Mexico City & Oaxaca: Expectations vs. Reality
This story was written while lying on a bed in Oaxaca, Mexico & while sitting at my kitchen table in San Diego, CA.
The premise of this entire blog is that I tell stories about new places I visit through my experiences of eating grilled cheese sandwiches in those new places. When it came to this trip to Mexico City and Oaxaca, I’ve been struggling with what story to tell.
Usually how this goes is that when I know I’m going to visit a new city, I research a food place that specializes in grilled cheese sandwiches. I knew that wasn’t going to happen here, and in this case, I didn’t want it to. Instead, I had four unplanned “grilled cheese experiences” on this trip:
First up was an amazing potato and cheese quesadilla we found at the largest market in Mexico City. (I’m still mad at myself for not getting a picture of it). In a happy coincidence, my partner Orlando’s mom was in Mexico City at the same time as us. On the day we spent together, we visited La Lagunilla Market and spent hours wandering around. Eventually, we needed food and came upon a stand run by a few women who were seemingly from three different generations. The quesadilla itself was everything I could ask for: warm, soft, and so, so good.
Secondly, after a somewhat stressful travel day from Mexico City to Oaxaca, we ventured outside of our Airbnb to eat at a traditional Oaxacan restaurant. I saw something on the menu, and could recognize most of the words, so I went for it. As we sat there waiting for the food to arrive, Orlando said something vaguely like, “You know, I think you might’ve just ordered a grilled cheese.” Sure enough, when my food arrived, it looked like… well, like a sandwich with cheese that had been grilled.
I think about these blog posts a lot on my trips nowadays. I love this because it gives me a way to process what I see and learn while I travel. So when I saw this, I thought, “This is the sandwich my post can be about. The one I didn’t mean to find, especially at a traditional Oaxacan restaurant. Maybe it was ignorant of me to think there wouldn’t be something so similar to a grilled cheese sandwich here in Mexico.” (Side note: I do think it was a bit ignorant of me. Tortas exist, duh Sara). But… it wasn’t as familiar as I thought just from looking at it. While the outside was seemingly grilled, the cheese inside was not melted, and was very different from what I expected when it was first placed in front of me.
Thirdly, on our way to a cemetery tour on Halloween night (more on that later), we stopped by a place called Tito’s and I ordered a torta con quesillo (what you call cheese in Oaxaca). By now, I remembered that tortas exist and so this time I expected something similar to a grilled cheese. This is definitely the closest I found to what I think of as a grilled cheese sandwich, and yet (unexpectedly) it was not my favorite out of these four experiences.
Before this trip even started, I had a notion that my “grilled cheese sandwich” here would be a simple quesadilla. As I talked with people who knew about my trip (and my weird grilled cheese thing), they expected this too. So, finally, on our second to last night in Mexico, there was a Día de Muertos market right outside of our Airbnb. I ordered my first (and only) straight up quesadilla of the trip. Tortilla, cheese, and nothing else.
We constantly navigate life with expectations in our minds, but especially so when visiting somewhere new. What is that building going to look like? What am I going to eat? How will I feel when visiting this place? Then, there’s reality. Sometimes those two things match up pretty well, and other times they don’t. This is true of any vacation, but I noticed it especially so on this one. I found myself confronting these expectations I had formed in my mind throughout the whole trip, whether it was with food or other experiences.
Expectation: I would eat a loooot of flour tortillas on this trip. (My favorite).
Reality: Corn tortilla is much, much more common in this part of Mexico and I never once saw (let alone ate) a flour tortilla.
Expectation: Every protest I’ve ever seen in a large city has been advocating for progressive policy or change.
Reality: On our first day in Mexico City, a huge anti-abortion protest interrupted our walking tour.
Expectation: I would fall in love with Oaxaca.
Reality: I liked it, but I enjoyed Mexico City a lot more!
And then, there was the expectation and reality surrounding Día de Muertos.
Last year was the first time I truly celebrated this holiday. Orlando’s brother and sister-in-law hosted, and, as a family, we sat around a kitchen table for hours listening to and telling stories about our loved ones who had died. I found the experience really nice and I think of it fondly. I loved how the focus was on celebrating their lives and feeling happy that we knew them in the first place. It all felt very cathartic and I learned new things about people (living and dead) that I had known for years in some cases. I didn’t fully internalize this at the time, but this experience formed by expectations for what it meant to celebrate this holiday: family, closeness, celebration, happiness, memory, and love.
Orlando and I already had Mexico City on our “potential places to visit” list for a while, but this (along with the movie Coco, yes) really inspired me to want to see the celebrations first hand. When I finally got there, a lot matched up with my expectations: the flowers, the alters, the offerings, the pictures. But a lot was different than I expected: the multiple parades in Mexico City, learning that the parades only started a few years ago thanks to a scene in a James Bond movie (…what?), pan de muerto, and much more. What was most unexpected though, was how I felt about myself.
When planning this trip, I saw that one thing recommended to do for Día de Muertos was to visit a cemetery. I was really excited about this opportunity, so Orlando and I signed up for a tour and were on our way. Once at the cemetery, however, I started to feel… guilty. The cemetery was immensely crowded — how much of that was normal and how much was because this event has become overrun with tourists? I walked amongst the graves and passed people who were obviously sitting at that particular grave because it was for their family member. Was it okay for me to take a picture of that grave? Am I intruding? Should I be here at all? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions.
At one point I passed someone emphatically (and guiltily) saying to their partner, in English, “These people are mourning their dead.” Seems at least one other person was having similar thoughts to me.
My understanding of Día de Muertos is that it is a holiday of celebration, rather than sadness. I could see this around me, in the liveliness of the cemeteries and the markets. But, I still don’t know how the local Oaxacans felt about tourists visiting during these celebrations, which seem inherently personal to me. Likely, they all have varied and nuanced opinions. And how do I, personally, reconcile the fact that I was there with my partner, who is Mexican? Again, I don’t have answers at this exact moment in time. I just know that in this case, the reality of the experience was completely different than my expectations.
To be honest, part of me even felt guilty about wanting a grilled cheese experience in a place with such varied and exciting food. Out of the four grilled cheese-esque experiences I mentioned above, my favorite was not 2 or 3 (those that most resembled a typical grilled cheese sandwich), or even number 4 (the one I expected when going into this trip). My favorite was number 1, a meal that I couldn’t have researched even if I tried. The one found at a random stall in the largest market in Mexico City, and the only one I don’t have recorded in pictures.
I’m glad that I didn’t seek those experiences out like I normally would, didn’t let my expectations get in the way, and instead let the cheese and grilled bread (or, you know, tortillas) find me. I couldn’t have predicted where I would find them, in markets and in traditional restaurants, but I’m glad. If anything, these meals allowed me to think deeply about what I expected out of the trip, the reality, and, interestingly, my place in all the in between.
