Wednesday's Witch Walk

Mexico City Monuments

RussellMania & Jon wrestling in the National Palace Square

Magic Potion Ingredients at the Witch Market

Eagle eating the snake on a cactus

Cathedral

Yan and the bag of Coconut Water

RussellMania and a Cohiba

Plaza de Republica

 

2/29/12

Don’t worry, the make-out is alive and well in Mexico City.   As we walk around the city here in the parks, plazas, on top of tall building and pyramids, subways, sidewalks, monuments, and any other public place we have noticed that there are plenty of couples making out.  They do this passionately and without any qualms it seems about the decency of the make-out.  Many of the couples that I notice making out would definitely get a slip from the hall monitors in High School for a public display of affection (PDA) and have to go to detention.  In America, one rarely sees such fervent display of affection for one’s partner.  A kiss here, a hand holding there at the most but never a full-blown make out.  It’s quite interesting and I often find it hard not to stare but I’m sure I’ll get use to it. A few places that we have visited were quite inspiring places for a make-out and I was able to get Jon to at least give me a little peck, but he is from Massachusetts so that’s as far as it could go.

Another thing that has been on my mind since we’ve been in Mexico is the tamale.  These tasty little morsels are quite filling and always cheap.  Jon and I were wondering about the tamale when we were in San Felipe as we saw our first native with a large pot on the side of the street selling tamales, 2 for 15 pesos ($1.10).  We pondered whether or not to try them.  We wondered what they were exactly and recalled a few songs that mentioned tamales and the one time we tried them in the dorms at UCLA.  We decided to go for it even though that experience at UCLA wasn’t very satisfying. We were extremely pleased.  Tamales are a dish made of masa (a starchy dough, usually corn-based), which is steamed or boiled in a leaf wrapper. The wrapping is discarded before eating. Tamales can themselves be filled with meats, cheese, fruits, vegetables, chilies or anything else, and both the filling and the cooking liquid may be seasoned.  We have had them with chicken, pork, peppers, onions, salsa verde and even pineapple.  I enjoy the sweet ones for breakfast and the chicken and vegetable ones in the evening.  If you have the opportunity to get a tamale, do so, you won’t regret it.

For the past couple days we have been going to class and cooking dinners at home in the flat.  We tried to go to the Zoo and find a post office on Monday but both of those things were unsuccessful.  We found a mailbox store to mail our 3 postcards but they wanted $33 American Dollars for 3 post card stamps.  WOW! We didn’t mail those postcards.  Why is it so expensive?  Where is the federal post office?  These seem to be lacking in Mexico.  Hopefully we can mail our postcards sometime before we get back to the US.  Yesterday was just as uneventful and unsuccessful because we tried to find a small portable fan for our truck and we couldn’t. 

Today has been fun because RusselMania, Yan, Jon and I took the subway to Zococalo Square where we tried to again visit the National Palace but they were having some kind of special invitation-only party with like 300 guards with machine guns, so we didn’t go.  We did walk about 2 miles to find the Witches Market, which was a very interesting outdoor market where you could go to buy whatever you need to perform your witchcraft or plan your child’s costume party.  They had herbs, candles, animals such as goats, puppies and peacocks, children’s costumes, cigars, bags of unknown powders and barks, etc.  Jon bought 25 Cuban cigars for 80 pesos ($6.50) and we almost bought a goat.  It seems like a fun idea.  After all, it would most likely do all kinds of amusing things around the apartment, the school has not paid the cable bill so this would be like a punishment to them and if it did not work out we could just eat it.  We didn't think that we had enough money but I was suprised when I asked the guy how much and he said 500 pesos ($42)!  There were also smaller ones that I probably could have bargained city'd him down to 300 pesos for.  In the end we chickened out and did not buy a goat.   But there is always tomorrow!  

We had a little street cart dinner of tacos de biztec (steak, 20 pesos) from a guy selling them out of a metal shopping cart that he had rigged a gas stove onto, both dulce (sweet) and salsa verde tamales (20 pesos) & fried plantains (15 pesos). Jon and RusselMania actually had a real Wrestle Mania match in the ring that the Mexican government put up in their historic square right next to the Occupy Mexico City Camp.  They were very entertaining and a few locals took their pictures.  It was quite a long walk back and I am a little tired right now. Buenos Noches.