Colourful Mexico 🇲🇽

Hello everyone!

I finally visited Mexico in September and it was absolutely worth the wait! My friend got married on the 30th of September so I had to find a way to attend. I ran a marathon in Finland on the 16th of September and then headed out once I had recovered. I postponed the start of my new work contract just to squeeze in two weeks in Mexico!

With all of this going on, the departure was rather hectic. For example, the Bangladesh Embassy in Sweden LOST my passport for nine days. Now that was exciting. I applied for my work visa in Bangladesh, but since the closest embassy is in Stockholm, I had to send my passport there via post. I called in to enquire about it since I was departing to Mexico soon and needed my passport back only for them to tell me that they had never seen my passport which I had tracked all the way to their office. Luckily, the passport was eventually found and, with a little push from the UN, quickly sent back to Finland with the correct visa.

Since I wanted to maximize my time with my friend and the wedding took up the other weekend fully, I only had time to explore Mexico City. Mexico City is huge and filled with different vibrant neighbourhoods so I came to realise that there was plenty to entertain there.

Firstly, the Anthropology Museum is a must. The Mexican history is super interesting and the museum is very informative and well done. It's huge so I'm already looking forward to going back and visiting it again so I can absorb even more information.

The museum is near a park where you can stop for a coffee, and street food and watch people on paddleboats: or jump into one. The park leads you to the Castillo de Chapultepec which has lovely views over the park and the city. You must climb a steep hill to get there but the views are worth it. The inside of the castle isn't that interesting to someone who comes from a continent with plenty of castles, but did you know that this is the only royal castle in Latin America?

Now, of course, when visiting Mexico, the food is a must. Even for a vegetarian, I feel like I had lots of options though my friend was a little stressed about where to find food for me. We even tested out a fully vegan taco place and that was great. I would say that you only run into issues if you don't like beans.

We did some amazing tours around downtown, handled some wedding business, ate street food and went to markets. Getting around the city with a local was the best: she really knows how to entertain, has vast knowledge of the history, knows all the best places to eat and didn't let me pay overprice for anything. I would recommend just walking around downtown, visiting the central library, the Ciudadela Market, seeing the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the post office, eating authentic food at Cafe de Tacuba, seeing the government buildings and the courts, checking out the view from the top of the Torre Latinoamericana and topping the evening off with a sunset view of the Monument to the Revolution.

You can either climb to the top of the Monument or admire it from one of the rooftop bars across the square like we did. We had drinks at Arango and the views were amazing as you can see below. All the food there looked amazing as well and my friend recommended it for dinner, but sadly we were too stuffed from the other food already.

Over the weekend, we grabbed the husband-to-be along and had a lovely day out. It's always the case, that locals don't visit tourist places in their own hometown! We had a tasty brunch at the Cardinal (a famous chain of restaurants that had an hour-long queue). Restaurant queuing is made well in Mexico: you sign up your name outside and they call for you when your time comes so we had a chance to visit the parliamentary square while we waited. Breakfast meals in Mexico are HUGE. There is a Mexican saying: eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a homeless person. I found this to be very true about Mexican portion sizes. The Cardinal is famous for its melted chocolate hot chocolate which they come to offer as soon as you are seated - take them up on this offer.

We then visited Museo del Templo Mayor where my hosts had never been either. Another great piece of Mexican history. When you stand in front of the ruins facing the city, you can see that the ruins have been nearly completely demolished. You can also see the huge cathedral behind the ruins: that's where all the bricks and stones from the ruins went when the colonialists arrived. Just have a look, it is very obvious once you know. So you are standing there and you can clearly see three major events in Mexican history with the modern city centre behind the cathedral.

My friends planned a fabulous excursion to Xochimilco, the Venice of Latin America. It's located about 30-minute drive south of the city and all the locals flock there for a day out with family and friends. We gathered a large group, had some tacos and purchased drinks and snacks. Then we hopped on one of the local boats and rowed on the river for a few hours. You can also hire a local band to play for you and there are smaller boats around where you can buy drinks and flowers.

We then headed back to town to eat at one of the local restaurants called Arroyo. The dinner was brilliant. Not too many vegetarian options, but I tried some friend worms in a taco. There were a bunch of local performers and we ended up having the Mariachi band playing for us for an hour: they made some songs about us as well. They made a beautiful song just for me about my beautiful eyes. I realised that I would never have as great an experience in Mexico without my friends, this wasn't a tourist experience nor would you ever get this performance without knowing it existed and speaking fluent Spanish. You do pay for the performance afterwards, but it was worth every penny.

The next day I headed out for a tour of the San Juan Teotihuacan pyramids with some of our friends. On the way we stopped by a local shop where they showed us the various plants and cactuses that are used to make tequila, mezcal and other local alcohols. They also showed us how the ancient Aztecs made a needle and string out of the cactus. We then had an opportunity to explore their shop and test the alcohol.

