Girl Travels with Boyfriend Day 6: Leon Trotsky and Pujol

"I look like a Mortal Kombat character," Mike complains as we walk in the rain. His hood is up and buttoned.
"You don't have to button it all the way up. It's not even raining that hard. It's drizzling."
"This wouldn't be happening if we had an umbrella."
"It's barely raining. Why are you so sensitive, bruh?"
"How can you even SAY that?!?!"

Mike and I head back to Coyaocan today to see Leon Trotsky's house. We stop first at a Mexican bakery and we wonder how it took us so long to get to a Mexican bakery because damn it is great stuff and very cheap. Make sure to get to a Mexican bakery while in Mexico. The donuts are good, the cheese pastries are good, the sandwiches are good, the churros are good - hey, it's all good.

There are not very many things Mike is adamant about on this trip, but the Trotsky museum is one of them. Mike identified as a communist in high school, and while he no longer considers himself as such (he was always a Hillary supporter even when I was feeling the Bern, so sometimes my politics are left of his), he still loves himself some communist history.

The Trotsky house is beautiful and fascinating. Trotsky had most of his family members killed by the Bolsheviks. In 1928, when Stalin kicked him out of Russia, he moved from Kazakhstan (hmm, places I don't want to be include Kazakhstan circa 1928) to Turkey to Norway to France and then finally found asylum in Mexico in 1937 thanks to a good amount of help from Frida Kahlo, who had communist sympathies herself.

Trotsky's exile travels.

Stalin was obsessed with Trotsky even after Trotsky left the USSR, and Trotsky suffered one failed assassination attempt before the second one finally succeeded - a spy from Spain managed to be his secretary's boyfriend and got access to the house that way, then killed Trotsky by knocking him in the head with an ice axe.

Trotsky's room.

"Damn, that's cold," I say. I belatedly realize my pun. Mike narrows his eyes at me. Guess he knows how it feels now when someone is just trying to go about their day and they are bombarded by puns.

We're in Trotsky's study after having left his library.
"So he gets this whole study to himself while his wife and secretaries and assistants get that library," I observe.
"Yep," Mike responds.
"He gets a whole room to himself. So much for communism, am I right? What about sharing everything you have?"
I think my willful misunderstanding of communism is the closest Mike has ever come to leaving me.

#artsy

After we walk through the museum, Mike asks if I want to do a guided tour of the museum.
"Um, ok. We can latch onto this group that's halfway through."
Mike doesn't want to do that, obviously.
"Because otherwise, if we start at the beginning, it would be like going through the museum an entire two times in a row."
"Yes, that is what I want to do," Mike says excitedly, trying to play like that was my idea. It is not my idea at all.
Oof. I remind myself that Mike has been super chill with the things I've wanted to do. I am not a selfless person, it turns out.

I almost succeed in getting us to leave when a big group of people walk in.
"Oh, great, we're surrounded by Russians," Mike says. I am frankly surprised Mike feels this way and his casual xenophobia almost makes me love him more. He realizes what he says and tries to walk it back but it is too late. I now know he is not always nicer than me, and that weapon stays in my arsenal.
We find a guy who, thankfully, wants the tour to go as quickly as we do. It almost looks like he was about to go on lunch before Mike and I asked him to guide us. He is insecure about his English but his English is fine. We actually do learn some cool stuff, and I am not upset we did the guided tour even after walking through the whole museum by ourselves one time through. I know so much about Leon Trotsky now, so that's a cool thing.

Mike letting his true colors shine.

We get Japanese food for breakfast and it is okay. It starts raining again.
"You don't have to look like a Dragon Ball Z character if you don't want to. It's really not that hard."
"It's Mortal Kombat, Caitlin. Gosh."
"Wow. How embarrassing for me to get that wrong."
"Do you ever feel pressure to be as funny as me? You don't have to, you know."
"I don't feel the pressure."
"Because I'm funny enough for the both of us? I get it."
"Because you set a bar that is... achievable."
"Yeah. It's good to challenge yourself."

I've seen so many Santander banking establishments in Mexico City and it's odd. When I was a finance manager, Santander was a lending institution we used for people with bad credit who wanted to buy a Lexus. They're skeevy, from my recollection. Most lending institutions who prey on work specifically with people with roach credit are skeevy. In Mexico City, Santander is everywhere. Bizarre.

After the museum, Mike is not feeling 100% (fighting a cold), so we go back to the room to rest up before our evening at Pujol. This is our second world-famous restaurant out of two this trip (the other being Biko). They are both on the list of 50 Best Restaurants in the World. It is also in Polanco.

Mike and I get to Pujol and it's quieter and kind of fancier than Biko. Biko is hip, almost, whereas Pujol is almost blueblooded. We both agree we like Biko better, but the internet does not agree with us, so what do we know? Also, I learn Biko is "techno-emotional" cuisine. I do not know what that means but I guess my tastes are not quite so refined.

Pujol is great, don't get me wrong. It's excellent. We did like the food better at Biko but Pujol is still good. The service, however, is... different. In both restaurants the waiters launch into full-on explanations of the food and how they're made and how to eat them and that's cool. But in Pujol they kind of... hover?

We sit down in Pujol and immediately after placing my drink order I think about using the restroom. We haven't even ordered our food yet, so I haven't touched my utensils, and also I'm about to stand up anyway. A waiter comes over, grabs my napkin, airs it out, and tries to put it on my lap. Is he appalled I haven't done that yet? I feel like a heathen. I can't tell if this is supposed to be exceptionally good service or they are throwing serious shade at me.

Later, after our first course, a waiter comes over and cleans all the crumbs off the table. Now we have a nice table but also are we savages or what.

My second course is a beef tongue soup that is incredible. They give me a spoon and no fork and also some tortillas in case I want to make a taco. I attempt but the taco is messy. I spill a bit. After this course is done five restaurant employees come over to change the tablecloth to a brand new tablecloth that has no spills on it. It is a touch humiliating. They are wondering how we even got into this establishment, I'm sure, but OpenTable doesn't ask you about your table manners when you book a place so take that, suckers.
"Why are they changing the tablecloth halfway through the meal?" Mike asks me. "We're just going to need it changed again later."

We are running out of fancy Mexico City restaurants we can safely come back to.

The rest of the meal is amazing and dessert is ridiculous. You hear "avocado ice cream" and go "no thanks" and then you eat a bite and you're like "oh damn my man well done." Because I'm allergic to nuts, they switch out a nutty sweet drink and give me a lemon meringue dish and I feel like that is a win for me because it's very very very good. There is a fancy churro Mike and I share. Dessert was solid.

Lamb taco served with zero utensils, but hey - I'm the savage here. Good taco tho.

Dessert was a feast unto itself.

From communism to snobby fancy restaurants, Mike and I are decidedly more comfortable in some arenas than others.

Girl Travels with Boyfriend Day 5: Frida Kahlo and Dia de los Muertos and the World Series

My face is still puffy this morning. I complain, but not very seriously. I know it will go down by the end of the day. Mike seems into it.
"It's like you're a different person," he says. "Hurry, we better get out of here before my girlfriend gets back."
I snort.
"No one would even think there was anything wrong. You just look like someone who is..."
But Mike didn't have the second half of that thought planned out, so it didn't have the exact impact he was going for.

