Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 187 of the Listening Time podcast.
I hope your English learning is going great and I hope you're ready to hear about a trip that I took recently.
I can't remember when my last trip episode was.
I
Probably the Hawaii one, I think.
So it's been a little while.
So I hope you're ready to hear a little bit about my travels, because in this episode I'm going to talk about my recent trip to Mexico City.
And then in the next episode I'm going to talk about my trip to Puebla Mexico, a different state in Mexico.
So I went to both of these places on the same trip.
So I want to dedicate one episode to Mexico City and another episode to Puebla.
So I was originally supposed to go to Chiapas.
I think I even talked about this maybe in an advanced episode, if I'm not mistaken.
I think it was the episode where I talked about places I really want to travel to.
And I think I mentioned that I was almost certain that I was going to go to Chiapas, which is a state in the south of Mexico.
That was the original plan.
But what happened was we went to Mexico City and Puebla instead.
I hope I can still go to Chiapas in the future.
I still want to go there, but this time we went somewhere else.
So I'll talk about that in today's episode.
And I want to remind you that if these normal episodes are starting to feel a little easy for you, then it's time for you to start using my advanced podcast episodes, in which i speak fast.
That is the next step for you to help you understand native speakers when they're speaking normally, not slowly and clearly like i'm speaking now.
Okay, so if you're interested in those advanced episodes, you can click on the link below to sign up to become a listening time family member, And I also recommend that you check out my US Conversations podcast.
In that podcast, I talk to other native speakers from around the country.
It's a lot of fun.
I actually just recorded an episode with my sister.
I think...
That episode will already have been released by the time that you listen to this episode.
So if you sign up for my US Conversations podcast, you can listen to the recent conversation that I had with my sister.
So go and check that out.
The link is down below.
And, as always, please give this podcast a five-star rating if you can, and write a review if you're able to.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let's talk about my recent trip to Mexico City before I talk about Puebla in the next episode.
So Mexico City, why did we end up going here instead of going to Chiapas?
I had originally planned.
Well, we were planning that trip earlier this year and we ended up talking to my sister about that trip and she expressed an interest in also going to Mexico and and it got us thinking that maybe we could do another family trip.
So my wife and I were thinking about this and we realized it would be a little bit harder to go to where we originally wanted to go, to the city that we really wanted to visit because of the flight schedules and because we would be traveling with small children my small children and my sister's small children.
And we thought that it would be easier to go somewhere else in Mexico with more flight options and maybe somewhere that would be a little bit easier for everyone.
So that's why we chose Mexico City, because also my sister's family and my dad none of them had ever been to Mexico City.
So I love Mexico City.
I had already been there twice before this year.
My wife had been there once.
She really liked it.
So we love Mexico City.
I think it's a fantastic place to travel to.
So I said, let's go back to Mexico City.
That would be awesome to take my family there.
So we decided on Mexico City and...
My sister said yes, and my dad wanted to go.
So we took a whole family trip to this city.
So we ended up renting an Airbnb with four bedrooms.
We needed four rooms to fit all of us, because we had, I think, nine people in total, if I'm not mistaken.
So yeah, four rooms were necessary.
And so it was a little complicated with the kids just making sure the sleeping arrangements were okay.
And it wasn't a lot of space, even though it was four bedrooms.
That sounds like a lot, and it is, but there wasn't a lot of common area.
So The common area means like the shared area of a house or an apartment, like the living room, the dining room, etc.
So the common area was pretty small.
So it was a little complicated, especially with babies and stuff, but it wasn't bad.
It was a great place to rent.
I think it was a good Airbnb overall.
So where did we stay exactly in Mexico City?
Most of you probably don't know much about the neighborhoods of Mexico City, but some of you might.
I have a lot of Mexican listeners, so some of you might know the different neighborhoods, and maybe some of you have been to this neighborhood that I'm going to talk about, which is La Condesa.
So this is the most chic neighborhood, probably in all of Mexico.
So the word chic means like stylish, maybe a little elegant, fashionable, let's say.
