It Came From NYC

[itcamefromnyc]

After our big excursion yesterday, we are batting cleanup on our final day in CDMX today. We started by hitting two cool museums side by side - the Jumex and the Soumaya. Both were cool. Jumex was crazy modern and Soumaya was an eclectic mix of Rodin, classic masters, instruments like music boxes, phones (yes, I said eclectic didn’t I?), and religious art. It was a nice time. After that we had a quick lunch of enchiladas back in the historic district before hitting a Mercado for cheesy souvenirs.

After the Mercado, we dropped our prizes back at the hotel and then headed to dinner at Parmaro. Had a hard time finding the place at first. It was up a narrow stairway with a door spray painted with its name, but once you got up there, it opened into a big space with wood beam ceilings and awesome energy. S had ceviche and a quesadilla while I had tres tasty tacos. It was a great capper to an incredible trip to Mexico City 🇲🇽!!!

[itcamefromnyc]

Monday we took a big excursion to an Aztec ruin site an hour outside of CDMX called, Teotihuacan, once the ruling city-state of the region. We booked a private tour through Context, who we had never used before, and our guide Jazmin was amazing. Super knowledgeable, super energy, lots of fun and interesting commentary. It was a great day. We saw the temple of the Sun, temple of the Moon, and two ruin houses filled with murals from the pre-Hispanic era. It was fantastic. After, we had lunch near the site at a local restaurant with a view of the Sun temple. Then we stopped by a monastery quick on the way back, which was also cool.

After the sites, we were wiped out, but we struggled through an excellent dinner at Lardo in the trendy La Condesa neighborhood. We had squash blossoms, pan tomate with anchovies, followed by octopus and lamb kabobs. We finished off the night typing this at the hotel bar trying to not bounce my forehead off the keyboard.

[itcamefromnyc]

For our Sunday evening, we packed on the fun. We got tickets to Lucha Libre, masked Mexican wrestling, and it was AMAZING!! So much silly fun off the top rope.

After our hilarious and awesome time, we headed over to MeroToro, same chef as last nights Amaya. Hate to say it, but it was lackluster. The food was bland, lacked seasoning, and just wasn’t great. We had the tasting menu to be fun, but maybe we would have been happier choosing our own dishes. We had steak tartare, cannelloni, abalone on cheese rice, grilled mahi, steak and marrow, and finally panna cotta. Sigh…

[itcamefromnyc]

Today we grabbed some Starbucks downstairs and then moved out to see Tlatelolco, a ruin site in the city near a university of the same name. It was well preserved, super cool, and represents tres cultures - two pre-Spanish and one after.

Afterwards, we went to the Palacio Bellas Artes to check out it cool art deco interior and some exhibits, but we couldn’t schedule a show in the main auditorium during our visit. We also went to two other small museums and threw down some tacos at an amazing hole in the wall joint before heading back to get freshened up before the evening.

[itcamefromnyc]

We concluded out second day with another awesome dinner, this time at Amaya, a short walk from our hotel. We started off with an amazing ceviche and shrimp tostada, followed by soft shelled crab topped with steak tartare, and then shared two entrees of pork sausage with potato salad and fried rice with chorizo. It was all so so good.

[itcamefromnyc]

Staying the the same park as the museum, we went to check out Chapultepec Castle on a hill a short walk away past a boat pond and a Starbucks and other fun random things. The castle has amazing views of the city and houses both a brief history of the Spanish period followed by the presidential quarters which were beautifully preserved.

[itcamefromnyc]

On our second day in Mexico City we had a lackluster breakfast at the Le Meridian (former Embassy Suites 🤫☹️) before setting out for the Museo de Anthropology where we learned an amazing amount about the history of the region and the cultures and circulations that have risen and fallen over time. From the Aztecs to the Mayans to the Spanish to some Austrian dude who got himself executed, we heard lots of interesting historical tales.

[itcamefromnyc]

After lunch on our first day in Mexico City we went to check out the ruins of the ancient temple at the center of Mexico City (and in their ancient view, the universe) Temple Mayor. The guide book said it wasn’t much to look at and the museum is tiny - well, that was wrong. The site was pretty big and cool and the museum was really big and nicely done with lots of history and cool artifacts.

Afterwards we wandered around the historic district more until we were ready for dinner.

Dinner was at Meroma in a cute neighborhood that reminded us both of home and of Buenos Aires. We had a fantastic meal of shrimp chili focaccia, ceviche, fish collar, followed by octopus for S and soft shelled crab for me. We fished up with a tasty purple plantain and chocolate ganache dessert. It was an excellent start to our meals of Mexico!

[itcamefromnyc]

Viva Mexico 🇲🇽!!! After settling into the apartment and putting down roots, we had to satisfy our wanderlust!! So we shot off for the 4th of July 🇺🇸 to Mexico City 🇲🇽! After lots of delays, we made it down late on Thursday and crashed at 1am.

Friday, we headed to the Zocalo, the main city square and one of the largest in the world.

After the square, we went an had an amazing lunch of enchiladas at El Cardenal. Not your typical American stuffed tubes, this meal was both satisfying and not gut busting.