We get breakfast and my stomach is still a little fragile but I manage. I am very brave.

We uber over to the Frida Kahlo house in the Coyoacan district. The line is ridiculously long. In Spanish there's a sign that says something about buying our tickets online. Mike thinks that means we absolutely have to. I tell him that's unlikely, that we can probably buy our tickets at the door, but he is adamant.

We buy the tickets, wait in line for another 40 minutes or so, and then I finally read the sign myself. I don't remember the exact words, but it seems pretty clear that it doesn't insist on us buying tickets online - it just means we could move to the front of the line faster if we've already bought them online ahead of time.

We waited another 40 minutes for no reason. At least we got some bomb churros out of it.

I don't know very much about Frida Kahlo but she's fascinating. The house is a must-see just to learn more about her as a person. She got polio when she was six and as a result, her right leg was shorter than the other. Then, at 18, the bus she was in got hit by a tramway and she almost died. Her injuries left her barren, and she got kind of obsessed with the motherhood she would never attain. Her husband, Diego Rivera, was probably more famous during their lifetime, but he was also a fat lecher and how are you gonna have an affair with your wife's sister like that? Frida had affairs too though, and after divorcing Rivera for sleeping with her sister (fair), they got remarried just one year later up in San Francisco. Some of these great love stories sound very exhausting to me and I don't think I'm up for all that emotional labor. How do people do it. Just be nice and stuff.

Not Frida's work exactly but some cool sculptures.

Dope courtyard at Casa Kahlo.

Eyes still recovering but a beautiful home.

There is also an exhibit relating specifically to Frida's clothes, and that was probably my favorite part of the exhibit. Frida required corsets because of her injuries, so she turned them into art in of themselves. She embraced the fashion of her mother's ancestry from southeast Mexico and covered her injuries and weaknesses with long skirts and beautiful jewelry to distract the eye. Her fashion became a source of strength for her. It was very interesting.

After the museum, Mike and I decided to wander around Coyoacan to see if there were any Day of the Dead celebrations happening. And you know what, there were! It was a carnival! All of these tamales and enchiladas and chicken sticks and chocolate and ferris wheels and wooden roller coasters. There was a mime act that Mike and I watched and really enjoyed. We got our faces painted. Mike wasn't sure he wanted to do it, but he got talked into it pretty quickly.

Setting up another altar.

The woman who paints Mike's face doesn't do a typical Catrina make-up look. She puts some purple in his beard and eyebrows and adds some glitter.
"Do you like it?" he asks me.
"Yes!"
"Me too. I look like Daario Naharis."
"Um. Sure."
"Dark. Mysterious. Dangerous. That's me, babe."
"Yes. Yes it is."
"Thank you. I knew you'd agree."
"Like you'd totally be able to get Khaleesi to bone you."
"Exactly. Yeah. Exactly."
"I think you look more like a deer version of a werewolf. Because of those antler things. Like a were-deer. You turn into a majestic deer at the full moon."
"I like Daario Naharis better."
"I like weredeer. It's elegant."
"I'm sticking with Daario Naharis."

La Calaverna Catrina in more modern clothing.

Daario + Catrina = <3

It started raining while we were getting our faces painted, so we had to buy ponchos. Mike is obsessed with umbrellas. He keeps talking about umbrellas. I suppose somewhere in the world is a place where when it rains, the water falls straight down, but after spending four years in Boston I do not trust umbrellas. When rain falls it falls sideways onto your face and into your mouth and your umbrella is just going to turn inside out and now you have an inside-out umbrella to carry on top of everything else. This is a bias I don't anticipate going away. Boston has ruined umbrellas for me.

Mike and I grab dinner nearby as we wait out the rain. Dia de los Muertos is interesting. There's so much of La Calaverna Catrina (the skeleton lady in the outfit from the 1910s that is associated so heavily with the holiday) but there also seems to be some straight up Halloween. Kids go trick-or-treating for three days straight and wear superhero costumes and pumpkin costumes and Monsters Inc costumes in addition to the typical Dia de los Muertos fare. It's pretty cool seeing two cultures come together. I am also jealous these kids get three days of trick-or-treating and I only ever got one but I suppose that is just a truth I will have to live with.

Mike and I order margaritas and some food. A guy with a guitar starts playing a Spanish version of "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps." I hum along because that song is great. The guitar player notices and asks if we would like a song. 60 pesos for one song, 100 pesos for 2.
"No, gracias," I say just as Mike says "si."
Mike wants to buy me a song. He tries to think of one his dad likes but he can't remember the full name of it. It's a nice little serenade.
"You're my dream girl," Mike says.
"Want a little wine with that cheese?"
"You like it."
I do kinda like it.

Dinner is saffron risotto and filet mignon stuffed with mushrooms. Still thinking about how good that risotto is.

Mike is pensive in the kitchen while wearing his poncho.

When we get back to the room we talk about which bar we'd like to go back to. I check Facebook and realize it's the 9th inning of Game 7 of the World Series and the Cubs and Indians are tied. I do not care about baseball. Baseball is boring. But the Cubs haven't won a World Series in 108 years and this is a big deal and I kind of like watching American sports games at bars in different countries.

Within five minutes we're back at the Irish pub. The game is on, but they're doing something with a tarp, and someone changes the game IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NINTH INNING to a soccer game. I wonder if this is real. We came here specifically because the TVs were showing the Cubs game and now we're watching soccer?

But it's clearly a shootout, so I know there's no point in asking them to change the channel until the shootout is over. Once it is, I ask an employee to put the baseball game back on.

"No," he says, like he can't believe anyone would care about baseball.
"It's historic!!!! This team hasn't won in over 100 years! It's game 7 of the World Series!" I am not a Cubs fan or a baseball fan but I'll be damned if I'm not a part of this moment in American history in even this very small way.

I remember I am getting excited about this and also I'm still wearing all my Catrina facepaint and I probably look pretty silly.

I ask a second person, and she says no, and then I ask a third person, and he says they're already changing it, and now we're at the top of the 10th inning and we get to watch a player steal second and there are cheers in the pub so I know we're not the only Americans here.

Mexico City. Irish pub. American baseball.

A live band plays some covers of American pop hits and it's pretty great and then we go to a second bar and there's a live band playing American pop hits and they are not quite as good and then we go home.

Great day.

I am very good at ending these posts thank you.

Girl Travels with Boyfriend Day 4: In Which I Visit My Third Hospital in a Foreign Country

Spoiler alert: I am fine. Second spoiler alert: either Mexican hospitals are remarkably cheap or Mike and I just ditched the bill. Third spoiler alert: that joke I made in a previous post about not learning my lesson about nuts was not only not funny but also turned out to be Chekhov's peanuts. (I am not pleased with that wordplay but I also cannot help myself.)



This morning is lazy. Mike is hungover and I'm a bit sleepy. We decide we're cooking dinner ourselves tonight, so Mike grabs a few last minute items and gets a marinade going. We decide to walk around Zocalo for Day of the Dead.

