Whenever Peter and I travel, we usually find ourselves at the end of the line. This isn’t metaphorical–it’s real, and it’s a conscious choice. We look at the transit map, pick a point off on the fringes, and head for it.

Mexico City is inconceivably vast. We bought an enormous foldout map that covered two-thirds of the twin bed in our hotel room, and the areas tourists normally go to (Condesa, Roma, Centro) covers about a square inch. Coyoacan, where the Frida Kahlo museum is, is a couple of inches south.

So Peter decided we’d go to the end of the new suburban rail line, Cuautitlan, up in the north. The train was pretty slick.

And so was the station.

It’s not even near the edge of the city, but it’s a start.

The train ends in a giant big-box-store-architecture kind of terminal, with a mini-mall.

The mall is pretty normal: grocery store, couple of phone stores, a Ticketmaster outlet, a popsicle vendor. Oh, and a pawn shop with the cutest logo ever.

Another sign this mini-mall is not in America: the sex shop.

We finally wandered out into the real world of Cuautitlan. It looked pretty much like every midsize, reasonably prosperous Mexican town.

There’s a church, and some topiary. And a park with a clock tower.

There’s some architecture that looked like it could be in Astoria.

We ate some remarkably scrumptious esquites–corn off the cob, with chile, cilantro, cheese and a huge gob of mayo. (Note to Yucatan esquiteros: Up your game, dudes.)

It was starting to rain, so we high-tailed it back to the station, briefly stopping to do the math on how much our dream house would cost us here in Cuautitlan.

We sat back on the train and watched the rainstorm roll in.

By the time we got back near the center, Mexico City felt a little smaller. Barely.