagined living in Mexico City. After living in California’s big cities for over 30 years, I had had enough of all the challenges of big city life…noise, congestion, traffic, pollution, etc. Then I discovered after I arrived that there are not a lot of jobs on the coasts, as beautiful as they are, and as much as I’d love to live there.
So, I started my journey living in Mexico in Guadalajara, after a two-week visit to my favorite beach on the coast of Oaxaca. I completed my teacher training program in Guadalajara and received a job offer in beautiful Querétaro. I had a nice apartment there in the centro histórico and quickly fell in love with its colonial charm and walkability. A few months later, I met someone online who lived in Metepec, Estado de México. About six months later, I left Querétaro to live there.
My partner was born in Mexico City and his extended family mostly lives there, so we visited frequently. The valley of Toluca is just over the mountains from Mexico City in the valley of Mexico. I worked in downtown Toluca for an English school headquartered in Mexico City and then switched to working online as the pandemic emerged. We moved to a nice house in a middle-class suburban neighborhood and stayed there for three and a half years, during which time we both mostly worked online. When we decided to get married, the judge came to perform the ceremony in our home in the presence of close friends. It was a good life, but there wasn’t a lot to do, so we frequently visited family in Mexico City.
The end of the pandemic brought a return to the office for my husband, and with that, the expenses of gas, tolls, and a lot of time spent in traffic on a congested mountain freeway overpass. So, when it came time to renew our lease, we decided it made better sense to move to Mexico City. We faced a big rent increase, but the increase only amounted to about half the monthly expense of the daily commute, so the math worked.
Mexico City, like New York City and other large cities around the world, is divided into administrative boroughs, alcaldías in Spanish, each with its own mayor and legislative council which provide localized services. Similar in legal status to Washington, DC, Mexico City was long known as the Distrito Federal (DF), but in 2016 its status was granted a level of autonomy comparable to that of a state, becoming the country’s 32nd federal entity. While New York is made up of five boroughs, Mexico City is made up of sixteen. We were looking on the west side of the city to be close to my husband’s job and family. After checking out the local rental market, we found a beautiful 3-bedroom, 2-bath apartment in the alcaldía of Cuajimalpa. It’s just a 20-minute walk to Santa Fe, and my husband’s commute has been reduced from 1.5 hours each way to 30 minutes.
Now that I live somewhere a little more interesting (sorry, Metepec!), I look forward to taking in all that Mexico City has to offer: its world-class parks and museums, cultural attractions, preHispanic, colonial and modern architecture, and rich historic sites. There is so much more to Mexico, after all, than its beaches. Cities like Mexico City, Guadalajara, Querétaro, Puebla, Oaxaca, or Nuevo León have their own stories to tell. I look forward to telling my stories about life in Mexico City and beyond…
