Moving day (at last!)

I don't know if Edward A. Murphy Jr. ever visited Mexico City, but I'm beginning to seriously suspect he had the place in mind when he coined his famous adage: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I started to get a strong feeling for this during our first few days here. Little things at first: a puncture on the pram the first time we took it out, the otherwise dependable Wi-Fi cutting out at crucial moments. Then on one occasion we popped out for breakfast and a quick trip to the supermarket, leaving home just after 9am. We got back at 4.30pm. The breakfast place was closed, the traffic was terrible, we got lost, the supermarket was much further away than we realised and the list goes on. Another time Rosalía and I left Noam with his grandparents and drove to her workplace at COLMEX (Colegio de México) to run a few quick errands; the car broke down in the parking lot, leaving us stranded on the other side of city.

Ok, you got me, it wasn't actually this bad

But perhaps Murphy's law best manifests itself in the story of the apartment in Coyoacán where we are now belatedly but happily installed. Bought virtually new by the family just a few years ago, it was leased out to a reliable-looking señor and his family, who promptly stopped paying any rent. Due to idiosyncrasies of Mexican law that I'm sure I'll never understand, it proved a time-consuming, expensive, and heartbreaking process for my in-laws to extract said persons from the apartment. When they ultimately succeeded after a legal battle lasting the best part of two years, the inhabitants chose as a parting shot to practically destroy the place, leaving sinks hanging off the walls, shelves smashed, and floors ruined.

When Rosalía and I first set eyes on the apartment shortly after arriving, it was much improved after a year or so in the hands of some close family friends, but still in need of major work before we could think about moving in with Noam. We engaged an expensive professional cleaning firm; to describe the job they did as half-arsed would be something of an overstatement (bringing to mind another apt adage: If you want something done right, do it yourself). We hired someone to come in and paint the whole apartment, fix the electricity, replace all the skirting boards and various other odd jobs.

There were a few more bumps along the road (light bulbs that immediately blew out, showerheads that didn't fit, boards that were not quite the right shape), and of course it all took twice as long as the initial time estimate (Mexicans are chronic tidoptimister), but I have to say for once we're delighted with the final result. And so it came to pass that on our 23rd day in Mexico we finally moved in and set about building a temporary life here. Murphy's law will never be far away (a pane of glass even got broken during the move) but I'm learning to appreciate yet another (modified) cliché: patience is a virtue, especially in Mexico City.