mish&grey: Mexico City = Absolutely Awesome

We arrived in Mexico City early in the morning ready to by robbed, kidnapped and murdered. However, contrary to all of the DANGER warnings we received from people whenever we mentioned we were headed to the DF, we didn't experience any issues during out stay. We absolutely loved it.

We checked into Hotel Principado in Zona Rosa, a bustling area with heaps of shops, restaurants, bars and emos. The road outside our Hotel (Londres Street) was dotted with food stalls selling tacos and taquitos, fruit juices, corn, tortas, hamburgers and pretty much everything in between. It was here that we ate the BEST TACO EVER with the yummiest condiments – guacamole sauce, tomato and onion salsa, beans and chilli sauce. Grey talked about it for days. We also had a massive fresh fruit juice for a dollar or two.

Following an after-snack-nap, we met up with Johnny and Carly who had come to meet us for a couple of days to hang out. My favourite things:

Drinking giant margaritas and micheladas (tomato juice with beer and a spicy salsa) on our first night in a busy bar on Genova Street;
Eating mole (a rich, spicy, chocolate-y sauce usually served with chicken) and watching Johnny and Grey go on “the mezcal journey” in a cute restaurant on Liverpool Street;
Dancing with yard long margaritas at the cleverly named “Yard Bar”;
The Saturday Artisan Market in San Angel – set in and in the park area surrounding a beautiful colonial building with a huge courtyard – with the most beautiful art, jewellery and “other stuff” that I saw in the whole of Mexico (WISH I had bought something!);
Discovering the tastiness of elote en vaso or "corn in a cup", a cup of corn kernels topped with a dollop of mayonnaise, a few tablespoons of parmesan-like cheese, lime, chilli powder and butter-type stuff (and Grey bringing it to me for dinner when I was sick);
The history and scale of the Zocalo in Centro Historico which contained a giant ice-skating rink for the holidays;
Eating Pozole, a traditional Mexican soup, at a back-street cantina;
Dinner and drinks in Condesa for Grey’s birthday in a beautiful Italian restaurant;
Sunday park day – on Sunday the main thoroughfare in Mexico City is shut to traffic and everyone rides bikes around the city and the main park, Chapultepec. We walked to the park in the morning sun, caught a little train around, visited the palace in the middle, then caught the (extremely crowded) subway back to Zona Rosa for lunch which included Zucchini Flower quesadillas!;
Day trip to the Basilica de Guadalupe (and the "miraculous story" of this most popular Mexican saint) and the Teouhitican Pyramids (absolutely incredible to see, but a bit of a scary climb); and
Dominoes, tequila and margaritas at Covadonga, a trendy but very traditional cantina with an antique bar and square wooden tables. They make a great tortilla Espanola.

After J and C moved onto Guatemala, we spent a few more days in the DF. Highlights:

The National Museum of Anthropology. There are literally thousands of Aztec artifacts on display including the Aztec sun stone and a jewelry piece made of black Obsidian depicting a monkey, which experts reckon would have taken 25 years to carve given the tools available to the Aztecs; and
Walking around Polanco, the richest area of the city, with beautiful restaurants and bars, and classy Mexico City folk having 6 hour lunches in the lead up to Christmas.

Lowlights: