Day 7: Meeting an Old Friend and an Extravagant Night Out

In the afternoon I met with an old friend from high school, Daniel, who I had ran many miles with back in the day. He was in Mexico City to complete a priesthood program that he said would take at least a year. Both Daniel's parents are from Mexico, but this was his first time ever in the country. His mind must be racing!

We watched some freestyle jump ropers in the square near the store where Daniel's friend was doing some shopping. The street artists included me in one of their demonstrations where they gather a bunch of volunteers from the crowd and jump over us in a line. I was made the crux of many of their good-natured jokes as I was obviously the only non-Latin-American in attendance 👱

Afterwards Daniel, myself, and his friend got lunch at a nearby restaurant before saying our adioses.

It's great to see you again, Daniel!

I then set out to the Museo Dolores Olmedo Patino, an art museum in the suburbs of Mexico City containing Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo paintings. But after just a few metro stops I found out from their website that the Frida Kahlo paintings were on loan, which caused me to lose my motivation to make the two-hour roundtrip out to the museum.

Returning to the hostel, I met up once again with the two Australian girls that had been included in our group from last night. They were meeting their university friend Rodrigo, who lives in Mexico City and who they hadn't seen in 10 years!

Rodrigo works in the Mexican film industry and to describe his personality you only need to quote him from that night: "Your thirties are just your twenties with money."

We all met at La Capital, a nice restaurant in the upscale area of Condesa.

After we ordered drinks, Rodrigo would order dishes on the menu for us and we would share them potluck style. Two hours of dining later, we split the bill evenly and went out to a jazz club, Casa Franca.

Casa Franca looks like it occupies what was once a colonial apartment. It has various small rooms with furniture arranged in an intimate setting. Two bars sandwich a performance room, which also acts as the upstairs entrance to the entire establishment.

The mezcal flowed freely that night until around 2am when the Australian girls and I took an Uber back to the hostel.

Salud!