I’m back with more stories to share from my trip to Mexico City this past weekend. It’s Monday, and I have a 4+ hour flight ahead of me, so I’m hoping to finish writing by the time I’m back in Ann Arbor! Believe it or not, the weekend was action-packed, and I had very little time to write…
As many of you know, my first trip to Mexico City was for a Cercle Moment last April. On that trip, I met a lot of amazing people, many of which I have stayed connected with over the past year. I saw quite a few of them at Cercle Festival in Paris this past May, and now I got to see a few of them again in Mexico City!
Morning coffee at BANU
I started off the day by getting coffee at BANU, which is a café in La Condesa neighborhood. The latte art was beautiful, and the atmosphere was perfect for writing my first post of the trip.
For lunch, I stopped back at El Gato Volador for some quick street tacos. Once again, I ordered the campechanos and they were phenomenal. At this point, I had yet to be in Mexico for 24 hours and had already eaten a total of 6 tacos.
Museo Nacional de Antropología
At about 2pm, Eric (who I met at the Cercle Moment in CDMX last year) and I went to the anthropology museum. It was incredible. I appreciated the layout of the museum, as it consisted of one central outdoor square (which featured an impressive fountain) with doors to all of the different exhibits. It was easy to navigate, which was super helpful considering we only had a few hours to explore the museum!
The three exhibits that we saw were the Mexicana, Maya, and Teotihuacana. All of the labels were written in Spanish, so I got LOTS of good practice with reading comprehension 😅. A fun game that Eric and I played was “guess the meaning of the artifact”. Without looking at the label, we would try to guess the significance of each artifact.
One of the most memorable artifacts that I saw was a skull with teeth jewelry. People used to drill small holes in their teeth and then fill it in with tiny beads of jade and other metals. I’m sure it looked really cool, but wouldn’t that be painful?!?!
Speaking of pain, there were a lot of artifacts related to human sacrifice, which was performed at the temples. I had a tough time translating exactly what each artifact was used for, but I definitely saw the word “sagrado” more than anything.
Last but not least, I saw a lot of serpents and panthers. The panthers made me think of my black cat, Buffy! My favorite serpent was this one showing its teeth:
Oh, and I also liked this coyote/man head.
Shopping in Polanco
After the museum, Eric and I headed to Polanco, which is an upscale neighborhood that I had yet to explore. Mainly, I wanted to go to the Adidas store because I saw online that they had a Mexico jersey in stock in my brother’s size. I was so happy to find it because it had been completely sold out almost everywhere in Mexico City.
At the checkout, I saw a World Cup soccer ball and thought “that would be a great gift for my little cousins!” I added it to the counter and paid in pesos, not quite knowing how much I was spending. When I left, I took a look at the receipt. Turns out, I bought the official match ball. 😆 Hopefully, they will think it’s pretty cool!
After looking around some other stores, we went to a bar to watch the Cabo Verde vs. Argentina game. Everybody was watching the game and rooting for the underdog. Unfortunately, they lost. It was still fun to watch, though!
A special dinner in Coyoacán
After the game ended, we met up with Marco and Rosy (also on the Cercle Moment in Mexico last year) for dinner. They live in Mexico City and were also planning to go to the Rüfüs Du Sol concert on Saturday night! We were originally going to have dinner at Expendido de Maíz, which is a restaurant where instead of ordering an entree, the servers bring you a bunch of surprise courses until you’re full. However, the restaurant closed at 8 and it was already 8:30pm 🥲. Fortunately, Marco and Rosy had ideas of good places to go instead. They drove us to Coyoacán, and we went to a place called Los Danzantes.
The restaurant was beautiful, with warm lighting and lots of greenery. Looking at the menu, there were sooo many dishes I would have loved to try! All of the food is from the Oaxaca region of Mexico. Choosing an entree was really difficult with so many amazing options. For example, there was octopus, duck with mole, and quite a few vegetable-based dishes (mushrooms, sweet potatoes, etc). I ended up getting the octopus, and it was delicious. I had to laugh because Eric was obsessed with the habanero. I agree that it was really good, but he was putting it on everything!
For an appetizer, we all shared hoja santas, which are leaves with goat cheese. They were incredible! Definitely on the list of Top 10 foods I’ve eaten. Another appetizer that we shared was some sort of dip covered in what looked like corn but was actually ant eggs. We ate it with chips, and it was phenomenal. I never would have guessed that I was eating insect eggs! P.s. this restaurant had a wide variety of insects to choose from for an appetizer.
To drink, I had this beautiful mocktail:
Some of you may have heard that you shouldn’t have ice in Mexico. While this is true for ice that’s made with tap water, I learned that most, if not all, restaurants in Mexico City purchase ice that is made using purified water.
I was happy to finally have a mocktail! I had only been drinking water and Coca Cola up until this point out of fear of falling ill.
I really enjoyed catching up with Marco and Rosy at dinner. They have a lot of fun stories to tell! I heard about their experience at Rise festival, which is just outside of Vegas. They showed us photos of them releasing floating lanterns, and the way they described their experiences at the festival made me eager to go someday.
In addition to talking about past adventures, we also hypothesized about new ones. What if we meet up and go to Holbox (near Cancún)?! Apparently, there are beautiful beaches, and you can eat ceviche right out of the ocean.
After attempting to finish my octopus, I was so full. I did not think I could eat anything else. However, when the server came over, Rosy suggested that we all share some dessert. We ordered tres leches cake and some other dessert with cream and berries. Both were incredible, but the tres leches was the BEST I have ever had. It reminded me of how I felt about the tiramisu in Prague!!! Like WOWWWWW.
That’s all for now! Check back for more stories… there are a lot!
Clara