They also had a large mineral/rock collection. Some amazing greens and blues, one shiny golden one and a disk used for a mirror and also to look at the sun. The photo of me with the disk has a bright spot on my head: that's the sun and how they used to use it to determine its position. This was a great learning experience even though we clearly stayed at the shop for an overly extended time to purchase things. Luckily, my friend had already taken me to the local markets in Mexico City and I had already purchased everything I wanted because the prices at the shop and by the pyramids are elevated for tourists.

There are several tour companies that gather at the central cathedral and the tours cost around 50 dollars. They include the guide, transport and the entry fees. The tours are very similar so you can pick based on which kind of car you would like to go with. We were six people and picked a small van so we took up half of the seats.

Seeing the pyramids was great. I love history and I think the Mexican indigenous people are super interesting. We were shown some places where human sacrifices were made and you can see some of them in the Anthropology museum as well. There are two main pyramids here: the sun and the moon, you can walk around pretty freely, but unfortunately public was denied access to the top during COVID-19 and the access was never returned.

All the different neighbourhoods in Mexico City have something different to offer. I spent one day on Down Town rooftop pool just relaxing, I had the whole rooftop to myself for the day which was lovely.

I visited Coyacan and ate the famous churros at El Moro. I browsed through the markets and popped into La Casa Azul: the Frida Kahlo house. I have to say that while the house was cool and it was nice to know more about Frida's life, the museum is over-hyped and not really worth it. It's run by a private foundation so the entry tickets are much more expensive than in other museums where the fees are very moderate. Frida costs 250 - 270 pesos depending on what day you go, you must also pay 20 pesos for the reservation fee and then another 30 pesos on arrival to take photos. In comparison, other museums are around 90 pesos. The house is beautiful on the outside and the garden is lovely.

The wedding took place in Morelos so we drove there already on Thursday to stay at my friend's holiday home. We had a lovely family day by the pool and had chefs come over to barbeque and make tacos for us.

On Friday morning, we drove to the wedding venue a little further into the countryside and prepared for the civil wedding taking place that evening. It was a beautiful intimate affair with mostly family under twinkly lights in the garden. The ceremony was followed by a dinner and then a good beauty sleep.

The main event took place on Saturday at the Finca Guadalupe with a whooping 250-person guest list! The wedding was insane, I don't think I've ever been to a party that good. I honestly feel like I might want a Mexican wedding regardless of where and with whom I'm getting married. It will be difficult to give justice to the event with my amateur writing, but I'll try to get some points.

Firstly, the venue was amazing. The main ceremony was in catholic style and held on this small island in a koi pond. The groom arrived and we were waiting for the bride. She showed up on a small rowing boat looking like an angel. She was rowed around the whole small island with one of the staff running on the outside throwing fish food to the koi so they were swarming around the boat very picturesquely. I don't personally take photos at weddings because I like to focus on the event, but maybe I'll upload some when I get the official photos. The ceremony was magical and quite long and we were handed these flowers to throw and we got up like five times thinking now it's over and it's time but it didn't seem to ever arrive.

A cocktail reception followed the ceremony and then we moved onto the dinner tables. We waited for the couple to arrive and when they did, everyone was standing and whooping and we were all waving around our white napkins while they ran around all the tables greeting people. This I definitely want in my own wedding! They went to the dance floor, had a quick groove and then gave a short welcome speech. The dinner was accompanied by a local band playing a traditional Mexican keyboard called marimba.

The first dance in Mexico is also different to the Nordic style: first, the groom dances with his mom, then the bride with her dad and eventually the couple ''ends up together'' and dances their first dance. They had selected Il Divo's Hasta mi final which I'll absolutely want in my wedding. So powerful and touching! I cried as I always do at weddings.

The garter and flower bouquet throwing was made into a huge spectacle: first, the bride and the groom got on chairs and formed a high tunnel that all the women had to dance through to get a shot of mezcal poured into their mouths and then the guys did the same. Then all the women had a huge dance-off with the bride for like three songs before she got back on a chair and finally threw the flowers. The guys had the same with the garter.

Throughout the whole night, we danced like there was no tomorrow. What I really love in other cultures is how all the men dance as well and how they have several pair dances (I didn't write couple on purpose) and dancing isn't viewed as something awkward or uncomfortable or only meant for women and then men show up to dance with their romantic partners. One more fabulous aspect of Mexican weddings to copy: at regular intervals, the staff brought lots of stuff to the dance floor. All the women got slippers, we got balloon guitars, glowsticks, glitter wigs and all sorts. This kept the momentum up and people kept dancing with the different themes. The night ended with an hour-long Banda Mexican brass band performance which brought the number of different music performances to five!

The next morning we had a huge wedding brunch together and then spent the day by the pool before heading back to the city.

During my final days in Mexico City, we ate lots of tacos and chilled. It was a brilliant, beautiful, fun trip and I cannot wait to go back to Mexico, see my friends again and explore the rest of the country. I feel like Mexico City gets undervalued because of the amazing beaches and other pyramids around Mexico that tourists get drawn to.

All the best and stay tuned for future updates from Bangladesh!

Best wishes,

Mira