Today marks one week until we fly home to Austin. The final countdown. This morning as I was laying in bed I remembered our home coffee routine, which is a machine that we’ve programmed to go off at 7 on the dot so that by the time we wake up we have fresh delicious coffee waiting for us. We’ve spent the better part of this year drinking either hotel or instant coffee, and I’m so excited for the good stuff.

Millie was up this morning at 6am, asking to see Papa Jeff. We persuaded her to go back to bed until 7 but she told us she didn’t sleep. The tiredness cloud sat over her all day. At about 10 we all headed out for the day.

We walked through the very beautiful Bosque de Chapultepec. Millie ran many races with her willing grandfather.

We took our time walking to the museum by stopping at the lake and at some playgrounds.

We entered the museum and were wowed by the big fountain at the entrance. Nick and I have been to CDMX once before (almost 20 years ago!) and were amazed by this museum then so we knew we wanted to come back. The vibes were slightly different with an impatient 5-year-old, but the collection was just as impressive.

We spent about 30 minutes in the first of roughly 8 sections. It was nice for me to have Papa Jeff as a witness to Nick’s museum behavior. I swear no one on earth is a slower and more attentive museum attendee. Millie was patient but when we were done with this gallery she thought she was done, and was very mad to hear that there was more.

We played cards on a bench for a while and decided to take a lunch break. At the restaurant Millie got upset about something, stayed upset, and had some bad behavior. It was similar to yesterday. Not great, but we got through it. We speed walked the rest of the museum and left.

Nick wanted to see some ruins (surprise surprise) that were a 45 minute car ride away. We didn’t have anything better planned, so that’s what we did. It was an hourlong metro so we opted for car. Usually we’d take an uber but our phones didn’t have service, so we got a taxi from outside the museum. We did our usual asking for a quote before getting in. It was expensive but we figured it’s fine to pay the gringo tax. He told us it was cards only, which is always preferable for us.

The three amigos (whom Millie has dubbed “The Hiller dudes”) all fell asleep in the back seat.

Traffic was terrible but we got there eventually. As we were getting out, I tried to pay but my card was declined. Slightly fishy but it’s not a card I use often, so oh well. I called Nick over and we used his card successfully. 30 seconds later, after the taxi had driven away, I got a text from my bank saying they had declined a suspected fraudulent charge of $539. He had gone above and beyond to show me on his machine that it was charging in pesos, which I thought was strange, and now I know why. Nick checked his account, and sure enough the charge had gone through as $539. He called immediately and it sounds like we’ll get the money back, but ugh. One week from home and this is the first time we’ve been truly ripped off on this trip. Two thoughts I had: #1. I just want to go home #2. Why does this always happen in Mexico?! This is our fourth trip here together and on every prior trip we have had something crappy happen (stolen phone, stolen cash, etc.)

I was admittedly in a foul mood after this, so did not enjoy the ruins. We were in the middle of a shady neighborhood looking at some rocks.

We had originally planned to walk to the zocalo from here, but Millie was tired and the neighborhood didn’t seem great. So we called another car (Uber this time) and got dropped off.

Papa Jeff bought her a little bouncy ball toy and she had a great time playing with it in the big square. We watched them setting up what I assume are things for the World Cup.

We kept getting approached by people trying to get us to have a drink on a rooftop. It started as benign, then got annoying, then got funny. Finally Jeff persuaded us to go for it. The view was great.

We each got the worst margarita of our lives, which tasted like just store bought margarita mix. When the bill came it was absurdly expensive (like $40 each) and we realized we had once again been ripped off. We disputed it a bit but eventually just paid and left.

We called yet another Uber to take us back to our Airbnb. The Hiller dudes laughed hysterically in the back seat and made such a ruckus that we think our Uber driver kicked us out. He told us the road was blocked (it wasn’t) and he couldn’t drive us any further. We called another and eventually got back to our neighborhood. We had pizza as an offering to Millie.

You’d think after so much traveling we’d be good at it by now, but today felt like we were being dumb Americans at every turn. Silver lining: it will make the comforts of home feel extra sweet.