Hola!

I'm sharing our experience during a week-long trip to Mexico for the holiday.

Randall has an awesome job that gives him the last week of the year off! Yay!

We decided on and booked a trip to Mexico City and Puerto Vallarta. We wanted to be able to take full advantage by seeing a big city and the beach too while we were there. 

We did a lot so I am splitting this post up into parts.

Day 1- Sunday, 12/24/17:

Arrived Mexico City airport @6:30 pm. Randall's international phone plan wasn't working right, but luckily I set up my phone service last minute. I was able to get our Uber ride to the Airbnb. It was dark out and our first time in Mexico City traffic. It was pretty scary. The driver ran a couple of red lights and would also turn his lights off while driving down some streets. I think it was for the pedestrians but I'm not sure. Randall and I don't speak Spanish. I'm learning very slowly. I'm pretty bad at it still. We couldn't really communicate to the driver, but I followed along our route to make sure we were going to the right place.

*Uber made our trip very easy for getting around while in Mexico! The majority of the drivers really took this job seriously. They dressed in nice clothes, like blazers and would even get out and open the door for us or load our luggage. It was much different when using Uber at home.

We arrived at our swanky Airbnb condo 7ish. I say swanky because it was a very secure building with a nice looking lobby and pretty courtyard that our room looked out too.

We charged our phones and decided to walk to dinner. Everything was closed or closing when we got out about 8. We were hungry and a bit bummed but luckily we had gotten some bottled waters and snacks at the airport to be safe! Our Airbnb host was cool and left us some wine. We had wine, nuts, and Fritos with lime and salt for our first dinner in Mexico City.

Day 2- Monday, 12/25/17:

We were pretty hungry and set out to find Panderia Rosetta, it's highly recommended on social media, only to find it was closed due to Christmas. We wandered around our neighborhood of Roma which is very walkable, beautiful, and quiet. The streets are lined with trees that are still lush and green from the warm climate. The buildings are all old and ornate with leafy vines creeping up the sides. We found a park, Rio de Janerio, with an awesome fountain in the middle. The park had gorgeous cacti and other various plants.

Across from the park, we saw a restaurant open with people sitting outside drinking coffee. We were pretty excited to finally see something open that we didn't spend too much time at the park because we were hungry and needed our daily caffeine fix. Cafe Toscano is described as an Italian cafe, I just looked at the breakfast menu and decided on Enchiladas with eggs and verde sauce. Randall got something more like a burrito with eggs and a red sauce that had a bean-like consistency.  I've never had an enchilada with eggs before. Muy bien! It wasn't very hard to communicate to the waiter. We stumbled through our little Spanish and he stumbled through his little English. And when all else failed, we just pointed at what we wanted while laughing at ourselves and smiling a lot.

After our bellies were full we realized that we were within walking distance to the Angel of Independence statue. It was Christmas after all so we knew that we would be mostly exploring our neighborhood for the day.

A side note, Randall and I like to walk as much as we can when we are exploring a new place though too much walking has messed up my feet, so we both had to be careful. It's just a better way to discover streets, buildings, and parks. 

We walked through a plaza-like area near a metro station which had a giant Christmas tree that I shared on Instagram. We made it to the angel statue and walked around it to take pictures. There weren't as many people out as I thought.  

We had seen a Starbucks close by and Randall needed his second coffee, so we went there to sit for a minute. I knew of one museum that might be open on Christmas so I called to check. Lucky for us, it was open! We took an Uber to Museum Soumaya.

The building was incredible and so worth seeing if not just to see the outside. Even better though, it's free to go in, so we walked up each winding ramp to see every exhibit. The top floor is the most amazing because it has an open floor full of sculptures that you can walk around. The ceiling has a sunroof that let in a bunch of natural light.

In this look: San Antonio Scarf-Vintage, Delightful Denim Jacket, & Boss Ass Bitch Pin.

The museum is in a very nice part of Mexico City called Polanco. So we walked around the museum grounds and went into a Saks Fifth Ave. We only did this for a little bit before we got an Uber to head back to our neighborhood of Roma. I wanted to get us more snacks and bottled water to keep in the condo. So we got a ride to a supermarket we had seen earlier that morning. We stalked up on water, tequila, beers, granola bars, more chips, and bananas, you know, the essentials, and walked it back to our place. 

Randall had seen the schedule for Luchador wrestling previous to our trip, so he knew that there would be a special Christmas match. We sipped on tequila and relaxed for a bit while we waited for the show to start. I think the match started at 5 so we left about 4:15 to walk to the Arena Mexico.  It was so busy. There was a huge line at the ticket booth, but we got in line hoping to get tickets. There were guys out there selling tickets but we figured we could get them cheaper from the source. Of course, when it was our turn to buy tickets our horrible Spanish and communication skills failed us. In our defense, though it was a very awkward setup. The window was small and dirty and it wasn't a window at all but a one-way mirror. We couldn't see and could barely hear what the person was saying behind the glass. I also think that we didn't have quite enough cash on us. So, in order to save us from embarrassment, we walked away and I quickly thought of plan B. We Ubered to a place I had heard of called Mercado Roma crossing our fingers that it was open on Christmas.

Sure enough, it was open, kind of. It's a building with multiple vendors or kitchens where you can sit up at their counter and order food either eating it there or taking it to get more food from another vendor. We walked around it and only some of the kitchens were open. We walked upstairs to see a beer garden that looked really cool, but when we were looking at the menu they told us they were closing in 20 mins. We went back downstairs and pulled up a seat to a place called La Reina De La Brasa, We ordered some papas with sauce and beers. We could tell they were closing soon too. 

So we set out to find more food. We ended up at a place pretty close from there called Taquearte. Not really knowing anything about it except it was open. Pretty much our theme for the day. It turned out to be really good. We got queso fundido with chorizo and some pork and beef tacos. They served them with several different sauces. Randall tried them all and told me which ones were which. The weather was amazing the whole time we were there. It gets cold in the very early morning but by evening time, it feels great. We enjoyed that meal outside.

From there we got a ride back to our condo to get ready for bed and plan out our adventures for the next day.

To Be Continued...

I know this is lengthy, but I want to be able to remember the details when Randall and I look back on this blog post years later. It's just as much for us as it is for you guys! I hope y'all enjoy reading our experience!