Primero Noche en Ciudad de Mexico

Hey when in Rome...or Mexico in this case, I say do as they do. This includes trying to speak the language. For all of my gringo readers the title of my entry is "The first night in Mexico City." Foreign travel is always an adventure. Luckily day one has presented laughable adventure versus scary. I am here on business, which I think is excellent. It is times like this when I really love my job. I will gladly leave my desk for a little foreign travel to do an audit. Thankfully though, I am not traveling alone. Amber is with me...she is my translator. That is somewhat funny in itself as she is the "white girl" and I am the "brown girl."

After arriving at the airport we hopped in a cab and headed for the Fiesta Americana. Great, except our reservations were at the Camino Real. After a few nervous moments when the front desk could not find our reservation I decided to log on to my computer and check out the confirmation. Being the seasoned traveler that I am I failed to bring a copy of our reservation. Lesson learned. We hopped back in the cab and made our way to the Camino Real.

Shortly after we arrived it was time for dinner. I really enjoy Mexican food, and I am not talking about nachos and tacos, although I like those as well, but I mean "traditional" Mexican food. It is so flavorful and often very hot! In fact Los Canarios employees, where we ate dinner, were so concerned about our American palettes that three employees warned us of how hot the salsa was. FIRE! Although neither of us dined on the "beef testicles" we did get a giggle over seeing it on the menu and perhaps a little shocked to see them in a butcher display case behind our table.

All and all a good first day. Oh, except for the fact that apparently one of the fuses in my room kept blowing so the power in my room kept going off. After three visits from maintenance it is fixed.





I asked for change at the front desk so I could tip the bellman. They gave it to me but were short 5 pesos. Now I realize this is only $0.50 but they were not going to tell me. They just handed me my change and assumed that I wouldn't know the difference. I asked them for it and they snickered under their breath like "oh my gosh, I can't believe she is asking for 5 pesos." Hey, don't mess with a banker and her money!


This is ceviche, one of my favorite things to have in Mexico. It is basically just fresh fish and lime juice. Very tasty!