I finally have moved into a new place.
Initially, I was thinking of moving to either one of the following areas: Buenavista, Bosque de Aragon/Oceania or close to Metro Refineria.
Well, as you can read here, I didn’t have much luck by Buenavista and only really came across one place there that consisted of hosting illegal immigrants from Haiti.
Eventually, I expanded my search to Metro Pantitlan area but didn’t have much luck there either as I wrote here.
On the final day that I had to move, it basically came down to either one spot close to Metro Refineria or one spot I found by Metro Politecnico.
While I have wanted to live by Metro Refineria, I decided against the place despite it seeming presentable.
Primarily because, in the last day or two, the landlord rubbed me the wrong way and I didn’t feel like living in her building anymore.
And the place by Politecnico happens to have a very nice desk that the one by Refineria doesn’t.
So I moved all of my stuff out to Politecnico yesterday!
For those who don’t know, it’s even farther north than where I was before.
The last metro station on the far north end of the yellow line.
How was that?
Getting Ready for the Move
As I said, I made the decision of Politecnico over Refineria in literally the same day that I packed my bags.
Before packing my bags, I made sure to get some flautas for lunch.
Along the way to get the flautas, I also bought some tea bags for later since I am literally all out.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have black tea so I bought the lesser cool choice of green tea for a week and will get some black tea for later.
After that, I bought 40 liters of water and a bottle of El Presidente brandy to carry with me to the new place.
Before I could though, I found someone had fucked up the front door of the apartment.
The lock seemed broken!
I actually laughed a tiny bit when I found that out and thought to myself “Oh Mexico, can’t go a full day without something fucking up, huh?”
Then an old lady – who is the actual landlord that I didn’t know about – walked up behind me.
She was overseeing some men doing work on the building and told me to use the other told.
Funny either way that, on my last day, the door happens to be broken.
It’s a good example really of how cheap or poor quality a lot of the things in the building can be.
In hindsight, I’ll admit that I made a bad choice moving into this place a few months ago.
It isn’t terrible but just a lot of annoying shit.
The shower is ice cold, has no water for like a week out of the month, some of the things in the building break easily and the landlord has been insistent on waking me up from my sleep to have a cleaning lady every two weeks.
So, over the last month, I told the dude that “my debit card” isn’t working so I can make him wait for last month’s rent payment.
That way I was able to get my deposit back surely.
Anyway, once I got inside, I got to work.
I first made a shit ton of tea to take with me to the new apartment.
About 18 liters actually.
Should last around 4 to 5 days.
I like to make the tea before I move so that it’s cold enough by the time I am moved in.
That and also I’m usually too tired to want to prepare tea by the time I have carried all my stuff to a new place.
As I was getting my stuff together, I did feel a tiny bit sad about leaving.
Mostly because I would be leaving behind the neighbor’s dog.
The landlord calls him “Fau” but I call him Buddy.
By the first month, “Fau” even responded to Buddy!
Here’s some cool photos of him in this article I wrote here.
More of him later.
This experience really made me realize how much nicer life would be if I had some pets.
Anyway, I got all of my stuff packed, the tea made and about 30 minutes spent giving Buddy lots of pets.
An UBER was called afterwards.
A Dumb Uber Scam
With all my stuff by the front door, I began waiting for the UBER.
It was coming from the north of the city by Indios Verdes area.
One of the neighbors – some cute mestiza chick who looked pretty nice for a 40 year old – came downstairs.
She was heading out for dancing classes.
As she left, I continued waiting for the UBER to stop by.
I waited a while.
About 20 minutes more than I expected.
Why?
The UBER driver was seemingly doing one of these scams I only heard of recently.
Where basically he drives around in circles and very slowly in hopes that you cancel and he gets the cancellation fee.
He began changing his route and going onto odd streets.
Before doing ultimately a full circle around me where he was one street north of me.
By then, the dude was seemingly going back and forth along this street for a few minutes.
At some point, I messaged the dude “no voy a cancelar.”
Oddly enough, that somehow convinced him to hurry his ass up and get to me.
Only after a response in which he said “sorry, there’s been an accident and I was directed into different routes.”
Even though the app literally showed the little fucker going back and forth on the street north of me several times.
Anyway, that was that.
I wasn’t able to get everything I wanted into the vehicle (my bigger gym weights had to be left behind).
And I got to the new apartment quickly enough since it’s not that far away.
Arrival to the New Apartment by Politecnico
Despite the dude trying to fuck with me, I did offer him a tip.
About 30 pesos or like 40% of the ride?
It’s only a buck and a half.
Maybe I shouldn’t have given a tip but the dude did put in the effort to help me carry my shit out into the new apartment building after we got out of the car.
Anyway, once I got my shit upstairs, the landlord began asking me “which room would I like?”