It's a very fashionable neighborhood.
And if you know what neighborhood I'm talking about, then you know what I'm saying is true.
It is a neighborhood in Mexico City with many trees, many interesting buildings that are very picturesque.
You just want to take pictures of them because of their design, their doors and windows.
And on every street, basically in this neighborhood, you have all of these different interesting hip stylish establishments.
So coffee shops and restaurants and restaurants.
Little boutique clothing stores and all kinds of different places like that.
And you probably know me by now that I love eating at restaurants.
I love going to coffee shops to work. or just to drink coffee or tea or whatever.
And so you can imagine that this type of neighborhood is like perfect for a short vacation.
And not only that, but there are really cool parks in this neighborhood.
It's even pretty good for kids in the sense that there's a big playground there, one of the biggest playgrounds I've ever seen.
And there are trees everywhere.
And it's, of course, safer than many other neighborhoods.
The sidewalks are better kept.
When we say something is like well-kept, That means that it is well-maintained.
So the sidewalks are well-maintained.
There is more space, I think, for you to walk on some of these different sidewalks.
So it's just a really cool neighborhood.
You should look up pictures of it, or really you should go to mexico city once in your life and go check out this neighborhood.
Especially if you like good food and coffee and desserts and things like that, it's perfect.
Okay, it's funny because when i lived in guadalajara, we lived in the neighborhood that is considered to be the coolest neighborhood in the city and And it even won that award in 2022.
It was crowned the coolest neighborhood in the world that year by a particular magazine.
And at the time, I agreed.
I thought it was super cool, and I still do.
But what's funny is that this neighborhood in Mexico City, La Condesa, is like that, but times five or something, in terms of how many cool establishments and places it has per square meter.
Like my neighborhood in Guadalajara was really cool and had very similar places, but it was a little more spread out.
So there weren't as many places per square meter versus here.
This neighborhood in Mexico City is just packed with really cool, interesting places.
So that's where we stayed.
And one of our biggest reasons why we like to go to Mexico City is to walk around this neighborhood.
Eat amazing food there relax, go to the parks, just chill in this area, as we might say.
When you chill, this just means that you hang out somewhere, you spend time somewhere.
So I'll just give kind of a brief rundown of what we did in Mexico City.
We were only there for like four days.
By the way, the word rundown refers to like a quick summary of something, or it could be like an analysis of it.
In this case, it's a summary.
So I'll give you a brief rundown of our few days in Mexico City.
We got there late at night, the first night.
Not super late, but it was already dark.
And so really, we just ate and took a brief walk, also because my sister wanted churros.
And so I told her we could walk to go get churros.
And just that first night, during that very brief walk that we took to go to the churros place, my family saw how cool the neighborhood was and they were raving about it that whole night.
When you rave about something, that means that you talk a lot about how amazing something is.
So they were raving about how cool the neighborhood was.
So I was happy because it seemed like I chose the right place to go with them.
So we didn't really have any time the first night.
We just ate, got those churros and went to bed.
So the second day we walked around this neighborhood and we walked around the neighborhood that is right next to this neighborhood, called Roma Norte.
And that's another really famous neighborhood.
It has an interesting history, if I'm not mistaken, and it's beautiful in terms of its architecture.
It has amazing food.
That neighborhood has incredible restaurants and just a lot of stuff to see.
So we walked around. all around those neighborhoods.
And then we ended up going to the Anthropology Museum, which is maybe the most famous museum in Mexico City.
If not the most famous, then it's like top three.
It's the one that people will usually tell you that you shouldn't miss.
If you're gonna go to one museum in Mexico City, It should probably be the Anthropology Museum.
I don't like everything in that museum, but there are some things that are super cool.
These artifacts from the indigenous people from centuries ago.
It is quite the experience to go there, I should say.
So we went there.
We didn't spend that much time there because we have small kids and they obviously don't want to spend hours at a museum.
But we went there and then we went and walked through the Chapultepec Park, I'll call it in English.
