Mexican wedding, Mezcal and loads of Tacos

The country that’s depicted in yellow in all movies actually is yellow in real. It’s as if the VSCO f02 filter is always on, as a friend reminded me.

Here some highlights across Food, Drink, See, Spend and Restaurants visited:

Food

Tacos vs Quesadilla vs Enchilada (needed to figure the one out first!)
Tacos = Tortilla + Filling
Quesadilla = Tortilla + Filling + Cheese
Enchilada = Tortilla + Filling + Cheese + Sauce

Huevos Rancheros (the only breakfast dish we had everywhere)
Huevos (eggs) have numerous ways of preparation, but the one unique to Mexico is Rancheros, which is Tortilla, runny eggs and sauce. Sort of the Enchilada of eggs.

Pork pilbil
The pork dish of Mexico, best had with the Mexican roti and pickled onions

Aracherra
The steak of Mexico. It’s flattened out, like the meat of a Schnitzel, which makes it much easier to eat.

Pikante
Green and Red options available. Personal favorite is Green. Closer to the Indian green chilly possibly

Sauces
Poblano is a dark sauce made with chillies, nuts and chocolate.
Pipian is a red sauce made with chillies and jalapeños.

In summary, Mexican food is all about the ensemble. The fried chicken taco tastes dry and terrible on its own, but with the guacamole and refried beans, it’s incredible. All dishes are about the combination with tortillas, protein and sauce. Tortillas are ubiquitous, pork and chicken are the most common protein forms, and sauces are up to your liking. My favorite was the green pikante or pipian sauce.
Don’t miss this old lady coming over to serve warm bread in restaurants. They’re always the most fresh.


Drink

Coffee - the standard Mexican coffee comes spiced like the kind you find in Kerala, and served in a quaint pot. But you’ll need to visit a classic Mexican joint for this as most restaurants otherwise just serve the usual cappuccinos and espressos. Coffee with milk is a whole different thing though. It’s a tall glass of milk with a little bit of coffee. So basically it’s 2 extreme versions of coffee here, super spicy and strong or super light and milky.

Chelada Michelada - the standard serving for beer or Cerveza. Chelada is lemon squeeze in a glass lined with salt. Michelada is tomato in place of lemon.

Corona - the beer made famous by Mexico and tastes outstanding in the Chelada form.

Mezcal - the original tequila of Mexico, worm and all in the bottles. A bit too strong for my age now.

See

Mexico City for food, history and the Teotihuacan pyramid.
Cancun for the Caribbean beach, parties, excellent sunrises and a day trip to Chichen Itza.
Oaxaca for day of the dead festival.
Tepozlatan for an idyllic Mexican village with graffiti walls, food market and one big church.

Spend

Cash needed - withdraw pesos at the best conversation you can find. Will need it.

Tip culture - borrowed from its neighbors to the north mostly, where cab drivers and waiters speak just about enough English to ask for tips.

Do

F1 if around the time. Circuit is in the centre of the city making it far more accessible than the ones in Europe. Perez is also one of the biggest celebrities of Mexico, making the sport and fan favorite. We saw spectators in Red Bull shirts all around the city starting from 8am on race day.

Dia de los Muertos, day of the dead, again if around the time. It’s a truly unique festival with its epicenter at Oaxaca, but interesting to see the installations in Mexico City as well.

Restaurants visited:

• Xel-Ha Bar
• Sanborns de los Azulejos
• Cafe de Tacuba
• Cafe Nin
• La Taba
• El Ciruelo

Singapore vs Netherlands

Edinburgh and its Fringe Festival

Edinburgh is a city with character. You have the signature dish Haggis that can be paired with any whiskey of your choice in any one of the umpteen fancy gothic architectural bars that are served by the friendliest waiters with accents you can listen to for hours.

Fringe festival is easily the best time to visit Edinburg as you have some of the most talented street artists you may have seen anywhere in the world, performing at every nook and cranny around the town.

You could spend the entire day hopping from one act to another, grabbing a beer or whisky or even a plate of Haggis en route. One of our favorite acts was The Bucket Boy from the US. There were loads of other musicians and comic acts that we thoroughly enjoyed.

Edinburgh castle is a top attraction for any time of the year. It has stood around for 6 centuries, serving as godowns for gunpowder, hospital for war injured, meeting point for army generals which includes the governors quarters to this day, and holding prisoners of war where some nationalities like Americans had to fake identity to escape the brutal treatment.

The castle somehow stood ground in spite of the numerous attacks, the most recent even being at WW2.

It holds some interesting weapons, like the 1’ o clock cannon that fired at that sharp time so seafarers in the region to set their clocks, and Mons Meg, that was once the most powerful weapon the world where towns simply surrendered when they saw it approaching them. It was too bulky though and very soon became obsolete and served as an exhibition canon which finally cracked during one of the celebrations to now become a historic relic.

