What I Use: Mexico City (March 2023) (Premium)

On Thursday, we fly home from Mexico City after a three-week stay in which my wife and I experimented with just living here normally, as locals.

This is, of course, something to which we’ve aspired for years. And that phrase—live like a local—is, of course, something we picked up over 20 years ago from Rick Steves, the European travel expert. But it always rang hollow to us in the context of a couple or family spending a week or two in Europe: grabbing some snacks from a store and having a picnic in a park in Paris or whatever—most of which don’t even allow you to sit on the grass, incidentally—doesn’t in any way give you the experience of living like a local.

And that’s why we latched onto home swaps: this gave us the ability to not just spend three or more weeks at a time in Europe with worries about hotel bills, but it also basically forced us to live like locals, by living in a normal home, shopping at local markets, and cooking most meals. You know, like a local.

Of course, our future changed in early 2022 when we bought this apartment in Mexico City. And in doing so, we’ve been looking forward to not just visiting. But living like a local, here.

And on that note, I can’t claim that that’s what we’re doing. The issue is that food is so cheap in Mexico that we can afford to eat out every single meal, especially when we stick to local cocina economicas, sometimes called comida corridas, that serve incredibly inexpensive food that, yes, is aimed at locals, not tourists. So we’ve taken that step, at least. (We also made a video about it, if you want to learn more.)

What we have accomplished on this trip—if anything, over-accomplished—is experiencing what it’s like to just live here, to just be here, if you will. That is, instead of sightseeing or exploring the city, we’ve simply lived, worked, and slept in the apartment each day, leaving only to walk (in an incredible park just a block away) and eat. In doing so, we’ve had a nice glimpse at what living here for longer periods of time will be like when we can (hopefully) do that in the future.

And it’s worked out very well. In fact, I’ve been unusually productive. If you followed the drama around me trying, failing, and then finally succeeding at getting Windows Everywhere out the door, you may know that one of my goals for this trip was to get this tome published on Leanpub in some fashion. And that my expectations for that first publication shifted pretty dramatically as time went on. That is, I originally figured that I would have maybe the first “half” of the book, really the first third, the part that deals with the pre-.NET (1985 to 2000) era, done by the end of the trip. “Done” meaning fully edited and with all images in place. But I was able to make such incredible progress that it finally seemed like I’d get much more done. Maybe even all of it.

So it was very gratifying to me to get it all done. And in the wake of the initial publication to fix some code-level issues with the EPUB version of the book, fixes I could never have made without Rafael’s help. I can’t express enough how important he is to me, and not just for the books. But his work here stands as a great example of those skills. And the book is better off—is right—solely because of his help.

Anyway, the amount of work I’ve accomplished on this trip is unsustainable, generally speaking, but I was happy to do it for the three weeks. I suppose future trips like this will focus a bit more on seeking a better balance, one that is not 100 percent work. But with all the stresses we’ve had lately, I was happy to unleash the productivity demon on this trip. It’s nice getting stuff done.

With that out of the way, here’s a quick look at what I used during this trip.

Home internet

Last week, we upgraded our TotalPlay-based Internet connectivity here to 500 Mbps at a cost of just $40 per month (and we can actually save some money when we get around to returning the cable box we never use). It’s been rock-solid the entire time and the speeds have been incredible every time I check them out of curiosity. Indeed, this connection is faster than what we get at home, though because we’re moving, we’re using that opportunity to start anew and get a much faster (1.2 Gbps vs. 400 Mbps) connection through the same company (Astound, formerly RCN) for less money ($65 per month). So that’s all good. Or, will be when it happens in the coming week.

Cellular connectivity

Last October, I picked up a pay-as-you-go SIM from Telmex that costs $10 per month and provides unlimited calls and texts (with U.S.-based access) and 3 GB of data. We needed this for two reasons—we need a local number for some bill-related things, and my T-Mobile international data caps out at 5 GB each month—and we went with pay-as-you-go because we didn’t have the Mexican Registro Federal de Contribuyentes (RFC) number (basically a social security number or tax ID) needed to get a normal cell phone line.

On this trip, we completed our temporary residency process—you can watch a video about that, if you’d like—which gave us our RFC. But we haven’t yet switched out the SIM or number, for a few reasons. But the big one is that I didn’t need the additional data. Because of where this trip fell with regard to my T-Mobile billing cycle, I had a total of 10 GB of international data to use as part of my plan, so I just never bothered. We’ll look at doing this on the next trip.

Computers and tech

I almost always bring at least two laptops with me when I travel, and this trip was no different, though the two I brought—the HP Dragonfly Pro and HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook—were both preproduction units. This meant that I couldn’t write formal reviews yet—HP sent me the final versions too late for this trip, so they’re waiting for me at home—but I still had to hold to their non-disclosure date. So I waited for that and published First Impressions: A Tale of Two Dragonfly Pros based on my experiences so far. I’ll follow up with reviews when I get back home and can make sure the production units aren’t markedly different.