I'll probably translate some of these things to English instead of saying them in Spanish, because Not all of you are Spanish speakers, obviously.
So there's this huge green area known as the Chapultepec Forest or Park, however you want to translate it.
And there's a lot to see there.
It's a really nice area.
And at the top of the hill... in the middle of this park, is a castle, the Chapultepec Castle.
And what's really cool about this castle is that it's one of only two royal palaces that were inhabited by monarchs in North America.
Let me just help you understand that.
In North America there are only two royal palaces where monarchs lived like the king, or these monarchs, these people.
So this is one of them.
And then the other one is also in Mexico City, I think.
So there is a lot of interesting history in this castle.
And, if I'm not mistaken, according to my wife, because my wife had a grandpa who died years ago, but he was a painter.
And I believe that one of his paintings was actually hung in this palace and So it's not there anymore, but the fact that her grandpa had a painting in this really, really famous historical building is pretty interesting.
So I just wanted to mention that.
So we went to that castle.
It was really cool.
Obviously, it's an amazing building.
And then after that, we just ate and went back to the Airbnb.
We walked a lot that day.
That was a lot of walking that we did.
So the next day, we went to the Frida Kahlo Museum.
Many of you know who Frida Kahlo was.
Admittedly, I'm not a fan of Frida Kahlo.
I'm not someone who is really interested in her or I'm not like a fan of her art either.
So this is not something that like, I was dreaming about doing or whatever.
But it's a famous museum in Mexico City.
And we decided to go also because my sister is an artist.
She's an art teacher.
For those of you that have listened to my conversation with her, you already know that by now.
But she really wanted to go there as well because she really loves art.
And so we went to that museum.
And even though I'm not a fan of her or her art, the house that she lived in was magnificent, so the museum is like her old house where she used to live, so it's a really cool house with a really cool courtyard.
So, if anything, just seeing the house and walking around there was really interesting and We had a good time there.
And this museum is located in a neighborhood called Coyoacan, which is a very interesting neighborhood that I had never been to before.
So I wanted to visit this neighborhood and we were already going to go to the museum, so it was perfect.
We got to walk around this neighborhood a little bit.
It has a really interesting kind of appearance.
I think that it's a beautiful neighborhood, and we ate a really good breakfast there.
So that was great.
And then from there we went further down towards the outside of the city to Xochimilco, which is where tourists usually go to rent a boat and go on the water there, because there are a lot of different canals that go all through that area of Mexico City, and so this is a really fun thing to do with kids as well, and I hadn't done it before, so we wanted to do it this time.
We only went out for an hour, which wasn't a long time, but we had kids with us, so one hour is fine.
If you're going without kids then yeah, you probably want to spend two hours or three hours going around through interesting places and seeing interesting things there on the water.
But We just went for an hour and by that time it was already pretty late actually.
We had spent a lot of time in Koyoakan and at the museum.
So by the time we were done with that, it was time to go back and eat dinner and all of that.
So that was the third day.
And then the fourth day, which was the last full day, the rest of my family went to Teotihuacan the pyramids, a little bit outside the city.
My wife and I had already been there before, so we didn't go this time because we've already been there.
And we went when they still allowed you to like walk up the pyramids and everything.
I think now it's more limited.
You can't go up all the pyramids.
So we went when there was a little bit more freedom there.
So it's a really cool place.
Obviously, I wanted them to see it if they had that desire.
And uh.
So we just told them like you guys can go without us and we'll just hang out around here.
So they went to the pyramids and we just kind of uh, walked around, didn't do too much, but that's what we wanted to do.
We wanted to kind of relax.
Um, in that cool neighborhood, I got my hair cut actually.
We took my son to the park to play.
So it was a nice, peaceful last day.
And then they came back later that day, and we met up with them and walked around some more.
The kids played a lot.
So it was a peaceful last day for us, at least.
They did more than us.
They went to those pyramids.
But it was a very peaceful day for us.
So that was more or less what we did while we were there.
