December 2016

I have to start this by admitting that, for some reason, I had very low expectations for Mexico City. I believe it stems from stories I've heard from other travelers when going to other Mexican travel destinations such as Tijuana. Hearing those stories made me unfairly pre-judge a whole country off the basis of a few tales from a completely different city than the one I was set to experience. And, I must say, lesson learned because Mexico City quickly became one of my favorite cities after only a few short days after my arrival.

One of the first things that I noticed about Mexico City was just the sheer size of the metropolitan area. Much like New York City, Mexico City felt like a huge "concrete jungle" that never quite had any end in sight. You could walk for blocks and blocks and still never find an area without tons of people and energy to feed off of. Every turn presented a new area to explore and discover new tacos. And, Tacos quickly became an obsession because you always tried to find the "best" but you quickly learn that the best tacos were wherever you were at that particular moment. And it wasn't just the tacos that were amazing. Every culinary delight Mexico had to offer was full of flavor yet the ingredients were very simple and cheap. You would always accompany your food with some type of alcohol and the Mexico City spirit of choice was aguardiente which didn't have a particularly good flavor yet you always found yourself drinking massive amounts of it.

The most memorable experience of Mexico City has to be the time we all took a trek over to the ancient Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan to see the pyramids. You immediately felt the weight of the history that was all around you once you entered this city. The ruins were well maintained although many pieces were replaced with newer materials yet this didn't take away from the experience.

I also got the opportunity to spend time with a local family where i had the privilege of making dinner and exchanging stories. Experiences like those are a big reason for me wanting to travel in the first place so I made sure to make the most of the moment and also reflect on how people, all over the world, are basically the same in many ways in regards to family and priorities. I'll never forget my experiences and I definitely plan to come back to Mexico City at a future time in my life.

Highlights:

Visited the ancient Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan to see the pyramids
Every taco I had the pleasure of experiencing
Cooking a traditional dinner with a local grandma and her family
Memory loss experienced shortly after starting to drink all the aguardiente
All the delicious Horchata
Doing an intense traditional temazcal (sweat lodge)
Boating the river banks of Xochimilco
Checking out my first Lucha libre (mexican wrestling) event