I buy a dope Day of the Dead shirt and then we walk around some street with cobblestones and no cars and so many Day of the Dead altars!!!! They are amazing. Pics are below. I took the first one and Mike took the rest.

Mike and I haven't eaten yet, so we decide our first order of business (after wandering around the altars) is to grab something from a taqueria. We find a place that looks good and order tacos with mole. Do you know where this is going? I should have.

Jingle All The Way plays on a TV in the back of this taqueria. I have to order an americano four times before it seems like the waiter understands. We're halfway through the meal before we get our coffee.

The tacos with mole look amazing. I take one bite and immediately can tell something is wrong. I don't taste anything at all. I taste warning sign.

"I think there's nuts in this," I tell Mike. Later, research would let us know mole often has nuts. I don't know why I didn't know this, but I do know why I didn't ask. Mike and I have asked various versions of "nueces, alergia, cacahuatas, tienes" and the waiter so rarely understands the question that I've gotten frustrated. I know you know what I'm saying when I say cacahuatas! My accent cannot be that bad!

We ask a nearby waiter if there are cacahuatas and he doesn't comprehend. We ask another man who seems to know some English, and at first he is confused, and he asks a cook, and they say no and it's safe to eat. But it's not appetizing to me anymore. Mike finishes his food. I don't want anything else.

Then the same man, who assured us the food was safe, comes back over and tells us that there are, in fact, peanuts in the sauce. I give the plate back and don't order anything else. They bring out flan because they feel bad, and I have one bite, but I'm not feeling it.

Jingle All The Way is a terrible movie. I had forgotten about Sinbad. Mike says last he heard, Sinbad was working on a cruise ship. That was 10 years ago.

They play a movie called Boys and Girls next where Freddie Prinze Jr. plays a NERD and that woman from Meet Joe Back - Claire Forlani? - is nice to him even though he is not nice to her. Jason Biggs is in it and he is young. I think his face has gotten more punchable as he has gotten older.

We keep walking for a bit and Mike is very concerned about my nut reaction. He thinks it is a big deal that I accidentally ate nuts. I think nut allergies are the dumbest thing and I'd rather just not deal, so I play it cool. I tell him very calmly that I have to find a private alleyway so I can vomit. If I am relaxed, Mike is relaxed.

Mike wants to go back to the room. We had such a late start today that I have no interest in doing that. We are enjoying Mexico City, goddamn it.

We pass a street called Simon Bolivar and I tell Mike it's a missed opportunity to call it Simon Boulevard. He agrees.

We find a dark parking garage with no security just in time - I was about to throw up in the middle of the street and that would have been a whole thing. Mike gives me a modicum of privacy. He is intrigued by a Lady of Guadeloupe altar in the middle of this dark and seedy garage. I feel somewhat better after throwing up.

"Bitch I'm back," I tell him, appropriating Beyonce's "Formation" because I feel like a rockstar after getting it mostly out of my system. Mike is relieved.

We grab water at a convenience store. Mike wants to look at a church and I don't want to. Am I in a hurry to get somewhere? I realize I am still irritable despite trying to play it cool. I try harder to be cool.

We keep walking and the streets get more and more crowded. I see a farmacia and tell Mike I'd like to get some benedryl. We stop. The lady doesn't know what benedryl is. I take out my phone and type it on my notes app. Still nothing. I type "alergia" and she gets it and finds some medicine. I remember I have a benedryl pill in my purse and take it, but I also buy the extra allergy medicine.

We decide to walk to Templo Mayor but I am not getting better. I cough, but I remind myself I'm still recovering from a cold. I'm getting an itch here and there, but it's not hives, obviously - I only break out in hives when my reaction is serious, and this reaction isn't serious, so it's obviously not hives - so I do my best to ignore the itching. The stomach pain doesn't go away.

It's so crowded. It's so crowded. I want to sit down. People are yelling at me to buy things in Spanish and I don't want to deal with it. Where are the trash cans? I have two empty water bottles and I'm so annoyed I'm still carrying them. Why isn't my stomach feeling better? It's not a serious reaction, that itch isn't getting worse, it's not spreading, I don't need to scratch my scalp-

My face puffs up and I can physically feel it. Well, I've gotten puffy face without a serious reaction. But it wasn't paired with a stomach pain that won't stop. I didn't feel this weak. The itching is starting to become something I can't ignore. My breathing is labored in a way that has nothing to do with the cold I'm essentially over.

"I would like to go to the hospital," I tell Mike calmly. I almost add the word "please." He agrees. I walk quickly - the hospital isn't a terribly far walk but I don't want to waste too much time. Mike keeps pace with me. I'm feeling weaker, and every time I check my maps app, it feels like the hospital we're going to gets farther and farther away. Finally my maps app goes blank. Mike's phone is dead. I don't know how to get to the hospital anymore, and it's probably another 20 minutes of walking at least.

If I'm being honest with myself, I don't think twenty minutes of fast-paced walking is a good idea at this point.

Mike sees a restaurant and says we should beg them to let us use their WiFi to call an uber. I agree. I usually would do the talking but good god I need something to lean on at this point because standing up is just so tiring. I remain calm, or try to, but everyone else is moving so slowly and I would like to get to the hospital now, thank you.

"Don't panic," Mike says, and I am annoyed because I am not panicking, thankyouverymuch, and it takes me a minute to realize that he is repeating that phrase for himself just as much as he is for me and my grouchy attitude.

They let us use the WiFi - a true testament to how awful a puffy, red face and a body grabbing onto a chair for dear life can look. The uber driver comes. I feel much better. We will be at the hospital soon. Once there, I will be fine.


I remember my first allergic reaction out of the country. I was 20, and in Budapest, and had eaten a candy bar with roasted peanut flour. The hospital didn't know what an allergic reaction was, and I got lucky and the reaction wasn't bad. I didn't need medical attention after all. I worry the hospital here will not know how to treat an allergic reaction. I try to push the thought out of my mind. There isn't anything I can do if they don't know how.

I remember my second time I had an allergic reaction abroad, in January 2014. My friend Pip and I were on Atiu, an island in the Cook Islands with about 100 people living there. I told her it was mild and would pass, and she very calmly said "okay, I trust you, but what if - and hear me out - today we went to the hospital?" It was a smooth trick, so I agreed to it. When we got there, I pointed to the expensive pricing at the hospital just for being seen by a doctor and told her it would be a waste of money because there was no way in hell they had anything that could help me, all the way out here in the middle of the South Pacific. And again, it was mild. And again, I am lucky to travel with people who are more concerned about my anaphylaxis than I am.

I don't always pay attention to little details like "what exactly are the ingredients in this thing I'm about to put inside my body?"

I don't count the almost-hospital visit in Atiu as my second visit. I count the visit in Rarotonga, the main island in the Cook Islands, when I finally caved and decided to treat my leg for the second-degree burn I sustained four days earlier when my calf hit an exposed muffler on a motor bike. They gave me a shot of penicillin in my butt. I'd never had a shot in my butt before my trip to the Cook Islands. I guess I can say I have now.

