Tamales!!!

A few blocks from my house is Tamales Especiales. It is a sister and brother operation and they sell fresh made Tamales outside their home in the evenings from 6-9pm. For $2 I can get the best tamale I have ever had a nice hot cup of Atole, which is a corn based drink that is delicious. I guess they have been selling tamales for years but opened this new store front about 2 months ago. I am definitely becoming a regular!

Carrera Nocturna

Last night I ran the Carrera Nocturna 8km race at the UNAM campus with my friends Ivan and Carolina. About 3,000 people participated and the race was free if you are a current student or faculty member. The Alumni have to pay a $15 entry. Well, I didn't have any sort of identification or letter saying that I work at UNAM, but Carolina and Ivan pulled some strings and somehow I ended up with a fake CURP, which I needed to register. A CURP is more or less a social security number. I thought is was pretty funny but I was happy to be able to run in the race. Plus they gave everyone who ran a t-shirt and a medal. I feel special.
Oh yeah, the race finished in UNAM's Olympic stadium. I kind of felt like I was running the Bolder Boulder. It was fun to run into the stadium at night with the lights on. I don't have any pictures of the race because I didn't want to bring my camera so all you get is to see great pictures of the free t-shirt I got . . . and of course the medal too.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

Yup, this slide is in Spanish. Tomorrow I am giving an hour long seminar on my PhD research in SPANISH. I have a whole set of scientific vocabulary words I need to nail down tonight. Wish me luck!!!

I Never Thought I'd Say This

But today was a beautiful day in Mexico City. It was in the low 70's, perfectly blue skies, and a breeze to clear out the pollution. I had to enjoy it so I left work early and headed home to my roof top terrace to do some work.

A Wonderful Weekend

As you can tell from the picture, I was pretty excited to find a new place to go running.
This is El Bosque de Tlalpan, which has very nice trails through a forest. It is extremely safe to run here and it was nice to run in what felt like the middle of nowhere.
Until I kept hearing all this shouting and came upon Six Flags. There are always reminders that I am living in the city.
After my run I was walking to find a taxi and came upon the artisan furniture market. Not only is the furniture they make impressive but the buildings throughout the market are amazing and the pictures definitely don't do it justice.
I also went to explore the Saturday art market at San Angel, which is another neighborhood similar to Coyoacan in Mexico City. Some very good artists display and sell their artwork throughout the town's plaza. I stayed in San Angel for a while drinking cappuccinos at a cafe along the plaza. It was very relaxing.
I also decided that after staying up to 5am on Friday night (these Mexicans believe in partying ALL night long) that I would take it easy on Saturday night. Luckily for me, pirated movies cost about $2 apiece. So I grabbed a few movies and headed home. Don't tell the pirating cops!

Today I went for another long run, but at UNAM. On Sunday's, the UNAM campus is almost entirely closed to traffic, which means a lot of cyclist come out to ride. It made me miss my bike! I spent the rest of the day getting fruit and veggies from the local market and bread from the local bakery. It was a perfect weekend.

My Commute to UNAM

Everyday, I take the metro to work. Specifically, I take line 3 (there are 11 lines in total) and I get on at the Coyoacan stop and get off at the farthest stop in the south of the city, Universidad. It takes me probably 5 mins to walk to the Coyoacan stop, 10 mins on the metro, and another 5 mins or so to walk to my office. Not a bad a commute in my opinion.
The best part of the commute is how much the above ticket cost, 2 pesos. At ~11 pesos to the dollar, that is $0.18/ride!

All work and no play

I have been working a lot this week and therefore have nothing exciting to post. But to keep all you blog readers reading, I thought I would post a couple pictures that didn't make the cut for previous posts.
This is the new UNAM Bicipuma (their mascot is the pumas) building. It is located right next to the largest subway stop on campus. Students, staff, and faculty can rent a bike for free and ride to anywhere on campus. Apparently the program is working well and the building won some sort of architectural award.
This is a repaving (i.e. re-cobbling) project of a street in Coyoacan. The amount of manual labor used in construction here is unbelievable.

Dancing in the Zócalo

Every weekend the center square (the zócalo) of Coyoacan is packed with people who come to to enjoy the tranquility of the neighborhood. The zócalo has many vendors selling a variety of things from nice jewelry to Skooby-doo balloons. This weekend the zócalo was packed because September 15th is Mexico's independence day. It felt very similar to the 4th of July in the states with fireworks, party's, etc. While cruising the zócalo today I came across this band. They were playing all the very well know Spanish love songs.
The best part was how many people came out and danced while the band was playing. Dancing seems to be so ingrained in the culture here that there were amazing dancers from the age of about 12 years old to probably about 80 years old. My favorite couple is the one dressed in white on the left. They must have been about 8o and they danced so well and had pretty traditional outfits too. It was very cute to watch.

