What a pleasant surprise!! Since I already had a trip planned to OKC and it connected through Mexico City we decided to visit this huge city of 24 mil (inc. surrounding urbanizations) covering 575 square miles. It is the largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere and is situated at an elevation of 7,350’. We understand there are many questionable areas in the city so we chose a hotel located in the Centro Historico across from the Alameda Central Park and the adjacent Bellas Artes. We took a day tour to the Coyoacan area which included Casa Azul (Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera’s house), a ride and lunch in a ‘trajinera’ down the UNESCO-listed waterways of Xochimilco and North America's oldest University National Autonomous University of Mexico, built in 1551. Geography lesson: Mexico City was built by the Aztecs on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco (which originally covered the entire land area of present day Mexico City). Efforts to control flooding led to most of the lake being drained with small waterways east of the city remaining. On some of these waterways you can now ride on brightly colored flat bottomed boats with men poling on bow and stern. It is a combination of an LA traffic jam, Venice gondolas, bumper cars and Mexican rapid fire Spanish going back and forth trying to resolve the waterway jam. All seemed right with the world when the creveza/appetizer/lunch boat showed up and the Mariachi boat tied up to us! Think Mexican bumper boats! A torrential downpour ended the afternoon - most definitely a different way to spend time in Mexico City. We were impressed by this beautiful city – the streets were clean, the parks beautiful, lots of history, monuments, museums, restaurants and shops and the people very friendly.