While in the uber, I remember being stranded in Belize when my car broke down. I remember my various hospital visits. I remember my flight from Berlin to Geneva being grounded because of a volcano erupting in Iceland. I remember my one-person car accident driving in the snow from Boston up to Montreal. I remember I have travel days like Sunday, where Mike and I spend a beautiful day in Xochimilco, like normal tourists, and days like Monday, where Mike and I wander around Polanco like typical visiting Americans, and then I remember I have days like today, where my belief in my own invincibility leads me to yet another hospital in a foreign country.

This uber driver is literally the slowest driver I've ever had in any city I've ever been. He knows we're going to the hospital, and he picks the lanes with all the cars in it even when there's a lane with no cars right next to it. He drives the speed limit, if that. I swear to God he's playing elevator music. I moan in the backseat.
"This ride is a joke," I mutter weakly.
"What?" Mike asks.
"Nothing," I mumble.
I think about saying "um, emergencia, alergia, hospital" to the driver. I imagine him responding "hey, rules are rules" in Spanish, because this dude seems like a total Pollyanna. I decide to groan a little bit more loudly to see if that affects his driving. It does not. It does succeed in worrying Mike even further. I feel like a dick but I am not feeling well enough to correct Mike. I figure he'll see I'll be fine once we get to the hospital.
"Hotel California" by The Eagles starts playing, and I think to myself I hate the fucking Eagles, man. I laugh in my head. I lean against the car window. When the driver's map app shows we're only 4 minutes away, I do math to keep my brain occupied. 240 seconds, I tell myself. Too long to hold your breath underwater, I remind myself. Stop being an idiot, we're almost there, I tell my morbid thoughts.

We get to the hospital and find the waiting room, but hospitals in Mexico are set up differently than they are in the States, and we don't know where to check in. We find a nice lady doctor wearing jeans and nice boots and Day of the Dead nail polish and I say "alergia - cacahuatas" and she sees immediately what's happening and sits me down while sending Mike to go figure out paperwork.

She takes my blood pressure and it's low. It's very low. She makes some sort of decision and tells me to bring my stuff with me and takes me to a room.

I'm moved to a room that seems to be a nurse's station of sorts. No bed. The doctors come back to relax. People come in to discuss prescriptions. They know I'm American, so I assume they're doing this because I can't afford a different room. I'm not sure. I'm happy to be treated, and honestly, the less pomp about it the better. They give me an oxygen mask. I feel much improved.

A nurse grabs a plastic glove and wraps it around my forearm, right under the elbow. I know she's about to give me a shot. I look away. She gives it to me right in the back of the forearm, under the wrist. I have never had a shot here before. I hate it. I can feel the needle inside me the whole time. It's painful, stretching the skin. She draws blood. It feels like it's in there for an hour when I'm sure it was only 60 or so seconds. Now I know why I've never gotten a shot in my forearm before. I'll take the finger prick any day.

Mike sits down in the room with me. His eyes are teary. I try to tell him everything is going to be fine now that I'm being treated, but too many people are fussing over me and I can't find the words. I feel like an asshole, looking at Mike, and I wish I hadn't groaned so loudly in the uber. A nurse tells him the room is too busy and he has to leave.

The same nurse, Forearm Shot Nurse, goes to give me another show in the crease of the elbow. This time I allow myself a vocal response, a short gasp of pain, at insert instead of just gritting my teeth. Who the fuck am I being stoic for anyway?

Hooked up to fluids and wearing an oxygen mask, I still feel weak but I feel better. Relieved. Everything is going to be fine. I wonder how expensive the bill is. I wonder if I'm going to need to move money around to pay for it. I think about the fact that I'm in a hospital in Mexico City and I wonder why I travel when this sort of shit happens every time I go abroad.

I thought about why and I wish I had some profound response. No, really, I do. I got really flowery with the language in my head, staring out the window of the hospital with the oxygen mask over my face, as I pondered my desire to travel as often as I do. The words felt fake. Honestly, I travel because I like it. Even with the dumb situations I find myself in (whether or not they are my own doing), I still get to experience days like Xochimilco. Dinners like BIKO. In bad situations I learn what I'm capable of. In good situations I get to embrace a new experience. I don't travel because it's good for the soul, I travel because it's fun and I like who I am when I'm somewhere new. I travel for silly, superficial reasons. I like being able to ignore work emails. I like hitting a corner of the Earth I've never been to before. I like learning people are mostly the same. I like finding the details that are different in manners and customs from one place to the next - the silly little things that may be rude in one place but perfectly normal in the next.

I am a disaster in my everyday life at home. I spill food on myself multiple times a day. I am surprised when I'm carrying ten things in my arm and one of them falls to the floor. I don't get why gravity has to be so constant sometimes. Why would I suddenly be less of a Calamity Jane just because I'm in another country? I'm still just as careless, just as blasé in the face of indisputable scientific fact when it doesn't suit my purposes.

Mike comes back again now that the nurses are gone.
"Everything is fine," I tell him. He is clear-eyed now.
"I know. I'll be more careful about asking about nuts at restaurants."
"Mike, it's my responsibility to ask about nuts. I'm an adult."
"Still."
It's sweet. I don't want to argue about it.
"That uber was slow, huh?" I ask.
"Yes! I should have said something."
"I don't think it would have made a difference." I share my observations about the Pollyanna-ness of thr driver and his elevator music.
"It was like Girl From Ipanema up in there," I say.
Mike laughs. I start humming the tune to that song. I even shimmy a bit. I wonder if the nurses liked me better when I was too exhausted to talk.
"I'm gonna hate that song now," he says.
We're quiet for a bit. I lean against the wall, still tired.
"I'm gonna be fine, Mike."
"I know."
"I'll probably have to wear this oxygen mask the rest of the trip."
Mike looks concerned. His eyes go wide.
"Are you -"
"No. I'm joking."
Mike guffaws and leans down, head in hands.
"I'm mad at you," he says.
"Are we in a fight?" I ask.
"Yes."
Mmm. I sing the melody from Girl from Ipanema again.

We find the pharmacy and the only amount of money I'm asked to pay is 48 pesos for the prescription. That's it. That's my entire bill. That is less than $3 US. Is there something I was supposed to pay and didn't? I saw something previously for 1720 pesos, which is still less than $100 US - not bad, considering. But I don't see that particular bill again. Just the one for 48 pesos. Huh.

Mike and I call an uber back and eat dinner in the room. I want to go out but I'm fading. Mike is unconcerned with going out. He cooks a chicken dinner and it's delicious. I decide I would like to walk somewhere for dessert. He agrees. We get some pretty dope flan.

It's late again. Tomorrow we are painting our faces. I had wanted to do that earlier today, before eating. I wonder what that would have looked like - holed up in the hospital, fighting an allergic reaction, white and black face paint smeared from when I rubbed the puffiness in my eyes. I coulda been so cute.

"I'm sorry I ruined today," I tell Mike. "Thank you for taking care of me."
"I didn't do anything," he protests.
"There is no way I would have made it without you," I tell him honestly.

Tomorrow is also Day of the Dead. Everything is great. We have a great trip ahead of us. What's a few hours in the hospital, really?

