I’ve created Encuentro to share my encounters with Mexico City (a.k.a., the Beast) – a mega-city that is one of the largest in the world – in the hope that I can help visitors and new arrivals get to know it more quickly than I did, and truly enjoy their time here. Since food is one of the most important things for me, good food and where to find it will most certainly be my primary focus, but I plan to share other things as well: my favorite museums, where to find high quality, locally made clothing, jewelry and home wares, and any worthwhile discoveries from journeys outside of the city.
I first moved to Mexico City in late 2009. I had recently finished graduate school in San Diego, and had a job offer with the tax firm where I had done an internship the previous summer. My first year in the city was difficult – I was living on the edge of Ixtapalapa, one of the poorest sections of the city, and working in Santa Fe, a newly-developed area filled with corporate offices and high-rise luxury apartment buildings, which meant that each day I not only crossed the city geographically, but spanned the socio-economic divide of a city which is home to one of the richest men in the world, and to some of the poorest. When my family back home asked about life in the city, I would describe the hours in traffic to get to work and the air pollution, which I was sure had caused a chronic case of tonsillitis. “The city is a Beast,” I would say.
In spite of the traffic and smog, I stayed for almost 6 years. I met my husband at that tax firm, and we were married in 2014. In 2015, we moved to Washington, DC so my husband could study for his masters degree, and to our surprise as soon as I moved back to the U.S. I started to complain about how much I missed Mexico. In the U.S. no-one at the office celebrates your birthday (in contrast to Mexico, where every birthday was celebrated with cake); in the U.S. there are no comidas (long lunches where friends and colleagues bond over good food and drinks); the weather in Mexico City was so much nicer than in D.C.! – and so on.
By the time I left Mexico City for D.C. in 2015, I had gotten to know the Beast. I had found the tree-lined streets with quirky local design shops and cafés with outdoor seating where I could sip tea with my dog for hours. I found that the same city I had struggled to adapt to was now a place I felt at home. So when my husband decided to return to Mexico City after completing his masters, I was happy to come back, and now I’m looking forward to introducing you to this beast of a city that I once again call home.