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.   

Mazatlan

After I got dumped from the kayak

Clam wings

Seafood Extravaganza for 2

Pacifico Beer brewing tank

Tide Pools

Whoa! What a sign

New type of Mexican beer for us

Taxi Ride

How did these things get in Mexico?

 

Thursday 2/16/12

We are in Mazatlan, back at the hotel after going out to the Carnival celebration in the old part of the town.  We took this old-style open air taxi from the hotel where we are staying in the “Golden Zone” beach area north of the city.  I forgot to negotiate a price first and just jumped in.  It ended up being 120 pesos.  Not too bad but it would have been less had I asked first.  The cab blasted American rock and roll at a really loud volume.  The Doors Roadhouse Blues, Yim’s walk-to-the-plate-song at U of Tampa.  The waterfront area in the historic district is really interesting with lots of sculptures and monuments lining the malecon (ocean front boardwalk).  Some we could figure out what they were a testament to and some we could not. 

The area by the waterfront had a band playing and some kind of water, laser, light show that the promotional pamphlets said was akin to Epcot Center.  I thought it was kind of rinky dink.  The only way that show would get into Epcot was if it was at Mexico’s country display.   But the Mexicans seemed to like it and there were thousands of them there to see the performances, along with a handful of gringos. While we were there it really started to rain hard.  Marcie and I being the smart Americans that we are, got seats inside a restaurant just before the sky opened up with a roaring downpour that sent the crowd scattering for cover.  We had a nice dinner of pina coladas and shrimp before heading out into the now reduced rain to listen to the headline band.  The type of music that is typical in this area is called “Banda” and this was a very popular banda band.  After listening tonight and last night on the ferry I can say that I’m not really a fan of this style.  I will concede the fact that there are some good horn lines played by the trombone and trumpet players but there is not much of a vocal melody and the rhythm is so simple that it’s boring.  It’s just a tuba going “bump-bump-bump-bump”.  At first I thought that maybe because I couldn’t understand what they were saying I didn’t appreciate the subtleties of the music.  But then I realized that in a lot of music I like I don’t really know what they are saying most of the time.  So I went back to my first conclusion that banda music is not so good.  I would just like to add in defense of Mexican music that I like the Mariachi style from what I have seen.  The have a lead accordion, acoustic rhythm guitar and stand upright acoustic.  They seem to have a much more balanced style that goes from bouncy polka-like tunes to subtle, sad ballads. 

After that we walked around the old part of the city for a while, out of the Carnival grounds.  There is some amazing architecture here.  It is definitely colonial style with a lot of stucco and wrought iron balconies, like New Orleans.  But it also has a kind of tropical beach jungle buzz with all of the palm tress and exotic vegetation, sort of like Key West.  Also there is a southwest desert Mexico feel given off from the blue and orange ceramic tile lined plazas, and red clay tile roofs.  It poured off and on during this whole time we explored the city streets.  We would take refuge from the rain in the closest doorway, smoke Cuban cigars, watch the streets flood and the vendors try in vain to keep their wares dry. 

We decided to go back into the Carnival for a little to wrap up the night but on the way in the police searched me as they do everybody passing the entrance station and decided to make a big deal out of the knife on my belt.  I didn’t think it was a problem but they did.  After explaining that it was a present from my mother-in-law and it was only used for cutting up limes for my cerveza a higher in command officer was called over so I could explain it to him.  Then an even higher officer was called and after I pled my case one more time I got the knife back but could not enter the Carnival area.  So we took a cab back to the hotel and even though the celebration downtown officially goes to 4am we were back at the hotel by 11:00pm.   

Good night.

2/17/12

It is evening right now and we are having some cervezas and getting ready to head out for dinner and Carnival.  Today has been a nice day.  We went to the gym at the hotel (pretty nice), had breakfast at the hotel (slightly weak), and rented a kayak to go over to Bird Island (very exciting). 

We had planned on taking a water taxi over to the island, which is about 2km off the shore from out hotel.  However, we didn’t find that they were readily available, so Jon talked to a guy about riding us over and back on a jetski.  I didn’t feel completely comfortable with this because how would we know if the guy was going to come back for us and he wanted 200pesos which Jon didn’t want to pay.  We continued on to ask a guy about renting a kayak.  He said 350pesos for 2 hours.  Jon said, “No way.”  We went back to the jetski guy to ask him about his kayaks.  He wanted 200pesos and Jon finagled it down to 100pesos for however long we wanted because clearly…there was no one else even out in any kayaks and doesn’t he want to make some money? 