Girl Travels with Boyfriend Day 3: Polanco is Too Fancy for Us

Mike and I start the day at HSBC so we can get some pesos for our dollars, only to be told they don't take American dollars either. Nobody wants our stupid American dollars. ATMs it is, I guess. We'll have to redeposit those dollars back in LA.

We have breakfast on the later end and decide to walk to Polanco. The museums are closed on Mondays, so today is a shopping and walking sort of day.

Polanco may not be technically far, but it's hard to get to from Condesa for pedestrians. The sidewalks surrounding Chapultepec, which is smack dab in the middle of the two neighborhoods, were blocked off, and we found ourselves walking along the highway for a good portion of our excursion.

At one point we walked by a dentist's office and saw someone getting their teeth cleaned. Like, right there. Two feet away. Only a glass window separating us. It was unsettling.

"I have an idea for a sketch," Mike tells me as we walk by the dentist.
"No, please don't," I tell him. I brace myself for the usual pitch. The same pitch he always does when he has "an idea" for a sketch.
"A guy goes to different countries and can't believe how barbaric the practices are but really he's the one who's backwards. Like 'I bet they don't even use clean pliers when pulling out all your teeth at the dentist.'"
"That's pretty good actually." It is pretty good. I am also thrilled he did not bring up space wizards for the 879th time. ("Okay, check it out. It's wizards, but they're in space. Space wizards. Spwizards, if you will. No, Caitlin, they're not like Jedi. Not at all. How can you even say that? You don't get it, do you? You just don't get it. Okay, let's try again. They're wizards, you see, but in space.") In fact, while the sketch idea is good and I am impressed, I am mostly just relieved to not be discussing space wizards again.
"You can use it."

As we walk up a hill, I grow weary of walking. It's been maybe 40 minutes.
"I'm tired," I complain.
"I'll carry you. Throw you over my shoulder."
That sounds uncomfortable so I decline.
When we're done with the hill I feel better.
"Sorry I was grouchy for a second there," I say.
"Yeah but you were cute grouchy."
Mike is unfazed by my complaints and mood swings. I have hit the jackpot.

We finally make it to Polanco. The streets have names like Arquimedes and Homero, so Mike is stoked. It is definitely the Beverly Hills of Mexico City. Everyone is whiter, blonder, thinner, and the streets are wider, cleaner, more orderly.

"I told you we'd make it. You doubted me. All this responsibility on my little, petite, tiny, little shoulders," I say.
"Yeah but I like your shoulders."
"That's why they were made. For your male gaze."
"Good."

The Beverly Hills of Mexico City/Polanco is expensive. Shopping is all Gucci and Louis Vuitton and Dolce & Gabbana. We stopped for a moment in Hugo Boss and I fell in love with a pair of boots. I checked the price tag. Nope. The boots didn't even try to love me back. I learn to live with the heartbreak.

Hours of walking later we decide to head back to the room to rest before dinner - which, coincidentally, is also in Polanco.

Five minutes after getting back to the room, rain pours down. Thunder and lightning. Our kitchen area is situated sort of like a greenhouse, so we sit and watch the rain and the thunder and the lightning for a bit. It's nice.

We go back out again to BIKO and have one of the top ten dinners of my life. BIKO is exceptional. They have a tasting menu that is seven tiny courses. I do not have it in me to say no to a tasting menu.  I will never have it in me to say no to a tasting menu.

The waiter speaks English. Half the patrons speak English. The toilets flush by themselves. Polanco is worlds away from Xochimilco.

Me at the beginning of the night.

Mike at the beginning of the night.

We have a mushroom (a single mushroom) with guacamole and that explanation sounds lame but it's literally the best mushroom I've ever had in my life. The guacamole is so smooth. SO SMOOTH. I didn't even know it was possible for guac to be so smooth. We later have guacamole on a scallop. It is extraordinary. All of the dishes are extraordinary.

Pic doesn't tell you how light and airy the pastry is, or how refreshing the fruits and chocolate are. Pretty tho!

Oh, but the tasting menu also comes with multiple wine tastings, and because the food was taking a little while, the waiter gave us more wine than he usually pours to make up for it. There are six different wines to taste, and he pours healthy glasses of each kind, and now he's pouring extra because he wants us to be satisfied customers. By the end of the night, Mike and I are hammered.

Carlos did not wait for us to be done with one glass before pouring the next.

This restaurant is so fancy - we had to take an elevator to get to it! - and everyone else is doing the tasting menu and they're handling themselves just fine and Mike and I are laughing and laughing and just so drunk. Mike blames me. He says it's because I'm Irish. I tell him Irish and Mexican are basically the same - Catholic, big families, want to be Republican so badly - and he agrees. This renders his argument void, but he doesn't seem bothered.

We can't ever come back here.

There is a girl at a table in front of me that looks like an Olsen sibling and I keep looking at her. She looks like Elizabeth Olsen. Is Elizabeth Olsen in Mexico City? Is there another Olsen sibling that lives in Mexico City? I can't decide if it's likely or unlikely. I try not to stare. I keep staring.

We get more delicious food. We get more alcohol. The guy next to us is British and he has an annoying voice and a stupid haircut and a weak chin but I think by the end of the meal he hates us more than we hate him. To be fair, I don't hate him for a very good reason. Sometimes I see a person and I have an immediate, negative reaction. His hatred for us, meanwhile, was definitely earned.

Carlos, our waiter, continues to pour well into dessert. Not all heroes wear capes.

In the uber I speak French because I am pretentious and also sad that I have a language skill but it is languishing right now. Languishing. The driver knows we're drunk. He seems amused.

We get back to the room and Mike tells me he's never drinking again. The next morning we take it slow. Guess museums will have to wait for another day.

Girl Travels with Boyfriend Day 2: Xochimilco is Dope AF

"Aren't you glad I forced you out of bed for this?" Mike says with a smug grin. "You could spend the afternoon napping anywhere."
"Yes," I smile, rolling my eyes. Mike enjoys a fun role reversal every now and then, pretending I was the one napping and he was the one rearing to go do something today.

The truth is neither of us could know how much we were going to enjoy Xochimilco. While Condesa has a decidedly European feel to it - perfectly manicured trees, brick buildings and modern buildings, coffee shops, and breakfast cafes - Xochimilco is everything we pictured Mexico City would be.

The uber ride was 45 minutes and cost us $10 US. I had input "Xochimilco" as our destination, and the directions were taking our driver to a place he couldn't actually get to. He speaks no English, and we speak little Spanish. He takes out his Google translate and we manage a conversation where Mike and I try to convey that he can drop us off pretty much anywhere in Xochimilco and we'll be okay. At one point Google translates something he says into "excretion" in English. It is not a perfect tool.

Xochimilco smells amazing, but I am still recovering from the Mexican crepes earlier today. The food is rich here, and my taste glands are way ahead of my stomach on that one. Tacos stands and churros stands and fruit stands and corn stands line the streets. Taquerias and pizza places sit behind them. We look specifically for "embarcaderos." Mike doesn't ask many questions, so I don't know if he knows we're looking for the lagoons yet. He's happy to let me lead. I'm happy to lead. It's a good set-up.

