Holá Mexico City!!

This year is shaping up to be the year of crazy adventures!! This crazy adventure was a birthday celebration with a long weekend trip to Mexico City! We've been to Mexico a few times, but never to Mexico City so when we found a pretty good flight deal, we thought why not try something new? MC is the capital and largest city in Mexico situated at an altitude of 2,240 metres above sea level, and is filled with cultural significance. Turns out MC is a lot more modern than I imagined it would be, based on nothing really concrete outside of other travel within Mexico which probably isn't a fair comparison. We stayed at the JW Marriott which was located in the very nice Polanco neighbourhood and well located for the things we had planned to do. 

We arrived late evening, made it through contactless immigration quickly and because this was a weekend getaway got out of the airport fast as we had no checked luggage. The hotel was about a half hour Uber ride away. The hotel recently underwent a major renovation and has a flawless modern style to it. The hotel staff were all very friendly. Our room was lovely high-floor upgraded junior suite room with an amazing view of the city in the distance, with the Campo Marte park and National Auditorium across the street. We arrived in our room to a lovely birthday surprise - a cake, a bottle of sparkling wine, and fresh fruit. It started off the weekend well!! 

The next morning, we enjoyed a bountiful buffet breakfast with traditional Mexican cuisine (can you say refried beans?), a large selection of fresh fruits, yoghurts, American cuisine, and a very tempting but we stayed strong pastry and bread table. We ended up exploring the Centro Historico district for the day and enjoyed the sites in the centre square. The Metropolitan Cathedral of MC was incredibly beautiful with its two bell towers and central dome. Its facade is

adorned with statues and columns and inside an abundance of religious figure statues, and artwork ornate alters, and a very magnificent looking organ. One of the other notable buildings we visited was the Palacio Postal, the main post office which has been in operation since 1907. After spending the day exploring and on our feet, we enjoyed a leisurely late lunch/early supper (aka lupper?) at Balcon Del Zocalo. I had read about this place on someone's blog and it came highly recommended, not only for their coffee and food but also their location. If you are lucky, you can be seated in their covered outdoor patio which has a direct and unobstructed view of the cathedral. We were lucky. For pre-dinner service, they offer a 3 course prix fixe menu. The food was delicious and it was here that I tried a beef tongue dish; my first time and I had to apply mind over matter for the first bite, but then discovered this particular dish (prep, seasoning, and cook) was very tasty! We did and saw a lot in the city on day 1, but had to get back to the hotel for by special invitation margarita making class. This was quite the experience. There were six guests in total and class was something new the hotel was trying. They brought in a local bartender who explained everything we needed to know to make the perfect margarita. It was a hands on experience with a great group of fellow travellers - two of whom we discovered were also Canadians living in Montreal but originally from El Salvador and the other two friends there for work from England and from Ireland. Turns out, with the right ingredients and the right instruction we can make a mean margarita! We capped off the night with a couple glasses of vino and some food in the hotel executive lounge. 

The next day was an early one as we were off on our private tour of Teotiuacan, an ancient Mesoamerican city located about a two hour drive from our hotel. This remains an active archeological site stretching 83 square kilometres and was designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. The site is known today for its many architectural significant Mesoamerican pyramids, particularly the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, both prominently built at both ends of the city's broad avenue which was likely used as a marketplace. In order to help preserve these pyramids, visitors are no longer allowed to climb up these structures, which is probably a good thing as the stairs are narrow and placed at odd distances between. When looking at both these pyramids at a certain level and angle the mountain ranges in the distance disappear completely as both pyramids are shaped to mirror the mountain at that point. Many other buildings have been uncovered and provide a glimpse into how the civilization lived, worshipped, and held ceremonies. Many parts of the archeological remains have been restored, but much remains in its original form and seeing the "advanced" methods for building they used for the period of their existence is incredible. Beautiful hand painted murals on the walls tell many different stories of life during their epoch. Our guide, an

anthropology major, provided an in depth explanation of the significance of this civilization, how they lived and the societal make up of the population. He was a wealth of knowledge and made the visit worth it! After our walking tour of the site, we had lunch at La Gruta, a restaurant that has been operating since 1906 from its location in a natural cave! After a morning learning about history, we decided to go check out the National Museum of Anthropology, conveniently located within walking distance of our hotel. From there we explored the massive park on which the museum is located. I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of parks we found around the city during our visit. We had been in MC for two days now and I had yet to eat a traditional Mexican taco, so Z found a great taco restaurant a short walk from the hotel where we enjoyed the most tasty al pastor tacos ever!! We had also discovered an amazing churros chain called El Moro Churreria; couldn't get enought and had to really resist overdoing it!! 

Our final full day in MC was going to be spent exploring a couple other neighbourhoods nearby that we had read about. We were going to have a leisurely morning, with no set schedule, and we'd sleep in until whenever. Little did we know that every Sunday morning from 8am to 2pm, MC shuts down 55kms of roads to car traffic to allow for cyclists, pedestrians, skaters, runners to move about freely in the city. What woke us up earlier than anticipated, like 7am, was what sounded like cheering from the street below. As we looked out the window we saw what appeared to be a running race going on with spectators cheering on the participants. We later discovered this car free day and decided when in MC on car free day, do what everyone else is doing and participate. MC has a great bike sharing program that we signed up for on their app. In total it cost us $9 for the day and we were able to use the bike system which has stations situated all around town. The only drawn back was you can only rent a bike for 2 hours at a time and then have to return it, but nothing stops you from immediately picking up another bike, so we did that for a few hours and explored so much more of MC than we would have otherwise been able too and we managed to get back to the hotel before the daily deluge started. It was a lot of fun riding the streets of MC without cars and being immersed with all the others enjoying car free day. 

We capped off this trip with a birthday dinner at Archiebald, a restaurant in the hotel but we learned later not operated by the hotel. While the ambience and food were good, the service experience was disjointed., starting with the fact our waiter did not speak English well making communication difficult and then the mistiming of our main course coming before we finished our starters only to have our main course delivered again after sitting under a warming light for 15 minutes. Needless to say we were not happy particularly given Z's main dish of prawns were cold and not fresh as a result. Thankfully an English speaking manager sorted out the problem and we got new, fresh main courses brought to the table followed by dessert, this time appropriately timed; a small wrinkle in what was otherwise a wonderful birthday dinner. 

This was nothing short of a whirlwind trip; some may even call it entirely insane, but we packed in a lot, ate a lot of really good food, had an amazing experience and created many special memories. This trip provided with me a very different perspective of Mexico, one I had not imagined existed. Overall, the city felt safe, it was relatively clean and easy to get around.

To travel is to live... until next time, life is good!