There was another room that I could’ve rented out that I wasn’t shown before.
It was like 15 bucks more expensive and, as he put it, “the main advantage is that it has a bigger window.”
The window didn’t look that much bigger than the one in the other room.
And the other room actually had a desk.
So I opted for the cheaper but seemingly nicer room.
And that was it.
Impressions of the Place?
While the room is slightly smaller than the other room I had before this, this place seems a lot nicer.
Haven’t seen any bugs anywhere. Absolutely no mosquitos. Nothing.
The shower is actually fucking nice.
The first time I had a nice shower in 8 god damn months.
The shower at the last place was ice cold 99% of the time with some days per month not having any water.
Before that?
I lived by Copilco where the water could be warm enough but the water pressure got so bad near the end of my time that it almost seemed like the water was just dribbling out.
As I wrote here, showers in Latin America are extremely hit or miss.
Either they suck major 17 nch dick (which is just a few inches shorter than what I carry) or they are good.
This shower is fucking nice.
It looks basic on the outside.
But the water pressure is good and it can get hot enough to make me feel like I’m in the lakes of hell but not hot enough that I’m dying.
Fucking great.
The room itself is slightly hot but not overly so and not as bad as the last room.
Plus, I really love the fucking desk. It’s so spacious. I haven’t had a desk this nice since I lived in Pachuca de Soto.
And there’s no cleaning lady fucking with me during my sleep because “MATTHEW MATTHEWWWWW, I HAVE TO CLEAN THE DIRT ON THE FLOOR, MATTHEW!! LET ME WAKE YOU UP DURING YOUR SLEEP TO SWEEP THE FLOOR, MATTHEW!!!”
It got so fucking annoying that, during my last week there, I “faked” having Covid by fake coughing a shit ton to scare her away from my room.
“NO! NO! NO PUEDO RECIBIRTE!! TOS TOS TOS TOS ESTOY MURIENDO WEY NO MAMES!! TOS TOS TOS TOS!!!”
My performance was good enough to convince her to “come back next Friday.”
Whenever I walked out of the room to go to the bathroom, I made sure to cough many times very violently so that she could hear it from downstairs.
Yet nobody gave me an Academy Award for my performance….
Anyway, no cleaning lady over here!
While a lot of gringos talk about how “cleaning ladies are part of the benefit to life in Latin America,” I find them to be so god damn annoying and pointless to have.
Anyway, I won’t go there. More thoughts on them here that I wrote almost a year ago.
So, all around, the new place isn’t bad.
The only negative I have so far is the room could be slightly colder (but I have a fan, so it’s OK) and that it’s a few flight of stairs up.
The neighborhood?
Looks fairly safe by my standards.
The street is more residential seeming but there’s a street next door that has plenty of commercial activity.
There’s also a shit ton of gyms nearby and other recreational spots offering swimming lessons, boxing lessons, karate shit, dance lessons for women, etc.
By far the most “physically active” street I have lived on.
Maybe that means more hot women in my area?
And, while the neighborhood around the last place didn’t have any street food too close that was open later in the night, this neighborhood does.
I’ve done a few walks now and many of the street food spots seem open until at least 11 PM.
Not as good as 3 or 4 AM like other parts of CDMX but it works.
Here’s a photo of what street food I’ve had tonight – two tostadas for about 50 pesos or 2.5 USD.
Tasted pretty good!
I was going to order three but, upon seeing their size, I only opted for 2.
The only negative about the place, from what I can tell, is that there isn’t many too parks nearby that are nice to visit.
I might have to look harder.
At any rate, as I said, I left behind some gym weights at the old place.
Today, I picked those up.
How did that go?
Back to the Old Place with Buddy
Well, I didn’t need much time to get the old gym weights.
No bags to pack or anything.
No tea to make.
Which, as a side point, is a nice thing to do – prepare tea for a week?
While it takes an hour, it feels nice to not have to worry about making tea for a god damn week.
Maybe I should spend a few hours a day per month making tea for an entire month?
Anyway, once I got back, I was welcomed by BUDDY!
As you can see here.
Poor guy – he was so lonely without me. Nobody else in the house.
Right away, I made sure to spend an hour giving him pets and taking photos.
My final goodbye to him.
Here’s all the photos I took of him.
No joke – this time at this place, despite its negatives, has taught me that I really need to get some pets someday.
Had them all my life and I miss them.
Really makes me so much happier.
Anyway, I did a final check of the room to make sure I left nothing behind besides the gym weights.
Then ordered an UBER.
The UBER Scam Strikes Again
Once I ordered the UBER, the neigbor chick stopped by.
I told her that I was heading out and asked her if she could unlock the door for me.
Just my luck – I somehow lost the damn keys to the front door and just couldn’t find them.
