Throwing back to last semester, and in light of my forth coming travels, I wanted to reminisce on my time spent in Mexico last semester for my urban design studio. The studio's focus was theorizing how Detroit could leverage it's UNESCO Creative City Network, City of Design designation to benefit the urban, social, and economic landscape of the Motor City. The network was holding it's annual meeting in Puebla, Mexico , to which our studio was invited to sit down to listen and watch what was to be discussed by the global network.

We began our trip in Mexico City a few days before the meeting in Puebla to admire the largest metropolitan city in North America. The class took Uber's and walked dozens of miles throughout the city, all the while overloaded by the incredible sites and senses that Mexico City provided us. I saw 15th century cathedrals built at the inception of the city by Spanish conquistadors, the older downtown core which is filled with opera houses, museums, open markets, and breathtaking cobblestone streets. We explored modern mid-century urban renewal/public housing projects in the poorest sections of town, tequila museums, and taco sanitariums. In the four days spent in Mexico City, even with non-stop travelling, I had barely touched the surface. Yet I felt I came to understand the urban fabric and the incredible and kind people that inhabit it. By the time I left for Puebla and the UNESCO meeting I had eaten, photographed, viewed, smelled, touched, drawn, and worn my shoes out throughout Ciudad Mexico.

....Puebla and Part 2 will follow...