Running in the Viveros

Three blocks from where I live is a parked called the Viveros, which used to be a private nursery and orchard of the former Mexican president Miguel Angel de Quevedo. It is now open to the public and offers a great ~2km rectangular running path. I have been running here in the mornings. This is a picture of the Viveros during the weekend. It is packed with people running along the 2km gravel path.
You can venture of off the 2km rectangular path and run on "calles" that cross it. The calles tend to be less crowded but with all the rain lately, they tend to have puddles and mud.
I always reward myself after running with a fresh juice from this stand outside the Viveros. For about $0.90 I get a fresh carrot/orange juice. It is very yummy!

Suites de Lujo

Last night I moved into my own suite de lujo (luxury suite). I will be living here until early October. It came furnished with everything I need to feel very comfortable.
Having my own place also meant it was time for me to head to the grocery store. Yep, I brought my Whole Foods cloth bags with me all the way from Boulder. Despite 99.9% of the people in the grocery store using plastic bags, the bagger saw me with my bag and immediately took it from my hands and filled it up. I was also able to find organic milk in the normal grocery store!

Rain and Welcome Lunch

It is the rainy season here in Mexico City. Usually this means thunderstorms after about 6pm that last for about 30 minutes or so. But last night, it rained for hours. This morning the streets and sidewalks had tons of puddles. It made for a fun walk to the metro. Not only was I trying to avoid walking through puddles but I also had to watch out for the cars flying through the streets and splashing me. The reflections in the puddles are really pretty though thanks to all the wonderful colors throughout the streets.
Today there was a welcome comida for all the new people to one of the three groups I will be working with. Here is a picture of everyone in Luis' group. For some reason Latinos don't really believe in smiling. I don't know most of the people yet but I am sure I will get to know them all over the course of the next two years. People to note: Michel (the guy in the red shirt in the back row. I will be working closely with him and his grad students), Wolfgang (the other guy in the back row with glasses. He is a new post doc from Germany and we share an office. The brave guy moved to Mexico City not knowing a word of Spanish), Frank (the tall guy in the front on the left is one of Michel's grad students and I'll be working with him some), Andres (the guy to the right of Frank. He is now more or less my grad student. The goal is teach him everything he needs to know about DOAS), Mildred (the woman just behind Andres to the left. Her office is next to mine and on my first day of work she took me out for coffee. She is willing to help with whatever I need.), and the rest of the group . . . well, I met them all today.

Francisco Sosa

I am currently living in the old part of Coyoacan, which used to be its own village and therefore has a small town feel to it. Most likely I will continue to live in this neighborhood for the next two years. There is a main plaza with excellent restaurants, coffee shops, and some bars. Throughout the cobbled, tree lined streets you can find various restaurants, shops, and cultural houses.
This street is called Francisco Sosa. It is a beautiful tree lined street in the heart of Coyoacan.
Some of the trees have trunks the diameter of a car. Flowers on the windowsills of the houses also line Francisco Sosa.This is one of the many narrow alleys off of Francisco Sosa. To say the least, this part of Coyoacan is beautiful!

Where in the world is Megan?

For those of you that don't know, Mexico City is located in south central Mexico. Mexico City is just north of the 19th parallel and is considered to be in the tropics. But at an elevation of 7,500 ft, the weather is very similar to San Francisco, not Acapulco.
The population of the Mexico City metropolitan area (shown above) is around 22 million people. Mexico City is located in the Distrito Federal and the metropolitan area is most often referred to as el D.F., similar to how Washington, D.C. if often just referred to as D.C. It is the world's second largest metropolitan area after Tokyo, which has a population of around 35 million!!!
I am working at Univerisdad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). It is the very large open area shown in this picture. It is located in the south part of the city in the delgación Coyoacan. The campus is called the univeristy city (cuidad universitaria, i.e. CU) because it so large. About half the campus is an ecological preserve. The other half has all the academic buildings where the student body of ~300,000 students get an excellent education (OK, that is for all the UNAM campuses in Mexico, but still!). UNAM is ranked the top university in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal. It is also the second oldest university in the Americas, the first is Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru.
I am working at el Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera. The center consists of the two buildings in the south corner of the two parking lots in this picture. My office is located in the larger building and looks out at the square courtyard on the west side of the building.
And this is what my office looks like right now. Soon I will have an office mate and more decorations. But it was very nice to walk into an office that had brand new desks, chairs, and monitors!

My first day in Mexico City

Today was my first official day of living in Mexico City. I am currently staying at a co-worker's house until I find my own apartment somewhere in this city of 22 million people. My co-worker Darrel was nice enough to welcome me with a vase of a dozen fresh roses in my bedroom!