Day of the Dead sand art. Dancing in the background.

Day of the Dead altar.

Before we get to the lagoons, though, we walk through the open air markets in the center of town. They all have a Day of the Dead bent to them. Altars are set up. People are in costume. More churro smells. There's a church concert being set up, and Mike wants to wander. It's 3:45 PM and cloudy, and I want to make it to the lagoons before it's too late. I tell him we'll come back later, when the concert is ready to go.

As we get closer to the embarcaderos, a guy on a bike asks us if that's what we're looking for. At that point, we'd just been following street signs, but he was going to lead us right there. When we arrive, he says the trip will take 2 hours. Mike and I want to use the bathroom first. Xochimilco is a different kind of neighborhood than Condesa is. The guy on the bike leads us to a convenience store where we each pay 5 pesos for the use of a glorified porcelain hole in the floor. He hands us each a paper towel because they don't have toilet paper.

I am a faster pee-er than Mike is. I brag about this. I am also impatient to get on the boat in the lagoon.
"Your medal is in the mail," Mike says, clearly not worried about his reputation.
"It better be express," I tell him. "Wait, never mind. Don't worry about it. I don't do it for the accolades."

We get on the boat and pay the guy on the bike. A young boy brings over a bucket full of beer bottles. Each beer we open will be 25 pesos - not even $2 US each. Our lagoon captain doesn't speak English, but he understands we're hungry. I have finally overcome the Mexican crepes from breakfast due to the constant stream of amazing smells in the Xochimilco neighborhood.

The next two hours Mike and I spend with our mouths in open grins, eating chicken tacos and cheese quesadillas, drinking Negro Modelo, and listening to music as we float down the canals of the lagoon. It is incredible. It is one of the most fun things I've ever done in my life. Sometimes we stop to look at the gardens that are on the side. Boats carrying musicians come up and down the waterways. Boats carrying corn and tacos are everywhere. Dogs sometimes bark on the side. People throw parties on the boats. I can't even really describe it in any way that will do it justice, so the pics will have to do.

The dock with all the boats.

Mike with our bucket o' beer.

On the lagoon.

When Mike realized he got to have two quesadillas instead of one, it was the happiest he'd ever been in his life.

Boats.

Definitely some weird shit.

I think it's a naked woman who hanged her husband and now has a million children to raise?

Flowers are dope.

#selfie

"When I see other Americans, I wonder if we're that obnoxious," Mike tells me. "No way, right?"
"I think that too," I respond, "but then I remember we don't speak Spanish."

After the lagoon ride, Mike and I walk around Xochimilco. We're far from home, don't trust the taxis (people keep telling me these awful stories), and haven't done any research on metros, so we need to find internet so I can call an uber. But we're in no hurry, and the Day of the Dead celebrations are just gearing up. We make our way back to the center of town. It's crowded, and all the booths are full of chintzy holiday decorations. There are cotton candy makers, but my stomach is once again mad at me for too many tacos (worth it, stomach), so I am not tempted. As they make the cotton candy, some stray bits fly out. Kids try to catch them. Kids love free candy.

Mike also tries to catch them.

He finally succeeds, grabbing it from above the head of an actual child, not just a 28-year-old acting like one. He is proud of himself. I am in a committed relationship with this man. We walk on.

Mike and I make our way over to the church, where we see the biggest, bloodiest Jesus on a crucifix I've ever seen. He is covered in blood. There is blood on this Jesus from his thorn-crowned head to his bloody toes. Streaks of blood. Whoever made this Jesus spent so much time on the blood. This Jesus is also about 20 feet tall. The room it hangs in is not large. This is a tiny room with a giant, bloody Jesus.

Mike and I slowly start looking around for a coffee shop. We are not in a hurry to go home, but it would be nice to have the option. In the middle of a square, a stage is set up, and there's a teenage dance recitals where all the kids have their Day of the Dead make-up on. We watch for about 45 minutes because it's so fun. They do all different kinds of routines. One teenage boy in particular has a smile on his face the whole time. When they wear cowboy hats, he sometimes takes it off during a turn. He is so into it. I want him to be in every routine.

Behind us, a small parade starts. Everyone is in full Day of the Dead regalia in the parade. Mike and I follow it for a while. It's so fun - maracas shaking, people dancing, incredible costumes and make-up... but also terrible fireworks. Loud and visually unimpressive. Also, why are fireworks still cool? Like, I don't remember the last time I saw a firework show and thought to myself "wow, really glad I put the effort into watching this, definitely not like literally every other firework show I've ever seen." They are always disappointing.

We found some internet and got back to Condesa around 9 PM. Mike and I break out our bottle of wine and have a glass each. Mike is hungry again, so we stop at a restaurant before going out to a bar. I have some dope flan. Service in Mexico is immediate. They want to take our order immediately. I never know what I want, and I don't know enough Spanish to say "not sure yet" which seems like an easy thing to learn, so I ended up eating dessert at the same time Mike was having his linguine con pollo.

Mike's linguine con pollo is made with pesto, but since there are pine nuts on top I assume it's the safe kind for me to eat and have a bite. It is probably not the safe kind for me to eat because my mouth immediately reacts as though I just had walnuts. I know I didn't eat enough to have that bad of a reaction, but I also wonder why I am still making the mistake of accidentally consuming nuts all the time. I could just not try a bit of the linguine. But I also really like linguine. Is this where I'm supposed to exhibit self-control? I obviously did not die, so we'll see if that lesson sticks or not.

After dinner Mike and I go to an Irish pub, because I love Irish pubs anywhere in the world. IRISH PUBS ARE THE BEST. Mike gets a beer and I get something called a "pure Irish" which ends up being an Irish car bomb, but the waiter drops the shot into the Guinness for me, which throws the whole thing off. My chest is still recovering from the walnuts, so I wouldn't be able to down the whole thing in one gulp anyway.

The pub played some hits from the 80s, like Sweet Child O Mine (turns out the only words I know are the chorus) and the one about Jessie and how he likes his girls a little bit older. Mike and I haven't been to a bar in forever, so it was fun going out.

Mike took this pic of me singing.

We each took a shot of Jack Daniels Honey because I cannot handle a real whiskey shot and then headed back to our room earlier than expected but still later than last night. We've adjusted to Mexico City, I think. The rest of the trip won't be focused entirely on our sleep schedule.

Girl Travels with Boyfriend Days 0 & 1: No Sleep 'til Mexico City

Mike and I have been talking for over a year about where we want to travel together. He was holding on to Paris, his dream vacation, whereas I was hoping for something closer but still out of the country. I wouldn't be mad at Paris because Paris is dope, but it's far and expensive and I've been, and after talking it over, we agreed on Mexico City. 4 hour plane ride, a fraction of the price a Paris vacation would be, and still a lot to offer for the average tourist.

We booked a few restaurants a month ahead of time (one of them - Pujol - was already pretty booked up, so we had to rearrange some things to get a table there), planned a day trip, wrote down some things we wanted to do, and left a good deal open so we could just explore Mexico City while it was celebrating Day of the Dead, a huge two-day festival November 1 and 2.