We had three full days, so not a lot.
But I think that we did what we wanted to do.
And I want to spend this last part of this episode talking about the food.
Because honestly, this is one of the reasons why I like to travel to Mexico.
One of the biggest draws for me, besides the fact that I lived there for many years.
My wife's from there.
There are just amazing places to eat, and especially in a city like Mexico City.
It's hard to remember how many great things we ate, because there were so many, but I'll just name some of them.
For example, we had some really good pastries.
By the way, the word pastry refers to like sweet bread, you know, croissants and cinnamon rolls and these types of sweet things that are like bread-based pastries.
So the first morning, my sister and my wife, my brother-in-law, they got these croissants, these almond croissants.
And I didn't get one that first morning, but they ate them.
And what my sister and my brother-in-law said was that it was the best croissant they've ever had, that it was better than the croissants they had in Paris even.
And I'm not going to say that.
I'm not going to try to cause a fight here.
I know some of you are from France and you would strongly disagree with the idea that a place in Mexico could have better croissants than in Paris.
But I tried it on our last morning, I think.
And yeah, it was really good.
So that was, yeah, the best croissant I've ever had in my life.
So croissants, guava rolls, like sweet bread with guava and other stuff inside, which were amazing.
And we went to a specific restaurant in Coyoacan.
I think I already referenced it.
We went there for breakfast and And it was like a masa-based restaurant.
Masa is like dough, like dough that you use to make food with.
It's like dough with a specific preparation made from ground corn.
Okay, so that's masa.
So they had all these different dishes that were masa-based.
And they're kind of like pre-Hispanic dishes.
Like these things were eaten in Mexico even before the Spanish came.
So these are like really old dishes that the people that lived there for centuries would eat.
So it's really cool.
I like eating that type of food that has such a history like that.
So not just the history, but the deliciousness as well.
That food was so good.
That was some of the best food we ate in Mexico City.
I remember eating tlacoyo.
I can't even really describe these things.
I'm sorry.
But if you look at the transcript and you get the spelling of these things, you can look them up on your own, like Tlacoyo.
I can't remember some of the other things.
I know we had quesadillas and atole and things like that.
So really, really good food there.
We ate really good seafood there.
My wife is a huge fan of aguachile, which is like shrimp and cucumber and onion.
That is like raw, but it's cooked in lime juice and has a particular sauce on it that is usually spicy.
So she had that and she said it was one of the best ones she's ever had.
I ate a really good fish taco one of the best I've I've ever had.
I also ate chilaquiles one morning.
If you're Mexican, you know what this is.
If not, you should look it up again.
Look at the transcript and copy and paste these words.
I want you to see them for yourselves, because I'm not very good at describing food, But this is one of my favorite breakfasts in general.
And so I ate this at a particular restaurant in our neighborhood.
And it was out of this world.
It was fantastic.
Probably top three chilaquiles that I've ever had.
So there was that.
One other thing I remember was this hot chocolate that we had that had hazelnuts, hazelnut cream, inside of it.
And my sister said it was her favorite hot chocolate ever.
So from those different foods and drinks that I described, you can see that we really enjoyed the gastronomy there the food and the drinks.
They were amazing, really.
And we had some of the Best things that we've ever tried.
So it was great just for that reason alone.
But obviously the overall experience was really fun.
We did some fun stuff, saw some cool places and the kids enjoyed it.
So I'm really thankful that I was able to go to Mexico City with my whole family.
That's definitely something that we'll remember for the rest of our lives.
I think that we took a lot of photos, so we'll have those to look back on in the future and reminisce.
So I'm very thankful that we were all able to go as a family.
So in the next episode I'm going to talk about Puebla, because my dad and then my family, we continued on and went to another place in Mexico called Puebla.
And my sister and her family went home.
So in the next episode, I'll talk about that.
So you won't want to miss it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Like I said, I just had a conversation with my sister that I released.
So if you want to listen to that, go ahead and click on the link down below and sign up for that.
All right.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