[itcamefromnyc]

Hey y’all, it’s been a while. Haven’t been posting much lately. Haven’t taken any big excursions because we put a lot of effort behind something else -> We bought our first home! That’s right, we are now the proud owners of a one bedroom in an old printing warehouse in the West Village! Wow, we are so happy and are excited to personalize it in ways we never could with rentals. The pets love the new place as well and staying in the West Village means we still have all our neighborhood favs and pals around the corner. So happy.

[itcamefromnyc]

We had the most amazing dinner, best of Jordan, on our final night in Amman @ Fahkreldin. We started off with hummus and veggies, as well as, sautéed garlic mushrooms, which were both excellent. And then for mains, we had a meat and tomato pie covered with delicious bread pie crust, and kabob khishkhash which was also tomato covered meat. Both were excellent, but the pie (which was heavy on the garlic cloves) was really exceptional and special. We also had a couple beers. And for dessert, we washed it down with Arabic Ive Cream with honey, which is thick like cottage cheese. It was interesting, glad we got it, but not our fav. A good experience. After our best meal in Jordan, we retired to the hotel for a quick nap before headed I g early to the airport.

As we left the hotel this morning, we walked down the silly simulation of the Siq road to Petra on the way out of the W.

[itcamefromnyc]

On our final day in Amman, Jordan; we first visited the Jordan Museum, which was a small, but detailed history of Jordan from pre-history thru today and how they survive on limited resources, especially water.

After that, we headed to Zajal in downtown Amman for a tasty lunch.

After lunch we Careem’ed (local Uber) it to the Citadel on the highest hill in Amman to check out the ruins there.

That final pic shows our high rise W hotel on the distance. Juxtaposition of ancient and new.

After touring around town, we went back to the W to freshen up and get ready for dinner.

[itcamefromnyc]

Tonight in Amman we had an excellent meal at Sufra, part of the Romero group here in Jordan. They had the ugly lights on high, but the restaurant had a nice ambiance and the food was fantastic. We started with some mezze: hummus with excellent home cooked hot bread, grilled white cheese, and spicy potatoes. Then for mains, we had Arayes (a meat quesadilla-like dish, cut in quarters) and the mixed grill for 1 with lamb, beef, and chicken. It was all awesome and we left full and happy.

[itcamefromnyc]

Jerash was our final stop on the ruins tour and it was a sprawling site with Roman temples to Zeus and Artemis as well as Byzantine era churches. It was incredible. Also interesting was that the town had grown around it and it was smack in the middle of town. Very cool. After that, we headed home to clean up and get ready for dinner.

[itcamefromnyc]

Tourfest, Day 3: Roman Ruin Edition - today we set out to see some Roman Ruins, which we have done before in places like Morocco and we have never been disappointed. We had 3 stops today.

First, we drove up to Northern Jordan, just shy of the Syrian border to see Umm Qais, a sprawling site that had both an Ottoman era village and a Roman city.

From there, we started back South towards Amman, stopping in Ajloon to see a Castle on a hill from the 1100s.

Finally we headed on to Jerash, which deserves its own entry with a full 10 photos.

[itcamefromnyc]

Today we woke up at the Petra Marriott, a 10 minute drive from the ancient city of Petra. We had some breakfast and then met our driver Mamoun to head to the site. Here we met a most excellent guide (who mumbled his name, so we never caught it). He was so very knowledgeable about the site and it’s history, it was fascinating. We walked down the long ancient road, Siq, to Petra as he narrated its history. We saw the classic treasury (which was actually a temple, not a treasury) that was featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and had been carved out of the cliff face from the top down by the native peoples who then had a series of hardships including Roman conquest and destructive earthquakes. From there, we toured the rest of the site with our guide seeing the many different cave dwellings and temples and tombs carved out of the rock. We finished by a temple that the Romans had rededicated to Zeus. The guide helped us negotiate for a mule ride up the steep and staired slope to the monastery which takes about 1.5 hrs to walk, but only 25min by mule. The monastery was well worth it and just as impressive as the treasury. In the end we walked down from the monastery and out of Petra ready to make the 3 hour drive to Amman.

Upon reaching Amman, we got upgraded at the W to a really nice jr suite and after unpacking and cleaning up, we got Vinaigrette for an excellent dinner of rock shrimp, tuna carpaccio for apps and then S had sushi and I had sea bass followed by a dessert of tasty Nutella crepes. Yum!

Tomorrow we tour Jerash, Ajloon, and Umm Qais to see some more archaeological ruins.

[itcamefromnyc]

Wadi Rum was a very enjoyable and peaceful experience. We packed up and left our hotel in Aqaba after a very nice buffet breakfast at Al Manara. Our tour service picked us up (we have the same driver today and tomorrow) and drove us to Wadi Rum aka the Lawrence of Arabia desert where we met our Bedouin guide who loaded us into the bed of his pickup truck and we rolled off. We drove all around this beautiful desert for a 3 hour tour taking in sand dunes, rock outcroppings, Bedouin camps, crevasses, and all sorts of natural beauty. It made us want to sit down in the sand and meditate. It was almost spiritual it was so quiet. Sure, we saw other tourists, but at times you would feel so alone when no one was in sight. It was also very Martian in nature, which we later found out was why Matt Damon had filmed “The Martian” here! 👽. Afterwards we rejoined our driver and headed off to Wadi Musa / Petra to our hotel for the night.