We planned for a 6 AM flight out Saturday, October 29, and we would return Sunday, November 6, in the afternoon.

Mike hasn't left the country in about 25 years, so leading up to the trip he asked me 10 or 12 or 78 times what to pack for our one-week stay. 

"I'll check this bag and carry this one," he said when he thought he had everything.

"You're not checking a bag for a one week vacation," I told him. "You wear basically the same thing everyday anyway."

"I need all this though."

I looked over at his bag.

"You can carry that on. You don't need to check it."

"I know! I meant that I was 'checking it out' to make sure I had everything before leaving, Caitlin. Obviously. Haven't you ever traveled before?"

It was 1:30 AM at this point so I decided to let him have his joke, as long as we were all clear there would be no checking of bags.

With a 6 AM international flight, I wanted to get to the airport 3 hours early. I am late to maybe everything in my life, but I am absolutely never late to the airport. I am stupid early. I have missed two flights in my life - one when I was 20 and didn't take into account how far London airports could be from each other, and another last year in Belize when my car broke down in the middle of nowhere on the way to the airport - and I did not like it. It's expensive and stupid to miss a flight, so I would rather sit on my hands with nothing to do for an hour or two at the airport than risk missing a flight.

Mike works nights, so we knew when we booked the trip that Mike would be going straight from work to the airport without sleeping. I forgot that, with my work shift ending around 11:30 PM Friday night,  I also would not have time to sleep before our trip. In fact, it wasn't until I was on my way to work Friday afternoon that I realized we had set ourselves up to be awake for over 30 hours to start out our trip to Mexico City. This wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but I missed work Tuesday because I was sick in bed all day, and I was still recovering from that. Being up for over 30 hours and flying was not a good remedy for getting over that. Is not getting enough sleep related to getting sick? If I personally believe the answer is no, does that make it so?

At 2:45 AM, Mike and I call an uber to take us to the airport. The driver is in his early 30s and getting an MBA to work in private equity. We talk a bit about finance, and because I know a little about it (very, very little), he tries to convince me to take that career path. I do think finance is fascinating, and what he had to say was mostly interesting, but talking to strangers about finance always entails a bit of "YOU CAN MAKE SO MUCH MONEY BRO" talk and that gets old very quickly.

At the airport Mike and I do a bit of waiting for things to open, and finally we get to security. I get very impatient with slow people who don't know how to take shoes off and separate their laptops in a timely manner. Two people cut me in the security line while  was doing my thing, and this was very irritating to me. I'm not slow! How dare you! 

I turn around and see Mike and remember I am traveling with a n00b and sigh, gathering as much patience as I was able to muster (not much). Once through security, Mike takes as much even longer putting everything back together. I tease him about it.

"There's no space for me to put my shoes back on!" he defends himself. I decide not to point out that everyone else has the same amount of space because I am, at the very least, not the world's worst girlfriend.

We sit in the terminal and Mike noticed there was a money change place across from us. We both have some American cash on us, and I tell him the best place to change money was a bank, but we probably have to get some money at the airport once we get to Mexico City so we can make it to our Airbnb. He walks over and exchanged all his cash for pesos at the airport money change place, then sits down next to me. I do some math with the exchange rate and tell him he needs to refund his money.

"They ripped you off $60," I say. I show him the math on the calculator. "See, it's 18.98 pesos for a dollar. You should have gotten 1000 more pesos for what you gave them. You won't get all of that, obviously, but 1000 pesos is a lot. You need to exchange it."

Mike sits there, looking at my calculator app and the pesos in his hand. 

"I can do it if you want me to," I offer.

"No," Mike says. He continues to sit and ponder the pesos. I was getting impatient.

"Babe, it's $60. It's a lot of money."

"I know," Mike says, now irritated. He gets up and walks back over to the desk. I watch as he speaks with the rep and then walks back, still with the pesos. Assuming the worst - this is how they make their money, after all, and they might not do refunds - I get up and grab the pesos from him.

"Caitlin! She said she had to wait until her manager got there. He'll be in at 5:30."

I give him the money back. We sit down. 

"I'm sorry," I say, referring to grabbing the pesos and generally treating him like a kid.

"You just assume I don't know how to do anything," he responds. He uses that voice, his Serious Conversation voice, and I know I can't brush off what just happened with an apology because now he wants to talk about it. No part of me is interested in this Serious Conversation - it's 5:15 AM, we're in an airport terminal, and I'm running on - wait, let me calculate that real quick, oh right - zero hours of sleep. And all this before a week-long trip together!

So we talk, and Mike brings up a few other instances that I thought we'd already talked about, but I guess he wants to talk about again - here - now. He's worried I think he's a dunce who can't take care of himself.

"Just tell me you don't think I'm dumb," he says. I groan. This isn't a Serious Conversation where we both talk about our flaws. This is him bummed that my carelessly superior attitude sometimes makes him feel an idiot. I take a breath and try to figure out how to word what I want to say.

"I know I sometimes make people feel stupid without meaning to," I said. It's a realization I only had about a month or so ago, and it's a frustrating one because I don't know when I'm doing it, so I don't know how to fix it or stop doing it. Do people call me out on it? I don't think so. Maybe they do and I don't hear them calling me out because I think we're all having fun and they're thinking "man, Caitlin is being a dick rn." 

"I told you that a few weeks ago and asked if I ever made you feel that way, and you said no," I continue.

"Well I've thought about it since then."

"I wouldn't date you if I thought you were an idiot. I just... it's just, we all have gaps. I think sometimes you would rather not deal with something and give it up as a loss, that's all. I do stupid shit too. I ran out of gas just last year in a brand new hybrid on the freeway. Who even does that? How does that happen?"

Mike laughs. "I remember that snapchat."

"I don't think you're stupid. I'm sorry."

"It's ok." He kissed me and I put my head on his shoulder and the Serious Conversation was over.

At 5:30 Mike walks back to the money change place and they give him a refund.

On the plane I try to sleep and succeed for maybe an hour. Mike doesn't even bother trying. Maybe he's too wired. By the time we land at noon, we hit our 24 hour mark.

We make our way through customs and had to find a taxi. The woman running the airbnb had asked us to call when we were on our way from the airport, but we can't figure out how to call a Mexican number, and the internet at the airport isn't working on our phones, I decide we should just taxi to the airbnb anyway and, worst case scenario, find a coffee shop to hunker down in and figure out how to call her from there.

I change a small amount of money at the airport - enough to get us to our room and then a little extra.

Almost everyone we spoke with at this point - customs agent excepted - spoke only Spanish. Money changing and ordering a taxi were easy enough (point at a thing, use the few words I know, etc), but I'm starting to worry. I assumed some people in Mexico City spoke English because I am a child of the privilege wrought by generations of American imperialism and I demand the world revolve around said privilege, but it was becoming clear my optimistic assumption was wrong. Mike speaks no Spanish either, and already several people have directed their part of the conversation to Mike in the assumption that he at least spoke Spanish. Mike is half Mexican, which is why they assumed he could speak the language, but he does not speak the language, so those people only ended up disappointed.

