I set my alarm for 6:30am in hopes of watching the sun rise over the East Coast in Miami this morning, but was disappointed when instead, I was awoken by the sound of thunder and rain on my hotel windows about half an hour before. I looked outside and saw dark grey clouds and realized that my desires for a gorgeous early morning sun and sky would not be satiated this trip. It was the first time I’d been to Miami and seen this type of miserable weather.

The last two weeks in Miami, according to my customers in the area, have been dreary, grey, muggy, and needless to say, unpleasant. Miami residents are so used to clear blue skies and the sun that when periods like this descend over their palm tree-lined city, they start getting depressed. And hurricane season is nearing us in a couple months in August, where they’ve all advised me to stay far, far away and to postpone any work visits until after the last month of summer has ended.

It’s funny to think that no matter where you go in this country, there’s some natural phenomenon that everyone loves to hate on who is not local: in Florida, there are hurricanes; in New York and the northeast in general, there are snow storms; in California, we have earthquakes. But the locals just think it’s another part of their lives and are unphased by them. It’s their reality. It’s like accepting that you will wake up every morning and sleep each night. Earthquakes don’t scare me as someone native to California, and snow storms are just another day in the life in New York City, especially since I don’t have to shovel or salt anything.

Unfortunately, we had to depart Mexico City midday yesterday, and on our route back, we stopped over in Dallas. After going through Global Entry and clearing U.S. Customs, we re-entered domestic airport security to board our flight back to LaGuardia. For whatever reason, my big bag of chilies and other edibles I’d purchased in Mexico set off the security machine, and my backpack had to get inspected.

Of the edible delights I’d purchased in Oaxaca and Mexico City, I got dried chilies of the ancho rojo variety, which are dried poblanos known to be sweet and meaty, with a medium spice profile; morita, which are short, fat, smoked and dried jalapenos that are spicy, toasty, and roasty in flavor; pasilla, which are chocolate-colored, slender, and add richness without heat; and guajillo, which are a vibrant red hue with moderate heat, and slightly acidic in flavor. Of these, I’d used ancho and guajillo before, but the other two were new to me. They’re popularly used in moles, sauces, and various types of Mexican salsas. I also purchased three types of Mexican chocolate and some extremely fragrant and fresh dried oregano. The dried chilies’ fragrance was rich and unmistakable; they scented up all the clothes in my backpack, for better or for worse. As soon as the security agent unzipped my backpack, her eyes widened immediately, and she smiled and asked if these were dried chilies. I told her they were, and she asked where I was coming from. I told her, and she laughed. “Of course, these are from Mexico. This is potent stuff! The smell is so, so strong!”

I was so proud of my purchases. If I’d carried more than just my backpack and work carry-on, I definitely would have purchased more dried chilies, but alas, I had to exercise self-control in an effort to be a light packer. Chris made fun of me and likened me to an old grandma carrying a raw chicken across state lines. I’m just being an avid, international cook.

Yesterday, we wandered through Mexico City and spent some time in Centro Historico, the central historical district of the capital city. There is a large open plaza there that includes the famous Metropolitan Cathedral, a historic Baroque-style Catholic church that was built in the 1600s. We arrived right at the time of the main Sunday church service, and the cathedral was packed with hundreds of worshippers, all reciting, singing, and following along with the sermon. The songs portion was just beginning, and thus the organ music was being played.

For someone who is not particularly religious at all, I have always loved exploring churches during our travels, and I get the most excited when I visit and I hear organ music. The organ is one of those musical instruments that we never seem to get to enjoy unless we’re in a church and in the very fortunate music hall. It’s got this chilling, thrilling, haunting, reverberating sound that for me, no other instrument is quite able to replicate. I used to joke that the only benefit of getting married in a church is to be able to listen to organ music while walking down the aisle. I wandered through the throngs of worshippers and reveled in the organ music against the singing voices of the crowds. They were all pretty in tune from what I could hear, which was even more impressive.

And then I realized that in the middle of my audio enjoyment, I was probably offending almost every single person in the church given that I was wearing a sleeveless top and short shorts, thus exposing parts of my body that in Catholic churches, they look down on. I was getting some double takes from a few of the fully covered women singing.

