Ciudad de Mexico

Mexico City Harley Bar

Frida's Family Portrait

Diego & Frida

Casa Azul

There is a real sea turtle taxidermy under all the portraits

Leon Trotsky's room at Frida's house

 

 

 

On the roof of our dorm

Pandeceria-Cinnamon Rolls the size of my head!

Park de Mexico

Art Bus/Restaurant

 

Sunday 2/19/12

Dang, this day started out with a bang when I banged our truck into the back of this Mexican lady’s car as the first light came into the sky at 6:00 am.  She wanted to talk about it in the middle of the intersection and I’m sure eventually to get some dinero ($$$) from me but that was not what I wanted.  So I told her there was nothing wrong with her car, she didn’t think so, and then Marcie and I drove away before she could call la policia.  We had a dang heck of a time getting out of the city of Mazatlan and finding the highway but once we did we were cruising.  After about 5 hours and $30 worth of tolls we reached Guadalajara where we stopped for gas talked with some locals and got lost.  Back on the right track we drove 5 more hours, paid another $50 in tolls on the way to Mexico City before getting lost again and eventually crawling thru traffic up to the high mountain valley at 7,000 feet elevation where this megalopolis of 21 million people sits. 

In Mexico City we are going to a Spanish language school for 2 weeks.  My first impressions of the city were that the temperature is a really comfortable 75 degree daytime high and 50 degree nighttime low everyday, its air quality problems are exaggerated and it seems to be par with LA, it is extremely congested with traffic/parking, and there is an astounding variety of culinary cultures from around the world represented in the local restaurants similar to San Francisco or Manhattan.

So Monday at school on our the first day we took placement tests and despite previously having taken at least 6 years Spanish classes I was placed in the beginner class along with Marcie who has not ever taken a Spanish class in her life.  But I don’t really care about their evaluations concerning my ability to learn to conjugate verbs or apply past or present tenses.  I’m manipulating the class to get what I want out of it, which is to learn all of the nouns and verbs that I deem important.  I am under no illusion that I will ever be so fluent in the language that I will be confused for a native Mexican, although this seems to be the unrealistic goal of the school.  But yeah, class was good and I learned a lot.  It is an interesting mix of students, we have I think 8 people in the class whose countries of origin include: Germany, Brazil, Scotland, Russia, Holland, Australia and the good ‘ole US of A.  Our sleeping room is a double bedroom with a shared bathroom, kitchen and living room.  Our roommates are two guys from Britain, a guy from Germany, a Girl from China and a guy from New York.  It’s a lot of fun hanging around in the living room swapping cultural experiences with them. 

Tuesday was another informative day of class followed by homework assignments and then Marcie and I went for a walk around our new neighborhood.  First we stopped at a bakery for some pan dulce because it is Fat Tuesday, Gordo Martes here, the last day before the Christian fasting of Lent and the Polish (Marcie) usually have some sort of donut to celebrate.  Although we are not Christian we love donuts.  Then we went to the cinema down Avinuda Insurgentes to see what was playing.  It turns out that all of their movies are in English with Spanish subtitles.  I don’t think that this is a good idea for their own sales to the Mexican public but it works for Marcie and I and thank Dios that they have Funky Mark’s “Contraband” playing this week.   We then walked to the Parque de Mexico and strolled around a little bit there watching dog owners walk away and pretend not to notice as their obligations shat and urinated in the public space.  Back at our flat as the roommates like to call it we played a little dominoes and drank tequila before heading off to the other side for the night.  Esta Bien. 

2/22/12

Today we went to Casa Azul, where the Frida Kahlo museum is.  It was nice to see a building with so much history.  The room/bed where Leon Trotsky stayed was still there and lots of paintings by Frida and her husband Diego Rivera as well as household goods that they used.  Before we went I was thinking that this was the house where Frida and Diego had a bridge connecting the two parts of the house where each of them lived, but I didn’t see the bridge. I also expected more notable paintings by Frida but there were only a few.  It was a little disappointing but still a nice museum over all. 

We rode the subway to the museum.  It was an adventure but quite easy to use and very affordable.  It cost Jon and I $1 American to buy 2 roundtrip tickets.  It was actually a nice subway compared with the other ones I’ve rode in the US, but it was very crowded.  This didn’t stop young men from walking thru the cars selling all kinds of stuff.  We walked through an open air market on the way home so I could find a few vegetables for dinner but they were closing things up so we had to go to the Super Marcado.

Tomorrow I think we are going to the museum of anthropology so I’ll let you know how that goes.  Buenes Noches.