This trip was also unique in that Lenovo contacted me right before we left to see whether I was interested in reviewing the new version of the Yoga 9i 14. I was, but I explained that I was leaving soon for a three-week trip. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in shipping it to Mexico? They were, and it arrived quickly enough, given Mexico—we once had an overnight letter arrive two days late—and I was able to turn around the review pretty quickly. For me: I know some publications are good to go after just a week with a device, but I do prefer to spend more time. I’m shipping that back via FedEx later today, having discovered that the closest FedEx location is nearby in this neighborhood.

I also keep an older generation HP ZBook Firefly 14 here for “just in case” purposes and for book screenshots. Plus my “More Mobile” setup, which includes a Nexstand Portable Laptop Stand, a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Wireless Keyboard and Mouse, an Audio-Technica ATR2500x-USB Cardioid Condenser Microphone, and an HP Thunderbolt 4 Dock G4, all of which I left here in the apartment on previous trips. I always figured we’d move this into the second bedroom, given that we have a chair and desk in there, but my wife has been using it and I just keep all this on the kitchen table we never use for anything else anyway. It’s sort of become my office here.

I brought my Apple iPhone 13 Pro and Google Pixel 7 Pro here, but have mostly just used the iPhone, aside from a few sunset/balcony shots when the Pixel’s superior zoom capabilities seemed advantageous. Don’t take that as some kind of preference, however: I will almost certainly be switching back to the Pixel when we get home.

As always, I came here with my usual gadget bag full of useful accessories, including the Anker Power Strip with USB-C extension cord that has three power outlets, two USB-A ports, and one USB-C port, plus various other cables and adapters. (We keep an older version here with three USB-A ports, too.) I also brought the Anker 40-watt USB-C charger that I use at home; this has two USB-C ports and I use it to charge my iPhone and iPad/Pixel.

Speaking of which…

Apple Watch

I will be writing about the Apple Watch soon because I just passed my six-month milestone with the device and it has finally coughed up a wide range of data trends, which I find incredibly interesting. For now, I will just note that I was curious to see whether spending three weeks at high altitude—Mexico City is roughly 7400 feet above sea level, half again as high as Denver—would repeat itself and then normalize. Instead, I saw something unexpected: my resting heart rate spiked when we arrived and then went very close to normal after just a few days. I can’t explain this, as my resting heart rate spiked and stayed about 10 bpm above normal during previous 10-day to two-week trips. I did get a spike later in the trip because of a quick stomach thing, but it’s been mostly normal or just slightly high. That’s good.

(That said, my blood oxygen levels have trended lower than usual, but not alarmingly so. And I’ve felt fine. Anymore, more on the Watch stuff soon.)

Stephanie

Speaking of personal technology, my wife has also started the makings of a home office here in Mexico City too, where she had previously just worked on a laptop. At home, she uses a two-screen setup with a 27-inch display as her primary display and the laptop display as the secondary, and she would like to duplicate that setup here. Unfortunately, electronics are expensive here, and I can’t imagine flying here with a monitor makes any sense. So we’ll figure that out, eventually. For now, she brought an older 15-inch USB-C HP external display, and she’s propping up her laptop as she does at home, with some cheap little IKEA tablet stand (that is literally the same thing she uses at home). She seems to like it, but I’d rather the external display was a bit higher at least. We’ll get a stand of some kind.

Luggage/bags

There was no change to our usual setup here: we only carry on and that’s even less than usual since we leave clothes here now. For me, that means I brought the same Rick Steves Ravenna rolling case and HP Renew Backpack that I’ve been using for years. They’re both pretty much ideal for my needs.

Travel

Before moving on, I should mention that this trip was incredibly expensive from a travel perspective: flight costs are through the roof, and the cheap access to Business Class seats that we enjoyed last year is long gone. This time, our economy class (with upgrades to exit row seats) tickets were $1000 apiece (yikes), though we were lucky to have enough United points to cover one of them fully. But still: we paid as little as $300 a ticket at one point. I hope we get some relief in this area soon.

The length of the trip also through a financial wrench into our normal plans to drive to Newark Liberty Airport—it takes a bit under 90 minutes—and park there for the duration. Even long-term parking was incredibly expensive, so we ran the numbers and, for the first time ever, scheduled an Uber. That actually worked out fine, but when we fly home, we arrive at 4:45 pm, and when you factor in customs and the uncertainty, it will be a tiring day and probably a late night. We’ll see how that goes.

What else is new? It’s always an adventure.