Day trip options from Edinburgh that we did include the Sterling Castle, Kelpies of Falkirk  that are impressive horse statues you can take tons of photos around.

Places to eat:

• Gordons Trattoria
• Angels with Bagpipes
• Jakes Place
• Pipers Rest
• The Tyndrumm Inn

Spain

Malaga 

Malaga appears to be a tourist city for students and therefore accommodation, food and drinks can be incredibly cheap. The airport is unexpectedly huge though, and the tourists outside Malaga's city center is from a much older demography. 

Accommodation options can be so fancy that we stayed at the second floor of the building where Antonio Banderas owns the penthouse. He apparently bought this place so that it overlooks the Roman Theatre where he performed his first stage play. 

Food is very different from the rest of Spain. Paella is not common. Instead, sardines on bread and other forms of seafood, like prawn and octopus salads are the specialities here. But you can get the usual tapas like potato bravas, padron peppers and shrimp croquettes to satisfy the tourists here. 

Drinks are incredibly inexpensive in most places and beer and even the Cava Sangria are great options. 

Club scene is a sham where girls pretend to befriend you to get you inside and spend on expensive drinks. Avoid falling for the trap. 

Other city highlights we picked from a free walking tour that I highly recommend: 

• Malaga is the birthplace of Picasso and there is a museum at a corner building he was born but it seems in reality he was born in the neighboring building
• There is another Picasso museum of paintings, however it has the least of his popular works there since his best works are at Lourve Paris
• Baroque paintings on the church walls were discovered as recently as 7 years back when the limestone facade from the period of Black Death was removed for restoration 
• These baroque paintings were done by Muslims left behind after Christian’s reclaimed Malaga in 15th century, who also added touches of Islamic designs on the doors of all churches of Malaga 
• The crypt below the biggest obelisk of the city has the head of Malaga’s most popular general missing, and nobody seems to know how it went missing 

One activity we did was color profile for everyone: 

• Yellow: Pakach Tunu 
• Blue: Gop Hari Sush Muni 
• Red: Aakash 
• Green: Praty Upkar Munda Ash Noel Duma 
• Bala could be the only rare Blue Yellow 

Funniest joke on the trip: 

• Upkar: Hey Praty, check out the girl at 6 o’clock 
• Praty: In BST?

Places to eat:

• Namaste
• La Quinieala
• Conico Ice Cream
• Meeting Point Cafe
• Santa Coffee
• El Pimpi
• Uvedoble
• La Cala

Marbella 

Marbella is all cobble street walks in the old town by day and wild partying at the beach strip by night

Partying is definitely the biggest selling point at Marbella as there is little else to see or do beyond laying at the the beach all day. And the best place to party is a small strip just besides Harbour Club.

Beaches are split between sections that have cabanas attached to restaurants and cabanas by themselves. Find the beach section that have the cabanas with the restaurants to be served food and drink right on the cabana itself and make the most of the rent paid for it.

Drink are plenty with Sangria the most popular choice. However, across the restaurants by the beach which have cabanas, the quality is cheap. Stick to just the draft beers here and do the Sangrias a bit off the beach.

Food is absolutely delicious especially among sea food options. Sardines are the same everywhere and must have given the fantastic quality of sardines from this coast of Spain. Prawn pil pil and red sausages are other great tapas to have. And just like in drinks, the best food, especially for the main courses, are a bit away from the beach.

Places to eat:

• El Patio De Mariscal
• La Bodega del Mar
• La Ola
• Kanaloa Marbella
• Restaurante Basilio
• La Tasca de Santi
• The Harbour Bar Restaurant Marbella
• Confiteria Avila

Sevilla

Sevilla is peppered with enough beautiful architecture to spend 3 days just walking through all of them. So the big tip is to stay as close to the centre as possible, which is exactly what we did. From here, you could walk, or even take a single ride bus fare of 1.5 Euros and travel around. 

Things to see:

• Palace of Alcazar - lots of shots of GOT here and need to take tickets at least a few days in advance given they're quite in demand
• Bell Tower - was under construction when we where there, but thankfully had a great view from the terrace of our hotel itself
• Cathedral - said to be the 3rd largest in the worls, after the Vatican and one in Brazil. Definitely worth a visit.
• Plaza de Espana - we were running from one shade cover to the next given hot the day was, but a nice place to check out, especially for the free Flamenco shows that happen
• Setas de Sevilla - an ugly construction created to make you spend an unnecessary 4th day at Sevilla - avoid 

Things to do:

• Definitely a Flamenco show in the area it is said to have originated

Place to stay:

• Aquitania Home Suites - highly recommended given the absolute central location

Places to eat:

• Realcazar Restaurante
• Santa Marta
• Restaurante Biryani House
• Colette