I’ll be honest, for a long time I didn’t really care about Mexico City. I knew it existed, I knew it was big, but I really wasn’t looking to ever go there, so when Shane’s family decided to spend a couple of days there on our way to Puerto Escondido, I was pretty indifferent. Man was I about to be shown how wrong I was about this city.
When our plane started descending, it really sank in how big this place really was. Without a lot of mountains to stop the sprawl, the city just grew and grew and grew. Later, when we checked into our hotel and looked out the 42nd story window, I realized that I could see all the way to the horizon, but the city was still going past it. It’s such a busy, vibrant place, and we had a fantastic time exploring it.
What really helped is the fact that one of Shane’s closest friends, Mark, someone who he used to bartend with back in his Earl’s days, moved to Mexico City after falling in love with Paulina, who is from there. Now they are all set up in a lovely apartment with a dog. Having some locals take you around really gives you a whole different feel of the place.
The very first day, while I was super jet lagged, they took us to La Condesa, which consists of wide streets with all styles of buildings bunched up against each other, and a wide park-like walkway in the middle of the street. A little hard to describe, but the effect is that you are both in a park and in the street at the same time. This was the neighbourhood our friend Mark was in a couple years ago when Mexico City was hit by a big earthquake, and he pointed out the clearing where him and a bunch of the other people waited while everything around them was shaking and falling.
We did a lot during our short time in Mexico City. We experienced the local metro system, checked out the anthropological museum, saw lots of art, met a real life alcohol elf who made us amazing bespoke gin and tonics, and of course, ate lots and lots of tacos. I can’t wait to be back, and experience this city all over again.
