Mexico City - Hotel Isabel and Museo Nacionale

It tastes like it looks. Perhaps damning with faint praise, but that has been our assessment of each dish put in front of us in the restaurants of Mexico City, thus far. Not that we have spent all our time eating - just a lot of it. Mexican cuisine seems to be remarkable for its simplicity. None of the verve and spice of the food served up as Mexican in New Zealand, it is plain and uncomplicated. How does your white mushroom soup taste Georgie? Much as it looks. What about your half chicken with gravy? Hmm, chickenish and gravyish.

But at least they have great symbols on the keyboards: Ñ, ¡, ], °. Dunno how those will come out in the English-speaking world.

We arrived from Los Angeles at 5:30am, and were reduced to roaming the darkened streets of one of the world's biggest and most crime-ridden cities till we found a hostel to our satisfaction. Tony, Hotel Isabel is great. Thanks for the suggestion.

We ran into a socialist march on the Palace Nacionale this afternoon: flags of the revolution, and machetes thwacked against the cobbled road in sync. Perhaps one of the few places in the world where not only do the protesters carry large photos of Marx, Lenin and Engels, but also Stalin. Viva la revolucione? Hmm.

Also visited the cathedral and the Museo Nacionale, but didn't quite make it to the Oceania section before we were chucked out on the dot of four o'clock by the ever-present gun-toting police. Outside, hundreds more riot police lolled against the wall with their shields and batons, waiting for the protesters to set a foot wrong.