Mexico City, Day 18 - Tuesday

The Central District

After class today, Jackaline and I went downtown to go to a museum.  She has these great maps of Mexico City and surrounding areas that list museums, hotels and places of note.

It was a bit of an adventure, but we found our way to the Mexican Museum of Design.

Downtown Mexico is very cool.  The architecture goes back centuries.  Some of the doors around these buildings are just amazing.  And the ancient cathedrals?  You can really tell this place was the capital of the Spanish Empire in the Americas.

Normally I like to drive, but Jackie had the map and she knew where she wanted to go and honestly, I didn't really care where we ended up. It was really nice to get out of class and in truth, we communicate better in Spanish than in English because she's from Brazil. She understands a lot in Spanish, and speaks Spanish at least as good as her English so it was a chance to just practice speaking in Spanish the whole time.

While walking around, we found a restaurant that had a special, this amazing dish called, Chiles de Nogada.  I remember hearing a program on News in Slow Spanish about it, and I really wanted to try it. The dish is all the colors of the Mexican flag.

It is a giant chili stuffed with wonderful stuff, covered in a walnut sauce and topped with pomegranate seeds. It tastes as good as it looks.  They also served drink called, "Limanada" with mineral water and lots of ice- it was amazing, like a lime-aide made with fizzy water.

After lunch, we checked out a few cathedrals.  Jackie passed on a tip from her mom.  Say three prayers when you go into a new church. And they must be new each time.

The Churches and their architecture are amazing. The amount of gold leaf on the alters kind of gives you a clue what the major export of the new world was.

When we finally got to the museum, it turned out it was a modern art museum that held a contest every few years until Covid.  Artists from all around the world submitted posters around the idea of a smiling death.  The display is held in an ancient building turned into a hotel.  The guide speaks only Spanish, and for my tastes she talked FAST.  I understood about half of what she said.  But most of the artwork was amazing.  It varied from the simple, to the advanced.  Clearly some people put a lot of work into their posters.

(There were no AI entries... yet)

After dinner, we walked to the Hostel where Jackie was staying because it serves as a restaurant, hotel, and hostel.  It is right down town and it has some incredible original Mexican tile work.  It is also right next to the tallest building in Mexico City which has a viewing platform.

What is incredible is how these ancient buildings have lasted for centuries, even through earthquakes that have devastated recent construction.

After seeing another Cathedral (service was going on so we did not take any photos) we used a fun hack and instead of paying a few hundred pesos to ride to the observation platform, we took the elevator to the restaurant level (which was almost empty) and bought a margarita for less than the cost of a ticket.

The views, IMO were just as spectacular.

It is hard to believe how much traffic was just on that one street and how bright it was.  But Mexico City is also beautiful at night.  This view is looking toward the Presidents Palace and the Main Cathedral.

After the drink, it was getting dark, so we road the elevator down, then we went our separate ways home. Jackie a few steps to her hostel, and I rode the metro by myself no less! back to Condesa.

Downtown is definitely nice, but it is very crowded for my tastes and Jackie says on Saturday it is wall-to-wall people.  Imagine the busiest Christmas shopping day you've ever seen.  Then double it.  And that's a typical Saturday.  It was already busier than I really care to hang out around, so I'll pass on going downtown on Saturdays.

Condesa is much more my speed. People out and about but nothing crazy.