22-Dec: Mexico City – where the Heck is mom

Welcome To Mexico City

22-Dec: Mexico City / December 18, 2022 January 3, 2023

This is Cynthia’s picture from the Mexico City airport where every Spanish speaker was glued to the World Cup rooting for Argentina. We did run into one uber driver who said Viva France but that guy was a real outlier.

Here’s an introduction to our condo in the Roma Norte part of Mexico City bordering the La Condesa neighborhood (that says the the Countess..Oh well), not too far from the Anthropology Museum, and through pretty brutal traffic to reach the central historic district.

Our VIEW from the living room.

And the view From My Bed.

I see now, as I write this, that our first afternoon and evening in Mexico City was taken up with three dining opportunities. First we strolled around our neighborhood and came to an open air market with one whole street of food stalls offering all my favorites – street food!

I settled on this offering and it was delicious.
Ok, of course this picture doesn’t speak ‘delicious’ and you will see again this day why I don’t take pictures of food.

We went back home for a little rest and to think about dinner. We chose this place across the street from the condo, Contramar. We ordered four dishes and we both agreed they were all wonderful. Well, maybe not the uni. I ate that whole thing myself.

More reasons why I don’t take pictures of food, the potato-chorizo tostada and green juice are out of focus, the uni is broken because I already dug in, and everything else was gone before a picture came to mind.

Churros! We walked to La Condesa to find this highly regarded churrería BUT..

..and this is the crowd inside the store.

So we went across the street and enjoyed delightful treats from a bakery there, and then ubered home to relax from the travel day and to go to bed early.

The Zócalo and Centro Histórico

22-Dec: Mexico City / December 19, 2022 January 3, 2023

This is the plaza outside our front door. The fountain is called Fuente de Cibeles and is a replica of one in Madrid. The traffic circle, Plaza Villa de Madrid, is where Oaxaca, Durango, Medellín and El Oro streets converge in Colonia Roma. It’s never congested, no one honks, it’s clean and lovely and surrounded by culinary delights.

We had a most excellent tour today, really, the guide was wonderful and we both went away feeling we had learned a lot and enjoyed every minute of it.

The tour met in front of the cathedral but since it was covered in scaffolding and fenced off from the square, I got an inset off the internet to give some idea of the vast scale of the plaza. The other building surrounding the plaza were decorated to the nines.

What was once the principal pyramid, the Templo Mayor, of the Mexica people. The temple was added to, one layer on top of another, seven times over the course of 200+ years. We heard a Lot about human sacrifices, oh yes Guillermo assured us, human sacrifice was for sure a thing.

Plaza de Santo Domingo. There’s a lot here including this first church of the Dominicans who were in charge of the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico, called the Mexican Inquisition here. The building on the right was the headquarters of the Inquisition for nearly 300 years and then became the central focus of all commerce in Mexico.

During a short break in the tour Cynthia got a super-fancy chamoyada – blended ice with chamoy syrup, lime, and sugar. You can most commonly get them with fruit blended in too, and some chili for a kick.

Another long and apocryphal story involving this building lavishly covered inside and out with talavera tile from Puebla.

The main post office, still in service, glorious from the outside, and according to Guillermo legendarily inefficient.

Filming out on the street. That’s our Guillermo in green raising his shades for a better look.

We ate a very late lunch at a local café offering traditional dishes which was quite fun. In the evening Cynthia went to the small market across the street and brought back plenty of tasty treats for the next few days.
Back at the condo looking down from one of the windows you can see the tree-lined streets below. It’s quite amazing how many trees there are in this dense city.

Our Roma Norte Neighborhood

22-Dec: Mexico City / December 21, 2022 December 27, 2022

A Good Morning View in the early light.

In the vicinity of the splendid Plaza Río de Janeiro centered by this statue of David, “cast in bronze, not much more is known about it. It was placed here in 1976, presumably by the park architect, Juan Alvarez Ordoñez. The project was lead by the Mexico City government to reshape the neighborhood.”

This church is just down the block from the park and the story goes the priests were aghast at having the naked David within sight but the city prevailed and the David didn’t get covered up. They’ve got some nice windows in there.

Notice all the greenery on the apartments around the park.

One more of the grand buildings around Plaza Rio de Janeiro.

We spent a couple hours with a street artist who took us around Roma Norte pointing out pieces and telling us about the artists, the interests of the street artists of Mexico City, and some of the themes to watch for. We enjoyed it very much

Cynthia will remember about these two above because it was interesting…

A pre-hispanic interpretation of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The guide took us to this handsome building that housed a number of galleries each featuring a different artist.

There are a few square blocks in the middle of Roma Norte nicknamed La Romita. It’s the original square in the area.

Around the plaza of La Romita. We watched a dog snag one of those chickens, gone in the blink of an eye.

Some more in the ‘hood.

This wasn’t meant as art but is red-paint-blood from a recent demonstration. The guide didn’t remember the topic.

Adiós Ciudad de México

22-Dec: Mexico City / December 22, 2022 December 25, 2022

This is from the living room window I’ve looked out of for days and this is the first time I’ve noticed this huge flag off in the distance.

Looking in another direction from the fire escape.

Out our front door facing Fuente de Cibeles..

We totally appreciated everything about our stay in Roma Norte and would gladly stay again but since we missed all of the glorious sites of Chapultepec Park we might stay even closer to the park than we were in Roma Norte.

Hasta pronto!