That was just great. Well, it was hot outside, and I’m an unknowing tourist, right?

We arrived in Mexico City early enough this morning to not only have a quick breakfast at the hotel lounge of refried black beans, corn and rice, ham and eggs, and salsa verde with a side of watermelon, papaya, and pineapple, and green juice, but also to have a quick taco at Super Tacos – A La Parrilla, which we randomly stopped by during our walk around the Reforma area to begin our full day of exploration through Distrito Federal. Super Tacos is exactly what it sounds like – the tacos are not small by any definition; they are made with face-sized, thick, grilled yellow corn tortillas and stuffed with your choice of meat, topped with thick gooey cheese, thinly sliced potatoes, pickled green peppers and onions, huge grilled scallions. We chose chorizo to fill one and thinly sliced skirt steak to fill the second, and our guy cooked everything to order. All the fillings with the exception of the meats were being stewed in meat juices and fats – definitely not vegetarian friendly, but hey, we didn’t come to Mexico to eat vegetarian food. We topped our massive tacos with a brightly hued orange salsa – smokey, a little sweet, and a bit spicy. We made a bit of a mess eating these, but as I was watching other people eat their super tacos while sitting on the unstable plastic stools at our street side stall, I noticed we weren’t alone: there was no clean way to eat these things, which I’m all for since I love getting into my food when the mood is right.

We then wandered through a market and paid about $3 USD for 500 grams of the sweetest and most flavorful jackfruit I’ve had since we were in Thailand for New Year’s Eve 2016. Each bite made me want more and more. It made me wish I had easier and cheaper access to this in New York, where usually for just about six to eight pieces, I’d have to pay about $4 in Chinatown, and only during the summer time. We got lured to a table in the market, seeing everyone drinking big glugs of what they called “sangria,” but it ended up being watermelon agua fresca, much to Chris’s disgust. He holds the opinion that watermelon, among all melons, is the most useless fruit ever known to humankind. I know no one else who thinks this.

So we had this seemingly “authentic” experience, which transitioned into an early evening when we ended up in La Condesa, which is known as the “international” area of town where Mexicans come to eat non-Mexican food. In other words, the area is full of English speakers, really expensive and Westernized spaces and real estate, and expensive prices for everything. After my original seemingly authentic taco joint was found to be closed, we chose to go to another I had bookmarked, which was a spot called El Tizoncito, which was purported to be the “original al pastor taco.” As soon as we arrived, though, we were both immediately let down and annoyed when we saw that pretty much every single patron was white and speaking English, mostly American English and a few in perhaps British English. Damnit – this is when Yelp has led me wrong. We didn’t come to Mexico to surround ourselves with a bunch of Americans and English. But I guess I should have known given that none of the reviews were in Spanish at all. Our moods were immediately ruined, and we decided that since we were already there to settle on just one al pastor taco each; priced at 17 pesos each (just shy of $1USD), they were the most expensive tacos we’d paid for on this trip, which was saying something.

We were eventually saved for our last meal when we decided to go to Casa de Tono, which two different Uber drivers recommended for being very local and authentic to Mexican tastes, and being especially famous for pozole, a traditional Mexican soup-stew that is made from hominy (nixtamalized corn). We ordered a small bowl with a mix of pork parts and head cheese, shredded cabbage, onions, radishes, and squeezed lime, as well as a chicarron (fried pork skin) quesadilla, and two intensely creamy horchatas topped with canela. The pozole, like the chicken soup we had at the Oaxacan market days before, was one of the highlights of what we’ve eaten on this trip, one of those dishes I’d wished I’d had more of in Mexican cuisine that I hadn’t been exposed to much, but had only heard of. Since my first trip to Mexico in 2010, I have had a love of Mexican soups, and the way that the end squeeze of lime complements all the other flavors of the soup has always surprised me and brought a smile to my face.

It felt like a quick and somewhat rushed trip, especially since we easily could have spent four days just in Mexico City, but it’s given Chris more motivation to find (or possibly make up..) work reasons to come back here. Mexico City is like one of those cities that you could always keep coming back to and never get bored of.