We made it to Mexico!
This was a silly trip, in terms of planning. Sean’s friend, Scott, told us about this trip in August. He was planning it as a solo vacation, and I immediately asked, “Can we come?!”
Scott basically agreed immediately, but after planning everything out, he sprained his ankle a few weeks ago and decided not to come! So we really did just hijack his vacation. Whoops!
The flight to Mexico City was nonstop, but unfortunately, it was an all day ordeal. I hate wasting entire days on travel! We spent the night at Sean’s brother’s house and got a ride to the airport at 8am, where we ran into one of my coworkers on the train to the S-gates. She and her partner were headed to Korea. We just had a big week of demos and presentations at work, so it was pretty funny that we were both getting the heck outta there right after!
We had lots of fun views on the plane ride, including the Grand Canyon and lots of mountains.
This was the first plane I’ve been on that offered the option to connect Bluetooth headphones to the seat back TVs. Very nifty! Especially since I had forgotten my cabled headphones!
I had a fairly productive flight. I watched a movie (The Book of Life – takes place in Mexico!), I finished a blog, and I finished my book. Very productive, indeed!
We also were able to see Mexico City as we came into the airport! They have quite the stadiums!
When we landed, we were kind of a mess trying to get out of the airport. We struggled to get an ATM to work for us. (Sean didn’t have a debit card, and I didn’t realize until I’d been declined multiple times that my bank had flagged me for fraud because I hadn’t set a travel notice.) Then we struggled to get the heck out of there. We couldn’t find the buses or the subways. We walked and wandered and bought a metro card, and once we finally found a bus over an hour later, the bus was so crowded that we decided to just Uber. It was only $8, so we definitely should have done that from the get-go. Now we know!
I had a pretty bad headache at this point. We hadn’t slept well the night before, and I was hungry and cranky. We dropped our stuff at the Airbnb and flopped down for a while. (It was so much smaller than it seemed in the photos, and it smelled so strongly of some kind of perfume or cleaning agents.)
When we finally mustered the energy to find food, we decided to just try the place across the street that had a dancing potato logo. The waitress said their special was the papas, so we ordered the “traditional,” as well as a few tacos. Somehow, we never got the tacos, but the papas was…. Interesting. Basically a bit bowl of mashed potatoes topped with cheese and meat. We also got some freshly fried tortilla chips and queso dip. Yummy, but definitely not healthy! My tummy was on the fence about it, hahaha.
We slept like crazy. We got in bed before ten and did not rise until after ten. After a quick aspirin, I felt like a new person. I offered Sean a high-five as we left the apartment just shy of noon.
Our only agenda for the day was to explore our neighborhood, Condesa. The weather was balmy and fresh. The streets were bright and walkable. We stopped for breakfast at a little cafe, and Sean got a super yummy latte that I kept stealing from. He also got “broken eggs” over potatoes, and I got chilaquiles (tortilla chips cooked in a pan with sauce/ salsa). Yum! Just a little bit spicy!
After breakfast, we continued our walk. There is a big ring street, shaped like a horse track, called Amsterdam. There is a one way street on each side of a big tree lined walking avenue, and we decided to just follow this street around.
We stopped in a couple cute stores, and I bought a linen jumpsuit!
We also entered a little vintage store that had the freaking cutest dog inside. I’m not sure he could see very well, but he came up to me and just leaned up against the back of my legs so I could pet him while Sean perused the tshirts. It was the best.
When I finally stopped petting him, he actually escaped the shop, and the owner had to run after him! Bahaha.
We eventually left the walkway to turn into the center of the ring where there was a big park. Lots of little snack stands, and we stumbled upon an area that was flooded with latin dance lessons! I love outdoor dancing!
The center of this area also had people doing hula hoop lessons and roller blading lessons. It was very cute.
Also, outdoor ceramics painting??
And this pig? Lol.
There was also an adoption event happening, but my attempt to campaign Sean for a puppy was unsuccessful.
After the park, we returned to the walking path. At several intersections, there were people set up selling furniture. Mirrors, night stands, shelves. Seems a strange place to me to sell furniture!
