My Sinuses vs. Mexico City: A Telenovela
(Spoiler: the curtains have the final word.)
Reading time: About 5 minutes.
This is the first of two stories from our winter trip to Mexico City—equal parts cultural curiosity, comical overreach, and sheer curtain therapy.
Let the record show: I did not go to Mexico City to emotionally bond with a hotel curtain. I went to learn. To expand my cultural literacy. To bask in history and sunshine and order tacos in very competent Spanish.
And for the first few days, that’s exactly what happened. Sort of. Minus the completely competent Spanish. And, okay, minus the part where I basked.
I did learn things. Important things. Like:
The Spanish invasion of what is now Mexico City? Complicated.
Walking tours? Best undertaken before your personal internal cooling system gives up.
Try to speak your intermediate Spanish even if you forget the most elementary words and embarrass yourself.
This is the story of how I tried to do it all, came down with a cold, and made peace with imperfection via hotel gorditas and a pair of gently rippling curtains.
Episode One: The Eager Americans
It began, as all tragedies do, with good intentions.
We wanted to learn. Genuinely. We were embarrassed by how little we knew about our southern neighbor. I could recount the history of the Tudors in horrifying detail and identify the Medicis’ influence on the Italian Renaissance, but the story of Mexico? Not so much.
So we did what earnest people do—we booked historical walking tours. Multiple. Day after day. I packed sunscreen and enthusiasm. Mike packed an extra phone battery. What we forgot to pack was a firm grasp of our limits.
Photo by Mike Dryja.
Our first guide was a marvel: sharp, generous with his knowledge, and just the right amount of skeptical about colonialism. He didn’t just show us the sites; he gave us context, nuance, and a growing awareness of just how little we’d been taught in school. We left humbled. Awestruck. Very sweaty.
Then came Day Two.
Episode Two: Diego Rivera and the Descent into Glossy-Eyed Delirium
Our second guide, a sparkling young woman with the kind of enthusiasm that could revive a failing Wi-Fi signal, led us deep into the world of Diego Rivera. She adored him. She adored murals. She adored us, for being the kind of people who wanted to stand in the midday heat discussing brushstrokes.
Photo by Mike Dryja.
We did our best. But there’s a moment—somewhere around hour two—when the brain simply taps out. My last coherent thought was: How is she still standing upright?
But then: salvation. In the form of a government building.
Episode Three: The Secretary of Public Education and Other Surprising Delights
Now, if someone told you, “The Secretary of Public Education building will be your favorite place in Mexico City,” you’d assume they were either lying or deeply confused. But hear me out.
Inside that bureaucratic façade is a courtyard. Several courtyards, actually. Shaded. Breezy. Adorned with Diego Rivera murals—but also with peace. The light was soft. The stone was cool. It was the architectural equivalent of being handed a cold washcloth and told, “You don’t have to be brilliant right now. Just rest.”
Photo by Mike Dryja.
We returned there twice. Not because we had to. Because we wanted to. It became our unofficial sanctuary from the chaos of Centro Histórico and the crushing realization that maybe we weren’t as young and tireless as we used to be.
Episode Four: Whiplash, Live
In a rare stroke of planning genius (or chaos-fueled optimism), Mike booked us tickets to a late-night showing of Whiplash—yes, the intense jazz movie—played with a live band at the Auditorio Nacional. It was a giant arena. Our seats were in the second row. The drum solos practically cracked the floor.
Photo by Mike Dryja.
It was sensory overload in the best possible way. And when it ended we spilled out with thousands of locals, drifting down the Paseo de la Reforma like part of a dream sequence. The air was crisp. Food truck speakers blasted music and commercials at volumes meant to communicate with satellites. It was chaotic and loud and alive, and for one shining hour, so were we.
Episode Five: The Great Unraveling (or, Why I Now Travel With Emergency Gorditas)
By Day Four, my body staged a coup.
The cold came fast and brutal—like it had been waiting in the wings, watching me frolic through murals, and finally said, “Now.”
Gone were our plans for the Anthropological Museum. Gone was the vegan food tour I’d been dreaming about for months. Even walking across the street felt like a betrayal of my will to live.
This brass tray was so full of water bottles when the hotel staff dropped them off that I nearly dropped it.
We retreated to our hotel, where we survived on protein bars, dried edamame beans, and the kindness of the hotel staff, who brought us enough bottled water to bathe in (we didn’t, but we could have). The hotel’s restaurant became our best friend. Shout-out to the vegan gorditas, which delivered flavor and emotional support in equal measure.
But the real MVP? The curtains.
Finale: The Curtains Speak
They were sheer. White. Nothing fancy. But at sunset, they caught the light like they’d trained for it. They danced with the breeze in slow motion. I filmed them, just once, as the sun glowed orange and the traffic outside blurred into red brake-light ribbons.
And in that moment, I let go of everything we’d missed. I stopped counting museums unvisited. Stopped calculating money spent on unused tour tickets. I just sat. And watched.
That curtain, in its simple, swooping elegance, gave me something I hadn’t built into the itinerary: grace. A quiet surrender to the imperfect trip. A softness I hadn’t realized I needed.
Credits Roll
Mexico City didn’t go as planned. But that doesn’t mean it failed. It taught me things I didn’t know I needed to learn: how to slow down. How to stay curious. How to find the sacred in the walls of a bureaucratic building and the sublime in sheer polyester.
Would I do it again? Yes. But next time, I’m packing electrolytes. And a little more humility.
P.S. For the Historically Curious (and the Just Plain Curious)
If your idea of a good time includes gripping history, epic betrayals, and the occasional human sacrifice (told with British charm and zero judgment), allow me to recommend The Rest Is History podcast, hosted by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. Their eight-part series, The Fall of the Aztecs, walks you through the Spanish invasion of what is now Mexico City with all the drama and nuance it deserves — plus just enough wit to keep you from weeping into your guacamole.
It’s history told like a campfire story: vivid, unsettling, and impossible to pause. I listened to all eight episodes with a mix of awe and heartbreak — and a quiet promise to return to Mexico a little wiser, and ideally, a little less congested.
It’s available wherever you listen to podcasts, but below is a link to it on Spotify.