I’m pretty confident that are in the old room but I did a very solid search all over.
No idea what the hell happened to them.
As I was waiting for the UBER, I realized I had forgotten some glasses in the kitchen.
Then I focused on the UBER ride.
Very much like the first UBER driver, this dude was coming from north of me around Indios Verdes area.
And, very much like the last dude, I realized he was trying to fuck with me the same way.
Despite having lots of positive reviews, he was taking alternate routes to get to me and taking his sweet ass time.
Let me show you.
As you can see here, the dude should’ve just kept going south but he took some weird turn.
In the photos above, he actually drove past my street and began driving away from me before turning south.
Before then going back the other direction but literally stopping for no reason and spending like 5 minutes just stopped at several points as you can see here.
And it’s not like those streets he was on are super busy.
Nor would he be waiting 5 minutes for any red light or stop sign.
I felt like maybe telling him “no voy a cancelar” like the last dude but I held off on it.
He at least wasn’t literally going back and forth on the same street several times over.
He arrived anyhow.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling as generous to a scammer this second time around. No tip for this dude.
In talking about it with a friend of mine named Blayde, we couldn’t understand why any UBER driver would do this.
When you factor in how expensive gas can be for them as you can see her in this blurry photo I took on the ride to my new place -- 20.58?
And the extra gas they have to spend to drive around longer with no guarantee that I’d actually cancel…
While also factoring in the risk of people reporting them?
Makes no sense to do something like this for the small ass cancelation fee of like a dollar or some shit?
They don’t get much out of it – literally like just a fucking dollar from what I understand.
It’s literally just an example of how low IQ even some of the fucking scammers can be down here.
“OH SI SI, VOY A PERDER LA PROPINA POR UNA OPORTUNIDAD DE GANAR UN DÓLAR!! OH SI SI!!”
*proceeds to clap like a fucking retard with a shit eating grin*
Seriously – if the dude had not tried to fuck with me – he would’ve gotten a 30 peso tip. Earn his dollar the right away without spending the extra gas and not acting like a jackass.
Retard logic on his end.
Not to mention that I’ll take Blayde’s advice and report the dude with my screenshots to UBER. Leave him a one star review.
Do my little bit to, in theory, discourage bad behavior.
By next month, maybe I’ll see him begging for money on the metro like a faggot new to the unemployment line.
And I’ll say to him – “you know, if you weren’t such a retard that day, I wouldn’t have reported you and you’d have a job. Now you’re homeless and your wife is creampied on my bed.”
Then I walk out of the metro with "Get Off This" by Cracker playing.
Roll the credits.
Yes – that’s exactly how it’d go.
At any rate, I gave Buddy some final pets, shook the hand of the chick and left bringing the rest of my stuff to the new place.
Here’s a few photos of just a tiny bit of the ride over closer to Lindavista area.
Final Thoughts: How Long Will I Be Here?
I got to be honest – this place has left me with a decent first impression so far.
The shower is really the badass thing here
Go 8 months without a good shower and see how happy you’ll be when you can finally fucking take a nice shower.
Fucking hate cold showers.
Even though, after enough time in Latin America, I’ve gotten used to them.
Still hate them.
The annoying thing though is how landlords here lie about having them.
You ask “hay agua caliente?”
They respond “si.”
The SI is a lie.
Or it’s mostly a lie – maybe it manages to have hot water a day or two a month but never more than that.
The funny thing is when you ask if you can “test it” before moving in and they get offended.
Like bro – just let me fucking verify.
“oh no, it costs money. We’d lose water!”
You really that fucking cheap on not letting the water run for a second to see if it’s hot?
Or are you lying out of your ass?
I’ve had that funny moment with a potential landlord or two at places I decided to not live in.
The same reaction comes from them when you want to check the bed for bugs or inspect the kitchen.
“Bro, if you live in a third world shithole, own up to it. Tell me your place is a third world shithole. Just don’t lie to me or say I can’t check something. You’ll look like a lying jackass.”
Anyway, as I said, this place seems fairly nice.
It’s even quite cheap for what it offers.
But that’s because of how far north it is.
I’m not sure how long I’ll be here anyhow.
I’ve been thinking of moving out by New Years.
Why?
I got the itch to keep moving these days.
Especially with the realization that I’ll be leaving Mexico City soon enough, I’d like to live in a few more neighborhoods.
Particularly the ones I already mentioned close to these metro stations – Buenavista, Bosque de Aragon/Oceania and Refineria.
So, in short, I’ll be out of here sometime between New Years (ideally) and January 16th (by the time that my second month of living here is over).
Life is feeling better here anyhow (despite how I miss Buddy).
Press F for Buddy.
Here’s a nice photo of him to end this article on.
And thanks for reading.
Leave any comments below in the comment section.
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Best regards,
Matt