We had dinner reservations at four, but I was a little peckish, so we stopped for a quick smoothie. Very yummy! So fresh!
We continued our walk and changed for dinner.
And then it was time to eat! Our second Michelin star restaurant!
There were three courses plus dessert to choose from, with two options in each course. We were considering being gluttons and ordering one of everything, but then the waitress came by and said that’s what they recommend anyway! We also got two tiki cocktails, and they came in silly tiki cups.
I really loved the squash tostada, and the croquette was yummy, too.
The next dish was a plantain, and we awkwardly heard different things during the explanation. I heard that we should eat the peel, but Sean heard that we should not eat the peel… We finally waved down another waitress to ask, and she said, “No, no, no! I mean, you can, but I do not recommend.” Bahaha. Good thing we asked!
I had originally wanted to skip the next dish, a chickpea salad, just because it didn’t sound that appetizing. And I was right! We should have skipped it!
Not that it was bad. It was tasty, but we were getting full by this point, the dish was huge, and we still had the two “climax” dishes to go! The bread was super tasty, though.
I think the first “climax” dish was my favorite. It was wagyu beef in a mole sauce, and it came with some tortillas to make little tacos. So moist, flavorful, and delicious. Dang! Getting hungry again just thinking about it!
At this point, we were just too full. I flagged down a waitress (which for some reason is really hard to do), and asked if we could cancel the dessert because we just would not be able to enjoy it. She said she understood, and asked if we wanted to cancel the fish dish, also.
But Sean said no! Hahaha. And good thing, because I think that was his favorite dish.
I don’t even remember all that was going on here. It was very delicious, but very hard to get down because of how full we were. We probably sat there with it for 40 minutes, and when the waitress came to clear the table, she said, “You did it! You persevered!”
All in all, a delightful meal that I wish we’d had more room for in our stomachs!
When we got home, we lounged and watched an episode of a sitcom made for Spanish language learners. Sean used to watch it in high school Spanish. Basically, a rich American boy who used to be pen pals with a Spanish girl decides to visit Barcelona and asks if he can stay with her. Chaos ensues! It was pretty cheeky.
We slept well again that night, and when we got up in the morning, we checked out the roof of our building. Not too shabby! The apartment itself doesn’t really have any kind of view, and there aren’t really windows in the main living area, so it was nice to see something other than the buildings next door!
We had a nice walk in our search for breakfast, though the line for the place Sean originally wanted to go was cray cray.
We opted for a super nice restaurant that was way more expensive than necessary, lol. I was in the mood for a more casual cafe, but I was too hungry to keep searching. There was even a 80 peso fee per person because it was a holiday (Revolution Day). Meh.
One of our waiters was probably nine years old, so that was adorable and hilarious. I wish I’d taken a picture. He was so cute in his full waiter garb.
We both got lattes, and I got a guava juice. My favorite part of the meal was the random welcome dishes they brought out before our main food: tiny dishes of yogurt with granola and some super yummy mini baguettes with some kind of whipped butter and mango chutney.
Once we had finished our starters and were sipping on our coffees, the little waiter came back and started putting a second set of starters down for us. It was definitely too much food, but it was so yummy that I decided not to protest. But about halfway through putting down the food, the little guy seemed to get confused, and he paused. He picked up one of the yogurts, then thought again and put it back. The mango chutney was what was really hanging him up, perhaps because we still had half of our first one on the table.
We didn’t know what to say or do, so we just watched with encouraging (and confused) smiles, until two of the full-grown waiters came by, chuckling, and took everything back off our table. They then replaced it on the little waiter’s tray, pointing him to the table he was actually meant to be serving. Too cute!
Sean got some eggs and tortillas, and I got something listed under the traditional Mexican breakfast section of the menu.
It was like two super thick potato tortillas, topped with beans, egg, avocado, queso, etc. Very interesting!
Once stuffed, our agenda for the day was to explore the giant park nearby, Chapultepec. It was so big that from above, I thought it was a national park when we were flying into the city.