We probably spent about 20 minutes total in the airport after we had gone through customs, but when we got in the taxi, Mike turns to me.

Mexico City is enormous and not as many people speak English as I had hoped. I'm out of practice in this kind of situation. Every time I want to try to speak Spanish with the phrases and words I knew, it comes out as French, which is not super helpful. I think in my head "est-ce qu'il y a..." and realize I don't know how to translate that into Spanish at all. Useless. Some stuff I can understand, based on the stale French I remember from my time in France 6 and a half years ago, but a lot more of it I can't. And I certainly have trouble responding.

For a few seconds at the airport, when I saw the signs for Avis, I thought about renting a car. I always think about renting a car when I'm in a new place. Driving a car means more freedom. I quickly ignored the impulse, and thank Jesus for that. The taxi ride is arguably the most terrifying taxi experience in my life. Are there rules of the road in Mexico? The driver does u-turns whenever he feels like it. Are there lanes in Mexico? I sees cars next to each other, going the same way, but no marks to signify said lanes, and they cut each other off as if that's just what driving is. Our cab driver almost hits a parked car multiple times on the way to our room. Sometimes we're so close to the taquerias I wonder if I can order one from the car without having to step out.

We get to our location, and there's a small cafe next to us where they let us use the internet (some English on their end, and more pointing at things on my end, helps us communicate). I figure out how to call a Mexican phone number - you don't need enter the Mexico country code when you're INSIDE Mexico!!!! Duh!!!! - and we call the neighbor we're supposed to call. She speaks minimal English, but she understands enough to know we're downstairs. 

It is 1:30 PM and we have been awake for so long. We get inside and she's again mostly speaking to Mike, who in his head has already decided I'm in charge of communicating with other people. He will tell me this at lunch later.

It's a cute, quaint apartment complex, colorfully painted. We walk up 37 flights of very narrow metal stairs and then down 16 flights of narrows metal stairs to get to our room. (It might have been four or five flights up followed by one down, but I was not expecting these stairs at all and we had our luggage and I was very tired so it certainly felt like 37 flights of stairs.) She hands us a piece of paper with the rules (people live here, so don't be a dick at all hours of the night, here is the internet, here is the supermarket, here are the banks), hands us the keys, and leaves.

Just have to climb a few flights of stairs to get to our room.

I know I'm complaining about the stairs, but we do love our room. It's very well-situated in Condesa and it's a nice room inside too.

The view from the patio is also pretty solid.

It's Saturday, so the banks close at 3 PM and won't open again until Monday. We head to Nova Scotia bank. I am very bummed to learn the teller does not speak English (even the bank teller? even he? I am utterly lost) and decide to take out my American dollars and the few pesos I have and try to mime exchanging them for each other. I feel I mostly succeed in making myself a target. This is La Condesa, right? This neighborhood is the neighborhood of the university students, right? This is the "Silverlake" of Mexico City, right? I have never felt more, ugh, American in my life. 

The bank has no American dollars and I am trying to contain my outrage because it is certainly not earned, but I am tired and outrage comes easily. I walk outside and tell Mike we'll look for one more bank before giving up. I see HSBC - saved! They MUST have the ability to change money! - but they're closed already, so we hit up an ATM and I take out less money than I realize because doing math in my head is getting harder as the day goes on. Still, it's enough for some light shopping and lunch.

The Condesa neighborhood is beautiful. There are so many trees and so much greenery, along with cobblestone walking paths in the middle of the streets and boldly-colored buildings next to each other. Mike and I are so happy to be here.

Circle K. Nice.

Mike walking around.

Mike and I eat at a place called Azul Condesa. I am not super hungry, and it's after 3 PM and we have 7 PM dinner reservations, so we share food. We try guacamole with grasshoppers, which is interesting but I think the grasshoppers are maybe too salty. Mike loves them. Our waiter gives us tequila to try. I had forgotten I can't hang with tequila by itself, but that half-shot reminded me in a hurry. We get margaritas and I talk us into having two each, which is a decision I still stand behind because they were delicious. The second one was a pineapple margarita and it was great.

Mmm, guacamole with grasshoppers. Salty.

"We're getting up at 7 AM tomorrow?" Mike asks. "For our day trip?"

"Let's maybe reschedule for later in the week. We can go to zomicho... zomilco... zochilmoco... ok, I don't know how to say it, so we'll look it up in the room."

Mike looks relieved. "The open air market sounds cool, but-"

"Let's get sleep instead."

While we are out, Mike and I are sniffling and blowing our noses the entire time. It is very cute. I develop a pimple directly under my left nostril. It looks like I have a booger popping out at all times. My BB cream does nothing to cover it up. I regret leaving my foundation at home.

We find a 7-11 to grab bottles of water but they don't have the other necessities we need - toothpaste, soap, razors - and instead of following up on those needs, we decide we are two effing tired and go back to the room for a nap. It is 4:30 PM.

At 6 PM my alarm goes off. Mike complains because he is still tired and I am still tired but we made reservations and I'll be damned if we miss them because we are idiots who can't plan sleep schedules properly. The restaurant is called Lardo and it's a quarter mile away and it is absolutely delicious.

They have two menus - one in English and one in Spanish - which was helpful but the waitstaff for the most part doesn't speak English. That's ok - we point at things, and it works out. I am still blowing my nose all the goddamn time. I might as well ask them to bring my meal to the bathroom.

"It's weird to think that we can have a conversation in English and no one will understand us," I told Mike. "We can talk about anything."

We talk about something vaguely inappropriate when the waiter brings out a chorizo and burrata pizza and the gentlemen next to us lean over.

"That is the best pizza here!" one of them says in perfect English. "I come here frequently and have ordered several pizzas, and that one is the best."

Well, so much for our secret English language, I guess. The pizza was dope though.

This morning we got up after a solid 10 hours of sleep. I feel much better, but Mike is now fighting a cold. He's in relatively good spirits. We had breakfast at a creperie. I wanted a crepe with chocolate sauce, but how do I ask about nut allergies in Spanish? I try to use the French word for peanuts and Spanishfy it, but it doesn't work. It's a totally different word. Mike pulls out google translate but that doesn't seem to help with the nut allergy question either. I ask if it has "nutella" and still the waiter doesn't understand, which, frankly, is on him, because there is another dish that has nutella in it. They grab an English-speaking waiter and he promises there are no nuts in the dish and everything is great.

"Mike, what did you get again?" "Cuevos con... something." "Thank you."

Mexican crepes with milk, white, and dark chocolate.

Mike and I finally got our life necessities - soap, toothpaste, razors - after breakfast. I know, we are disgusting people. My teeth will fall out in a few years. We also grabbed some food for cooking in the apartment we're staying in. Did you know they have cactus leaves in the supermarket in Mexico???? Mike and I don't know how to cook those so we decided not to get them.

Still I thought that was so neat. Cactus leaves. Wow wow wow wow wow.

Cactus leaves upper right. Coconuts too! Lower left! And asparagus.

Okay Mike is napping so I'm going to wake him up for our Xochimilco - I looked it up!!! - adventure this afternoon. Yay!