January 4, 2019 - Tampa to Mexico City

I can’t say the day began early, because the previous day never really ended!  Marilyn was picking me up between 3:30 and 3:45, so I had planned to get up at 2:00.  But I never went to sleep, so now that it’s 9:30 p.m. here in Mexico City I figure I’ve been up about thirty-eight hours!  If this entry is a little inconsistent, please forgive me!!

It’s amazing how little traffic there is on the roads in the wee hours of the morning!  We parked Marilyn’s car at Memorial Parking and when we drove in she got a text message welcoming her!!  Their van took us to the airport and we got to travel on the new Sky Connect Train!  It’s pretty efficient and we had no trouble getting to the American Airlines ticket counter to drop off our bags.  We used the kiosks and there was a lady to help if needed.

We both got a text saying our gate had been changed to F80, so that’s where we went.  After a while we began to wonder why there weren’t many other people, so we checked the original gate and, sure enough, that’s where we belonged!!

The flight to Dallas/Fort Worth was pretty uneventful, although the really tall guy next to me was something to write home about!  And there wasn’t anything like enough room under the seat in front of me (we were in an exit row) for my back pack.  Luckily there was a seat in front of us that didn’t have anything under it!!

We arrived in DFW and learned how to use the SkyLink to get to the correct airside. There are bright orange signs to help you find your way! At our gate we learned that our flight was delayed about twenty minutes, and it was a good thing, or we would have missed it!  The only problem was that it would make us even later for meeting up with Ginger in Mexico City.

On this flight there was no one in the third seat in our row!  Score!!  Both flights provided a beverage and a package of biscotti, which I managed not to eat.  I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities to indulge in gluten soon enough!

We filled out our customs declaration cards and passport cards and deplaned.  The passport check was easy and we moved on customs, or so we thought.  We wound up at baggage claim and both our bags arrived.  That’s always the scary part, waiting to see if you’re going to wear the same clothes for two weeks!  We never did see customs, but we followed the sign for “nothing to declare” and were released into the general population.  This is where we were supposed to meet Ginger;  but we don’t see her.  And Marilyn’s phone is almost out of juice.  And mine refuses to connect.

I go off to the restroom and when I return, Marilyn is happily chatting with Ginger and Juan!  YAY!!  We decide to use the ATMs before heading out.  Marilyn has no trouble.  I do.  I finally go to one of the exchanges and return armed with coin of the realm.

We all wander for a bit, trying to escape from the airport and finally find our van, complete with driver, Adam, Ben, Elizabeth, and Barbara, a new friend of Ginger’s from Atlanta. We head to the hotel, with Juan pointing out places of interest.  Our hotel, Hotel Catedral, is right behind the big cathedral, as you might imagine, and the lobby has strawberry water, peanuts, and potato chips for weary travelers.  A couple of our rooms are ready, even though we’re early, and we have all the bags taken to them so people can organize, change if they’d like, and get ready to head to lunch.

Our restaurant is on a terrace that is part of a hotel where Juan’s son had his wedding reception.  The hotel is so beautiful that they don’t let you take pictures with a “professional” camera!!  Lunch is a huge buffet with all the favorites - chicken mole and tamales and fish in citrus sauce and others I can’t remember the names of.  Everything was so delicious and there was even Mexican coffee and Christmas punch and, of course, cerveza!

When lunch was over the bill was presented in a doll called Maria!  Adorable!!

View of the city square from our lunch restaurant

After lunch Juan took us to see Diego Rivera’s murals in the National Palace.  He explained to us that Rivera wanted to document all of Mexico’s history, a huge undertaking!  There is so much detail and so many eras are presented, that it’s really hard to take it all in!  I think you could teach a whole semester course on these works!  Juan is so knowledgeable and makes it easy to understand what is a complicated subject!

Waiting to enter the palace, this is our view

There are gardens in the center of the palace and there are five cats happily in residence!

We set off again.  In the meantime, Ginger has gone back to the hotel to meet up with the rest of our group, Marissa, who is Ginger’s niece, Fred, Marissa’s husband, and Kathleen, who is a friend of Helen’s, whom Ginger and I met in Thailand!  Things got a little hairy for a while.  I stopped to take a couple of photos (imagine that!) And the group vanished!  I thought I knew where they were going and followed our route backwards.  Turns out they weren’t going back to the hotel and I finally decided to see if my phone would play nicely with me.  It did!  I called Ginger and she came and rescued me.  At least I had the good sense to pick a readily identifiable landmark!

When we got back to the group we had our three newcomers but had lost Ben and Elizabeth.  They were off to a fancy dinner!!  We were off to see the ruins of the Temple Mayor right in the heart of the city.  There are actually seven layers to these ruins!  And they were only discovered recently.

Fred is ready to eat and Ginger finds us a handy little restaurant less than a block away, where Fred can get a big meal and the rest of us can just snack on soup and guacamole, since our lunch was so impressive!    Everyone seems happy with their choices and after dinner some people return to the hotel and Juan takes the rest of us to see the Christmas lights.  The light here stay up until January 6th, Three Kings Day.

We return to Hotel Catedral and I go to my room, except no one is there!  But I hear voices and Ginger and Marilyn are just coming down from the balcony upstairs.  We are all pretty beat and agree to meet for breakfast at 7:30 and we’ll leave for tomorrow’s adventures at 8:30.