so far, so good

I arrived in Mexico City late yesterday after a painful day of travelling... up at 3am, at SeaTac by 4am, into LAX at 8:30am and onto Mexico City at 1pm, for a 6:30pm arrival. And of course there would be two exits from customs for North American flights. How else could my supervisor and I end up at two different seemingly agreed upon meeting spots? Eventually (an hour later) we found each other... she is exactly as I was expecting. Young, friendly, very encouraging, and a Midwesterner to boot! She took me for a quick grocery store stop, and then onto the place where I will be staying.

Ah, the place where I will be staying. Imagine two older sisters who could easily star in the Mexican version of Golden Girls. But not Blanche... more Sophia and Rose. Probably not tough or imposing enough to be Dorothy. It is actually a great set up, but I am still not convinced that the fact that we don't lock the door to the house that I am staying in (a guest house, separate from where the sisters live) is such a great idea. The sister who runs the show (I have, embarassingly, forgotten her name for the second time in less than 24 hours) has assured me many times over that it's fine, and the front gate to the whole shebang is always locked. As far as I can gather they are both always home, so I suppose it will be OK.

The first day at work was really interesting. Perhaps the highlight of the whole situation is that they forego the traditional 2 hour lunch, and instead work from 9-3 without a lunch break. As probably won't surprise most of you, when I heard this I told Jennifer (my supervisor) that I didn't understand how people could possibly go *6 HOURS* without eating. She claimed she just "got used to it" but I had my doubts. Alas, my tummy and I made it through Day 1 on the new schedule. A three course meal consumed promptly at 3pm helped. Besides food, work today was a lot of confusing introductions (GIRE has a staff of about 20, most of whom have names and job titles that are far too similar) and a seminar for all of the women employees... an interesting approach, but the 4 dudes on staff didn't seem too phased by being excluded. It was led by the President of the Board, Marta Lamas, who has been described to me as the Mexican equivalent to Gloria Steinham. So, even though I understood about 40-50% of what she covered in 3.5 hours, it was still an honor just to be in her presence for that length of time.

I am holding my own with the Spanish, though I am facing the fact that I will have to just bite the bullet and realize that I am going to make a lot of mistakes for a long, long time. And everyone at the office is really friendly and very patient at my limited attempts to spit something comprehensible out at them. I am also (thus far) holding my own with the chicken quesadillas I had for lunch. I am bracing myself for the turista, but Jennifer has given me plenty of tips on how to fend it off as best I can... including iodine drops that I will add to water and then soak any fruits and veggies (that you don't peel) for 10 minutes before injesting them into my delicate gringo system.

I have spent the last couple of hours strolling around Coyoacan, and it is beautiful. There are still a lot of people to remind me that, though far from the center of town, it still is part of the mega-metropolis of Mexico City, and on a random Tuesday night in June, things are feeling pretty festive. I haven't noticed the smog yet, and the weather is gorgeous.

So I'm settling in quite nicely. I hope to figure out my Verizon issues soon (all of my forethought in getting that fancy North America plan isn't exactly panning out) so I can be in touch by phone too. Until then, blogspot it is.