We kayaked out to the island, which was a little difficult starting out because of the surf near the shore.  Once we were past that it was better and we made it over in about 15 minutes.  We didn’t end up snorkeling because the beach was very rocky and had lots of tide pools so we decided to check those out instead.  There were zillions of sea urchins, oysters, sea anemones, sea cucumbers, crabs, limpits, barnacles, and weird worm things.  It was really great.  The sky started to get a little dark so we thought we better go back.  The paddle back was very quick and when we got close to shore the waves were pretty big.  Jon jumped out when the water was waist deep because he had our backpack with my kindle (stupid) and little digital camera (again stupid).  I stayed in the kayak and planned to ride the wave in.  However, when he jumped off I went flying in at breakneck speeds and then my kayak tipped throwing me in the water.  I felt a little foolish because the Mexican guy came running to make sure I was ok and we were the only people kayaking.  I was completely fine.  The only thing that was hurt was my pride having a kayak guide fall in is a little embarrassing.  Oh well. It was actually a little fun but I don’t want to admit that to Jon.  We also lost a hotel pool towel when we tipped.  We had to give our name when we got the towels so hopefully we won’t be charged, but they don’t have a credit card from us.

Then we went to lunch at a small cantina where we got nachos con queso y guacomole, chile rellanos, tamales and rice.  It was a very good and filling lunch.  We are leaving soon to head to noche dos of Carnaval and it should be a nice night. 

Saturday

Last night was nice.  We got another of their classic car style taxis down to Plazuela Machado.  There were muchas personas alli.  So we walked around a little bit and got a hot cake (gordita nata) from a street vendor before going into a pizza place for dinner.  The place had a kind of Americano Emo vibe like a late night pizza joint you might see in any US city.  They had US trinkets everywhere including a decorative Steelers plate and VH1 classic videos on the television.  The ‘za was excellent, shrimp, pineapple and prosciutto (I’m not sure if this is spelled correctly or not, all spell-check gave me was “prostitute”).  After dinner we walked around the Carnival area watching the bands and looking for churros before taking a cab ride back to the hotel.  Full disclosure, I did trip up the stairs going into the bathroom and fell down to the amusement of the Mexicans watching.  The stairs were narrow, I was wearing boots and my legs were tired, but the attendant thought I was really drunk and told me in English “take it easy, ok?”

This morning I got my piano keyboard out of the truck and brought it up to the balcony of our room and played in the morning sun overlooking the Pacific with coffee con kahalua.  Really nice.  Then breakfast at the hotel before heading out on bikes for the day to the downtown area.  

First we rode a couple of kilometers south on the side of the street, sometimes in the road and sometimes on the sidewalk, constantly dodging gringo touristos y coches.  We stopped along the way to get my very white wife a big straw hat for 80 pesos, to keep the sun off of her.  El sol is mucho fuerte aqui sur de El Tropico de Cancer y mi chica es de Polaka.  Soon we came to the malecon and rode the last 5 kilometers beachside without cars, stopping to go for a swim (only a few Mexicans saw me naked) and for some fish and shrimp tacos and coconut juice straight from the nut that this hombre cut open with his machete. 

We rode around town for a while, stopping again at Plazuela Machado where a Mexican rock band was playing some Santana and Clapton tunes.  They were really good.   The drummer was killing it with really hard hitting fills at the end of the meters, and the guitar player was so good that at first when we were biking up to the area I thought that it was a Santana album playing. 

Next we went to the city art museum.  This cost the equivalent of 80 cents for admission and the security guard unlocked the door for us, so at first we were the only ones in there.  Right off I spotted the unoccupied, unlocked, black, Yamaha, baby grand piano on the other side of the exhibit hall.  So I went over, sat down and started to play.  Tentatively at first because I expected the guard, who was also a police officer, to shut me down real quick.  But when this did not happen I kept on playing and singing.  I think I played about 5 songs on this beautiful piano, probably the nicest I have ever had the pleasure to, while other museum patrons came and went, until I noticed the guard walking toward me.  He politely waited until I had finished the song I was playing, “Baby Deer Walking Thru Snow” (an original), before telling me I could not play anymore. 

So off we were, riding our bikes south thru the old-town streets of Mazatlan out to the tip of the peninsula where there is the second highest lighthouse in the world, after the one at the straight of Gibraltar.   Unfortunately there is a sewage treatment plant at the bottom of the hill on which the beacon sits and a couple of times the smell almost made me throw up.  But after gaining some elevation up the hill the putrid fecal stench was lost on the winds below and we enjoyed a panoramic view of the city and beaches to the north.   After hiking back down we rode our bikes home (wherever we are sleeping that night) about 7 miles along the waterfront, stopping for beers and coconuts and then a great dinner of seafood at an oceanfront restaurant. 

Tomorrow morning we are leaving early (5:30am) to make the 10 hour drive to Mexico City where we are enrolled in a Spanish language school for the next two weeks.  Hasta Luego.