Saturday, November 2, 2019
Mexico City vacation, day 4 of 6. Ef and I woke early. Ef's friends Oscar (general practitioner) and Mayte (organization president, pronounced my-tay) arrive and nap after a six-hour bus ride. Ef and I talk in the kitchen. Dave awakens and has coffee from a Nescafé coffee machine. We walked to get coffee filters at Circle K and decided to breakfast again at Ojo de Agua: acai bowl, chilequiles, baked vegetables topped with cheese, various juices. Stopped again at 7-Eleven for milk (17.50 pesos ($1)). Returned to the Airbnb. The others had awoken. Quyen had discovered that the laundry room had flooded. They cleaned what they could and reported the problem to the property manager. Julio arrives. Despite having eaten breakfast, we accompanied the others to breakfast for them at Cosecha Natural Polanco then coffee at Starbucks, where there was valet parking and car washing. We walked a few minutes and watched the end of the Parade from near Estala de Luz. We watched for maybe 45 minutes. It was very rainy, but nonetheless we enjoyed seeing many floats, costumes, musicians, and dancers. The people seem to love this parade. After the end of the parade and nearby Julio encountered some friends and chatted briefly with them. We walked towards Zona Rosa, stopping to browse at Plaza del Angel, Centro de Antiquedades (Londres 161). We stopped for drinks at La Terraza: beers, whiskey, and for me a giant but weak margarita. Another table had a medium-sized contraption with three spigots and a center tub full of beer. The place was very noisy. They wouldn’t take a credit card at La Terraza. I wouldn't return. We walked back to the Airbnb along Reforma past many vendors and alebrijes. At the Airbnb we found that there was no running water due to the repair of the flooding issue. Rested. Woke. Water is working. After some convincing, Oscar joined us for dinner while his wife and her colleagues ordered pizza delivery and continued working through the evening. We rode UberXL to Sonora Grill Prime Masaryk in the Polanco district. We started with special Catrinas cocktails, which displayed the face of La Catrina on the surface of the cocktail served in a martini glass. We suspect that the image was inkjet printed onto some kind of meringue sheet with food inks. For this meal I had ordered sea bass, but when it arrived it was salmon. I spoke with a waiter and told him I had ordered sea bass and he pointed at my salmon and said, "Yes, that is sea bass." At that point I knew and stopped complaining since I was okay eating salmon even though it wasn't what I had ordered. Afterwards we visited Magnolia Bakery to get dessert to take home. The shop was closed even though Google had told us they would still be open. Somehow Oscar convinced them to open just for us, and we bought five small cheesecakes and a few other items. 1,222 pesos ($64) before a nice tip. We also stopped at a Circle K for a few items. Walking past Lincoln Park we overheard a concert by Oscar Chavez. Rode UberXL to the Airbnb. At the Airbnb, Mayte, Pancho, and Genesis finally stopped working and socialized with us. We drank mezcal and ate cheesecakes: chocolate, rose, lemon, pecan caramel, blueberry, then, later, natural-flavored Act II microwave popcorn. In addition to the mezcals from last night, we also had Amores Espadin Oaxaca Joven. We talked about films, ages, doppelgangers, eating crickets, scorpion venom, tarantula venom, travel. Someone broke a glass. Genesis recommended La Gruta at Teotihuacan.