What a difference a month makes…
Okay, this time, the delay has been general busy-ness, and frankly a lot of joy – which is a big change!
It’s incredible what a difference just a few weeks makes. Since those first challenging, overwhelming, and new days of school, we’ve all traveled quickly up the learning curve of life here in CDMX. Eric and I found our workout “home,” an outdoor bootcamp that meets every morning outside of the Museo de Antropologia (it’s not exactly Sweat, but we really love it!) The kids are in a great routine at school – they have adjusted to the earlier hours, their new classes and teachers, new friends, and even the language (for the most part). Sports have started in earnest – soccer / “futbol” for all of the boys, and basketball for Naveen and Nishan – which has added to the sense of community that all of us have here. In other words, some “normalcy” – which, even though we wanted something new and different, was something we craved a little bit.
Even with that normalcy, there are lots of small and subtle differences. At our kids’ school, nearly all of the sports practices and games are during the week. The school busses the kids to games, and parents sometimes attend, but it really depends on what time the game is and the location. I actually love the mid-week games – they have been late enough so far that we’ve typically been able to attend, and while it makes the weeks feel a bit hectic, it frees up our weekends tremendously. And Oakland soccer friends? If we thought it was a pain to drive to Alameda Point for practices, that’s nothing compared to battling CDMX traffic to and from games. I’m currently writing this while battling the nausea left from a particularly stop-and-go drive from Nishan’s game this morning. But, just as in the US, the soccer games have been a joy, and time on the sidelines is a nice way to connect with the other parents (while learning my soccer mom Spanish – “Sigue! Presion! Venga Ciudad!”).
The freed-up weekends leave us time to explore Mexico City and even take weekend trips to the many towns around the city. A couple of weekends ago, on a Sunday, we took advantage of the fact that the city’s main drag, Avenida Reforma, is closed to car traffic on Sundays, and walked all the way down to Parque Sullivan, where there is the Jardin del Arte – an open air art market where local artists paint and sell their wares. Admittedly, some of the art is – well – not good. But there were some beautiful pieces, it was fun to look, and we left with a particularly weird and funky acrylic of a grasshopper on top of a skeleton on top of an armadillo that will be hanging on our wall forever now. We also went last weekend to a town called Tepoztlan, which for years was known as a spiritual center that Chilangos would escape to (to feel the spiritual powers that existed as a result of the ancient pyramids that are nestled into the giant cliffs above the town). Now, it has a bit more of a spring break / tourist vibe, with vendors selling oversized mojitos and Micheladas on the main street, but the town is still beautiful and picturesque, and if you walk just 1-2 blocks off of the main street, you’ll find yourself in large gardens and small farms, with a beautiful view of the mountain above.
All to say – things are moving along. For Eric and I, practicing our Spanish is a challenge, as we are either working or with the kids for most of the day. We need to find more ways to deepen our practice, but I also realize we can’t have everything. Poco a poco – it’s all falling into place!