Mexico City, Mexico (Week 2-3)

Hello Family and Friends,

First and foremost, our baby pigeons hatched (yes, I have claimed them). After watching momma pigeon sit on her eggs through rain and sunshine, babies have hatched!

I worked very hard to keep Bruce away from the pigeon nest so that momma could nest in peace.

Now this is the difference between being a tourist in Mexico and being a local. A neighbor told me that our building has a real pigeon problem and we should have thrown that nest out. If this was our place we would not want a mother pigeon nesting on our deck. But as a tourist we are really enjoying our little family of pigeons. I even noticed that two different pigeons will sit on the nest. I like to think that it's a mom and dad sharing the load of raising their young.

Now onto some more exciting news, we went to a monster truck jam. Atlas sat there for the entire a hundred and twenty minute show. I don't think I have ever seen him be so still and so quiet. I think the trucks were making enough noise to keep him fully engaged.

Atlas with his monster truck wheel ear protectors. Couldn't even get him to look at the camera for a photo.

We saw a monster truck wreck. Don't worry the driver walked away and the stadium gave him a standing ovation.

The coolest trick was when the monster truck from Mexico named "Toro Loco" did a flip!

The monster truck jam was something fun that we did at the end of week two. However, at the beginning of week three we had the best treat, my mother came to visit us in Mexico City. Now the fun can really start. We tried to save all the best adventures for when she arrived and I think we succeeded.

Mom and I holding a local artist blanket designed by artist who hold true to the original style of the Teotihuacan people (don't ask me to pronounce) made from cactus branches? stalks? leaves?

We started off with a rainy tour of the center of Mexico city. Everyone was really positive and didn't make me feel to bad that I had them doing a walking tour in the rain.

An old school post-office that is still in operation today.

This is inside the Cathedral in the city of Mexico. This is one of it's many monuments covered in 24 karat gold.

Mom (red rain jacket), Brett (navy blue jacket with shorts), Atlas (little dude with rain jacket). Walking down one of the sidewalks lined with vendors.

A rainy tour of the center of mexico city was mom's very first adventure in Mexico City. Her next adventure was an all day excursion out to Teotihuacan. Which means "the place where the gods were created". The Mexica, who were the original Mexicans, found it abandoned when they arrived. At one point is was the 6th largest city in the world at its peak around 350AD.

Mom, Atlas, Danielle and Brett standing in front of the pyramid of the Sun. We were unable to climb it as they are doing work to clean it by hand.

We were able to climb the pyramid to the Moon and this is the view looking down from there into the city.

Most of the stones we saw were actually just the framework with the white plaster that used to cover all the buildings lost due to hundreds of years of erosion. With time, the colorful art worked that covered the buildings of the city have worn away, but some if it has been preserved.

Some of the preserved paintings that would have covered the city.

Atlas in front of one of the "Dia de los Muertos", Day of the Dead, displays inside of an artist shop right outside of Teotihuacan.

One super interesting thing we learned about the Teotihuacan people is all the uses they found for cacti. They used this one plant to make juice, liquor, paper, cloth for weaving, piercings, tattooing, weapons and the flower to dye yarn..

Of course I could not tour Mexico without getting some food. Honestly, I think the Bikes and Munchies tours of the Roma and Condesa neighborhoods was everyone's favorite.

Our Bike and Munchies tours with visitors from Lebanon (via UAE) and New York City.

We had true authentic Mexican street food. Our first dish was tamales. Not all tamales in Mexico city are good. In fact Mexico city doesn't have the best reputation for tamales, but these were very good. We also learned that only in Mexico City they don't believe quesadillas are made with cheese. They believe that the word comes from the ancient Nautul language and was a tortilla and meat sandwich.

As you see, I remembered to take a picture after we were pretty much done with eating the tomales. They taste like soft corn bread stuffed with savory deliciousness. They are a labour of love and take all day to make.

Next we headed out to a local market which is where the locals buy their fruits, vegetables and meat.

This one vendor was selling shark and kindly let us take of photo of her posing with a shark head.

This is one of our bike tour guides holding a fruit called "chicozapote". It's flavor and texture is like a pear infused with cinnamon.

Our next stop was to this one vendor who drives two hours each way to the city. They live out in the countryside and grow their own blue corn. They sold "tlacoyo". Which is like a pita stuffed with meat and cheese.

Street vendors cooking blue corn tortillas.

We also tased what they call "tacos de canasta" which is translated "basket tacos". This is what miners would take to eat as they it could be kept warm by covering the top layer of the basket with oil. Now in the city vendors will ride their bikes with the basket tacos on the back and sell them to people for eight pesos a piece (40 cents).

One of the tacos de canasta vendors with three different large tubs of salsa.

Another street vender cooking "longaniza" which is pork sausage with rice and almonds.

Up until our street vendor tour we had given food in mexico a B-. But all the street food was an A. And I couldn't tell you how to get to these specific vendors, not even sure if I can get back to these particular ones myself, but now I know what to look out for on the streets.

As a part of our bike tour we rode through "Bosque de Chapultepec". Which is akin to New York's central park, but 3 to 4 times larger (kinda like the population). They had this one area that translated to "the sound garden". There were gentle music and benches that leaned back. I could have sat there for at least an hour.

The sound garden in Bosque de Chapultepec

Our final tour was of the only historic castle built in all of the Americas, from Canada to the tip of Argentina.

The front entrance of the castle complete with fountains and gardens

This castle is the location where one of the major battles of the Mexican-American war took place. Mexicans name this war the American Invasion in which they lost California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and even Utah. Oh and in case you were wondering how it started Northerns in the US were feeling they couldn't express their religious beliefs and wanted to do things their own way so they asked Mexico if they could take up residence in what we now call TX (sounds like Texans) The government said sure and after many moved south they demanded the land. To be fair the US government did try to buy the California portion (the highest GDP producing land in the world) but when Mexico said not for sale the US decided to invade. This was right before the Civil War in the states and after Mexico's own independence war from Spain. Makes you really question how we treat migrants on "our land" and sounds almost Jewish Settlement in Gaza-ish.

This a mural painted on the castle ceiling of one of the Mexican soldiers jumping to his death from the castle to prevent America from capturing the Mexican flag.

One of the castle stairways.

The castle was very large and ornate. It was the house of previous Mexican presidents. However, more recent presidents found it too large and luxurious and it has since been turned into the museum of history. It also hosts live music events.

The palace rooftop garden. Brett is showing Atlas some of the plants.

The story of why Mexico city is where it is at is because the Aztecs were looking for a specific image that their god had told them to look for. It was of an eagle standing on a cacti with a snake in it's mouth. Once they found this image they built Mexico City.

A bronze statue representing what the sign that the Aztecs saw which was a signal to from their god to build Mexico.

Of course we could not let mom visit without going shopping. She absolutely loves shopping, whether she buys something or not. So we hit up two different very large shopping malls. One had an ice skating rink inside the mall.

Ice skating rink in the shopping mall in Santa Fe

Some characters dressed up from the movie "Nightmare before Christmas" and doing a little dancing.

Atlas trying out some wheels that look just like Dad's car.

I think I told you guys in the previous post that pets are everywhere in our neighborhood. Well we ate at this one turkish restaurant that had family cat that Atlas made friends with.

Atlas was so curious about this little cat. And this cat was so very sweet and gentle with Atlas.

We only have one more week left in Mexico. We already have some really fun adventures planned. So check back in next week to hear all about it.