Mexico City Part 2
Day 2- Tuesday, 12/26/17:
We knew this was the day that we had to fit a lot of our site seeing in to. We walked back to Panderia Rosetta to fuel us for the morning. It's a very small but cute place. We ordered a couple of Americanos, ham and cheese croissants, and a cinnamon roll to split. Because YOLO! We got our food to go and took it to the pretty park we had discovered the day before to eat and enjoy the weather.
From there we took an Uber to the Anthropology Museum in Chapultepec Park. The park is amazing and huge. As we were walking to the main entrance of the museum, we saw a bunch of popup vendors in the park. There were goods to buy, food, and entertainment. We watched some entertainment for a minute before heading into the museum.
There is a lot to see at this museum. After we got through security and bought our tickets we went straight to the information desk to get an insight on which exhibits were the most popular. She circled about 6 out of at least 12. We went out to see all the cool things knowing that we needed to walk through relatively quickly because we had planned to cover a lot of ground to see as much as we could that day. This was by far the best museum I have ever been too!
When we felt like we had seen as much as we could. We decided to stroll through the park to go see the Chapultepec castle.
In This Look: Top-ShopMucho, Bottoms- Old Navy, Hoodie- ASOS, Shoes- Zappos.
On our way, we found this cool bookstore with a cafe to get more bottled water and a coffee for Randall. It was a lovely walk through the park. There were more vendors throughout our walk and a lake where you could rent paddle boats. I would have loved to have paddled on the lake, but we didn't have hats and the sun would have been too much. We were so lucky to have the best weather every day! We actually got hot during our walk.
Once we got to what we thought was the entrance to the castle. We had to walk up this steep winding hill to actually get to the entrance and place where you buy the tickets. When we reached the top we saw that there was a very long line to get in. We decided to not wait even though we had trekked up that hill. We peeked through the gate just to see it and then made our way back down.
Once down the hill, we walked straight out of the park and got picked up by an Uber to head to the Palace of Fine Arts or Bella Artes close to the Historic Center also known as the Zocalo.
This area was extremely busy. People everywhere. The more we walked the busier it got. We stood in front of the Bella Artes in awe for a bit. Then we went inside. It's also a museum. We decided not to walk through it, so we just took in the beauty of the inside before we headed to see the House of Blue Tiles, Casa de los Azulejos.
The House of Blue Tiles is on a main walking street called, Madero. We could actually see the historic center with the Christmas tree. So we decided to brave the crowd and walk through Madero St.
Here's a shot that hopefully, you can get a sense just how busy it was.
I'm not sure if it was extra busy for the holiday or if it's always like that. There are shops and restaurants all lined down the street but it was so busy we just kept moving toward the Christmas tree.
At this point, we were pretty tired from walking and needed to find a bano from all the bottles of waters. We wanted to go to the National Palace to see the Diego mural, but we could not easily figure out where the entrance was. We kept walking to the Templo Mayor which is where the Aztec temple ruins were dug up in the middle of the city. We went in and bought tickets on a machine which made it easy and we didn't have to wait in the line. We first found the banos and then walked through. It was an awesome exhibit and cool to be able to walk on the ramps through the ruins.
Once we walked through it all we came out at an area where pedestrians could actually view the ruins. So, if we had not needed to use their facilities we probably would have done that instead. Haha.
All that walking had worked up an appetite. We walked over to a small bar known for their large selection of tequilas. We ordered a few pork tacos with red sauce and some cervezas.
From there we walked away from the Zocalo in hopes to find a less crowded area to get picked up by Uber. It was still terribly crowded. Where we ended up was on the other side of the National Palace. The street we were on had endless storefronts and people set up selling their goods on the ground of the sidewalk. This area was very busy and a lot less touristy. We felt very out of place but it was very interesting to see. People were selling anything from flash drives to undergarments right on the sidewalk with nothing more than a blanket to set their wares on. Finally, we got to an intersection that looked good enough to get picked up.
We got a ride to the Arena Mexico. We wanted to buy our tickets early from the ticket booth before the crowds got there.
After a little bit of back and forth, we got tickets! The vendors were already set up out front of the arena. We bought our Luchador masks after going to a few different booths to get an idea of how much they were charging. There were so many colors to choose from.
The fights didn't start until 7:30, so we walked back to our Airbnb to sip on some tequila and relax a bit.
We were so tired from all we had already done that day, but I'm so happy I pushed us to go to the fight because it was totally worth it! We walked back and found our seats much to our amusement and lack of communication skills they had sold us seats that were split up by an aisle. Haha, funny. So Randall and I sat on opposite sides of the aisle and waved at each other while watching the first couple of fights. Luckily the guys sitting next to Randall moved over and let me sit with him the rest of the match. It was so fun and animated! You could pretty much tell what was going on and who the good and bad guys were even though it is all in Spanish.
We didn't stay for the final match only because we didn't want to leave with the crowd and we were hungry.
We ended our evening having dinner close by at La Docena. It's a seafood place in a real hip environment. I had seen it recommended on Pinterest. It was very good, we had a couple of beers, some fried oysters, and split a fried fish po'boy with sweet potato chips.