The entrance was all big avenues and monuments, and we could see all the way down a big street towards the center of the city.
Once we had entered the main part of the park, the streets were flooded with stalls selling snacks, sweets, toys, and these ridiculous monkey things that everybody was wearing on their heads. Sean and I debated long and hard about whether we should get one.
There was a little lake that you could rent boats on, and I’m normally super into that, but the boats seemed a bit rickety! The rowboat near us was squeaking like crazy, and the peddle boat near us was lilting way over to one side. Eh, maybe we should have done it anyway!
We continued our walk and started getting sleepy.
We were in search of bikes, but we were having trouble finding any! There was no way we would ever be able to walk around this massive park.
Finally, after much searching and app downloading, we were able to locate the nearest bank of city bikes, and then it was much nicer from there.
We were able to bike all around the water features, wandering aimlessly to and fro. We crossed to the second half of the park where there was an amusement park, but it was closed for a private event.
One thing that is undeniable about Mexico City is that there are SO MANY DOGGOS. It was pretty common for us to see a dude walking six dogs at once.
At one point, we rode past what can only be described as a dog dance party. Some kind of doggy daycare where two people had like a dozen dogs hanging out off-leash with music pumping out of a portable speaker. It was strange and adorable, but as I rode by, the big red husky came galloping towards me with a big smile on her face.
I slowed to a stop, worried I could hit her or she could ram into me, and then she slowed as she approached. I wasn’t sure if I should pet her or not! But then the daycare people called her back, and she went running away. It was pretty cute.
I got back on my bike and started peddling again, only for her to come rushing back to me! I again slowed to a stop and said hi.
We did this five times in total. I wish I had it on video!
I did try to get Sean to take some cute pics of me, but I just ended up looking like a derp.
After all our walking and biking, I was getting pretty hungry and cranky again. There were some hills we had to go up and down, and Sean and I kept getting separated, which only made me more cranky.
Finally I stopped at a bench and told him I was hungry and tired. Thank goodness, we were right across from a taco stand, so he went and ordered an Arizona iced tea and four chicken tacos that ended up being more like taquitos. I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture, but they sure did hit the spot! I apologized for being angry earlier, and the ridiculous man replied, “Oh. I didn’t know you were angry until you told me.” Not sure if that’s good or bad, haha.
Newly refreshed, we continued our ride and came upon this very cool statue.
And then we found a children’s book fair! It was kind of hard to navigate the bikes through the crowd, but it was very cool. There were a few performers, including a live jazz band that I stopped to listen to for a couple songs.
As we were biking away, we heard some beautiful choral music in the distance, so we made our way to some kind of mainstage where a quintet was practicing. Such pretty harmonies!
A few pretty buildings and a couple of closed gardens later (booo), we finally bought the dang monkeys.
I hadn’t realized this initially, but the monkeys actually have a little tube routed through the tail that can squirt water. The seller got it all set up on my head, told me to look ahead, and then he squirted the water…. Directly onto my bike seat! Ayaaaaaa….
And don’t worry – we aren’t keeping these for ourselves, nor did we keep them on our heads for very long. I’m bringing them home for some kiddos!
Once we were satisfied with our park sights, we ventured toward the city to the Estela de Luz monument. Very cool!
We then biked all the way back to our Airbnb to return our bikes. We had to ride on several roads, and at one point, I had to pull over, screaming to Sean, “My monkeys!!!”
The dang water squirter things had simultaneously flung themselves out of my bike basket and were hanging and swinging wildly near my legs. No bueno!
Once that fiasco was all sorted, we freshened up and went out for dinner.
We ended up at Senor Taco, where I blindly ordered a “Jamaica” cocktail that turned out to be hibiscus! Yum!
Sean got a margarita and three tacos, and I got pozole and some fancy tacos that I forgot to take a picture of. The pozole was very mild but yummy, and the tacos were very tasty.
Our last stop of the night was a small Walmart so that we could buy some snacks for our adventures the next day. More to come on that next time! Here’s some more street art.
Hasta luego/ see you later!
Lizzy-wa