At the risk of starting to sound like a bit of a broken record: I have fallen in love again. This time the object of my adoration is Mexico City. Head over heels. 100% pure and unadulterated lust. I mean, really, the place is fanTABulous!! Colourful, chaotic, vibrant, vivacious. Crammed full of beautiful, fascinating and varied architecture, flambuoyant and naive art, a rich artistic history, brilliant poetry, literature and film, music bouncing off each and every street wall, and exciting, spicy and terribly tasty food which vastly surpasses my initial expectations, . We are a match made in heaven. And the irony of it is, I actually expected I would loathe the place. Rather citied out when I arrived, I thought I´d do my best to whip on through it and get myself either a) out of the city or b) out of the country and straight to Cuba. But I had forgotten what a hold Latin (/Central) America has over me. I´m mesmerised by it, and I want us to get reacquainted again. Intimately and shamelessly. So I´m extending my trip, and the cherry on the already quite scrumptious sundae - I´M GOING TO CUBA!!! I´ve been holding my breath and crossing my fingers and finally my plans are concrete. I can honestly say that I haven´t been this excited since...well...I guess since I decided I was going to Vietnam last minute, and then before that since I decided I was going to Japan. I am bouncing off the walls - and that isn´t just because Simon and Kate stock Typhoo tea. Right, anyway, onto the serious stuff. It´s blog time. el Viernes I arrived in MC under cloak of darkness, following a day of being carted to and fro on different American airlines (changing gates, being thrown off a plane for a security check, which was, according to the girl next to me "because there were Europeans on the plane, they might be terrorists". Oh deary me. Don´t worry, I bit my lip - it´s not my place to fracture international relations...) It would appear that in the battle of the airports, the US has lost out. Sorry states, but Asia is numero uno, hands down. The lovely and (still relatively) newlywed Simon & Kate whisked me off in a taxi and wasted no time at all in dumping my bags and feeding me tacos in a nearby taqueria. I knew the minute the chilli, coriander, and lime hit my tastebuds that Mexico and I were going to get on. And with the added benefit of my beloved and much missed Latin American soap operas playing dramatically in the background, how could I fail to be seduced? The altitude affected me quickly, making me feel dizzy (no comments please) and breathless, and, believe it or not, having the additional and unexpected side effect of making me completely lose my appetite. Forget the Atkins diet, turns out the Mexico City diet is the way forward. I´ve been eating a little, and all of it comida muy rica, but I just haven´t been hungry at all. And to be honest, it´s quite a relief for once to be concentrating on other matters than food! el Sábado Determined to give me a Mexico City baptism of fire, S&K wasted no time at all the next morning introducing me to Cafe la Habana, the cafe where it is said Guevara started to plot...we then carried out some real, authentic spanish suit shopping for Simon, and we headed to a downtown, and very real Mexican market in order to kit both S&K out with some real, live his´n´hers cowboy boots. They´re both VERY proud of them. All that shopping postponed our lunch, and it wasn´t until we were collectively going glassy eyed and talking gibberish that we realised we were ravenous. Thankfully a tableful of Mexican goodies soon had us talking (relative) sense again. We staggered home, S&K exhausted from their shopping efforts, and me exhausted just from being me. At altitude. Phew. el Domingo el día perfecto. Leaving S&K diligently beavering away at their laptops, I left the house only to get myself lost within three minutes flat. Getting lost in a country where I actually speak the lingo is a lot of fun, as I made many and various friends and acquaintances throughout the day just by asking directions. What a delight to be speaking espanol otra vez! I pottered around happily, sometimes lost, sometimes found, but generally in a state of rapture. I stumbled first upon the Casa de Caricaturas (house of caricatures), which meant, as you can imagine, that I was in cartoon heaven. Mexico has a rich cartoon history, especially focussing on caricature. I was captivated, and had a long chat with the president of the institution. As I spent the entire day meandering my way round various artistic and cultural sites, I shall at this point start to bullet for your (and my) sanity´s sake:

• people-watching in the magnificent cathedral´s square
• lunchtime sketching at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the cathedral and square
• coming across the magnificent Museo de Bellas Artes (museum of fine arts) - a beautiful, inspiring building where I saw an exhibition of José Luis Cuevas´ drawings and sculptures. By the time I exited, I was practically floating on air with inspiration - there is just art pouring out of every pore of this city
• more people-watching in the park, which was heaving with Sunday strollers-snogging couples-spectator sports aplenty (religious types, clowns, palm readers, break dancers, you name it)
• coffee in a calm, beautiful convent
• watching a spectacular samba band street performance

All in all, a day dripping with art, music, performance, architecture. Every other house I walk past is picture-worthy and has me gasping, and I suspect that my photos of Mexico will be attempting to do some justice to this, and convey via pictures, rather than words, why I am rapidly falling for the place. Swathes of green leaves and bright flashes of pink and purple flowers drape over entire walls of crumbling, vividly painted old houses, whose iron balconies peel delightfully, avenues are tree-lined and glorious. Food Fiend

• tacos - unlike the English version, Mexican tacos are soft. Corn tortillas the size of a small saucer arrive piled with whatever filling requested. We ate some airdried spiced pork, heaped with onions, coriander, tomato and guacamole. When Kate ordered taco de lengua - pork tongue taco - I thought ´why not?´and it was delicious, tasting of smoky pork.
• served, as with most dishes I´ll write about throughout Mexico, with pico de gallo . Literally, ´chicken´s peck´, this is a tongue-tantalisingly piquant tomato, onion, coriander and chilli sauce, although thinner than your average salsa, and perfect for pouring a-plenty
• huevos mexicanos - eggs scrambled with tomatoes, chillis, peppers and onions. A fiery way to start your day.
• tlacoyitos - black corn patties filled with broad bean paste. Atrociously more-ish.
• empanadas - the mexican equivalent of cornish pasties, filled with spicy crab and onion
• guacamole like I have never tasted guacamole before - remind me again why we don´t do this properly in England?!?!?! Creamy, lemony, oniony, slightly spicy, avocadoe-y manna from heaven
• enfrijoladas - delicious, but I struggled with this one as it was very rich, soft tortillas filled with chicken and cheese and topped with refried beans (thank goodness I´m doing as much walking as I am in this city, the food is calories galore!)
• chocolate caliente - I will concede that Mexico does hot chocolate even better than me. It´s a tall claim, but the frothy, delicately spiced chocolate, laced with cinnamon does just slightly pip mine at the post. I will be adapting my killer recipe accordingly.