Mexico City...Finally...

Time to recount my weekend in Mexico City. Here goes…

THURSDAY (4/15)

I had midterms on Thursday so we got a bus after school for the seven hour ride to Mexico City. We both slept most of the way there. I think the first time I checked the time we were already five hours into the ride.

We got there around 10 o’clock and had to find our way to our Couch Surfing host’s place. Linda had written down his cell phone number but I couldn’t read it and we called the wrong number about 10 times before we realized it was a 7 not a 2. Abdiel, our host, said he would pick us up at the metro station, so we made our way down there. His metro stop was pretty much on the other side of the city from the bus station, so it took us a good hour to get there, but we didn’t have any problems along the way. Abdiel and his roommate Daniel picked us up in an old, beat up, white VW Bug which was pretty much the highlight of my day. That was my first time in a VW Bug of any sort, I think.

When we got to their apartment we dropped our stuff and gathered in the kitchen to make pasta, drink some Tecate, and chat. We switched back and forth between English and Spanish mostly because Linda was too tired to attempt speaking Spanish, but they also spoke really good English. After eating our pasta we started watching Scarface, but I fell asleep about half an hour in. I promise I’ll finish it someday.

FRIDAY (4/16)
We woke up at a reasonable hour and took our time getting ready in the morning. I flipped through my guide book and Abdiel gave me a few tips for what we should do during our stay. I decided on going to the Frida Khalo Museum in a neighborhood called Coyoacan which wasn’t too far away from the apartment and Linda was pretty much along for the ride.

The Frida Khalo Museum, or Casa Azul, is in the house that she and Diego Rivera lived in together. It lives up to its name; it’s a very blue house. The museum itself could have been set up better, but it was a good outing. Their house was really interesting in itself. There was one room with writing across the top of the wall that said something like “Diego Rivera, Maria Felix, and Frida Khalo’s room.” Maria Felix was a very famous actress in the 40s and 50s, so I thought that was kind of cool. There were a lot of nick nacks sitting around and Linda said, “Someday, when you’re famous, people will put your random stuff on display.” That’s pretty much how it felt.

Coyoacan itself was a pretty cute little neighborhood. It reminded me a lot of Oaxaca or Tlaquepaue with a good town square and a pretty church. There was also a good sized open air market where we stopped and bought some giant tacos. One thing we noticed early on about Mexico City was that everyone was so nice. We didn’t know how to get to a metro station from where we were so we asked a vendor on the street and he was very helpful. Later, when we took the bus too far we got off and asked a guy how to get to the metro station from there and when we looked confused at his directions he offered up his brother to walk us there. It was surprising for the biggest city in the world to be so nice and open.

After Coyoacan we were supposed to meet another guy from Couch Surfing to get a tour around the city center, but because we left Coyoacan a little late and then got lost we got to the meeting spot an hour late. We tried calling him to figure out where he was, but he was being uncooperative and only said he was in Puebla, so we just gave up on him and headed to the zócalo by ourselves.

As we started walking toward the zócalo (which I now realize was insane because we were like four metro stops away) we stopped and asked one last time if anyone knew where Puebla was. This began a very confusing series of events because Puebla, undoubtedly, is a street somewhere in Mexico City, but it also happens to be another city in another state. The men we stopped and asked were very nice and tried to give us directions, but when I started asking questions they thought I didn’t understand. So then, one of them says he’ll take us there. So we got on the metro with him and we went maybe two stops and got off and started walking to transfer to another line when he said something about a bus station, and Linda and I were both like, “Wait what? Bus station?” That’s when we realized that he thought we were talking about Puebla the city, not some street. He was taking us to the bus station to go for a four hour bus ride. Whoops. So right then and there we thanked him, got back on the metro, and went to the zócalo station.

When we got to the zócalo we were so wiped out that we went to the tourist kiosk and asked where we could drink some beer. They gave us a map of the city center and recommended a place that was easy to walk to. We wandered down the nearest street and eventually found Bar Gante, the place they had recommended. It was good to just sit and relax for a bit. Linda had been feeling really uncomfortable and uptight, so some Victoria did her some good. We were just sitting there chatting when a really creepy street performer guy dressed as a skeleton came up behind Linda and put his hand on her shoulder. She nearly jumped out of her seat. He was pretty scary. Needless to say we didn’t give him any money.

After Bar Gante we headed back to the apartment. We were thinking of meeting up with Linda’s friend, Oscar, who lives in the city, but we couldn’t get a hold of him, so we ended up going with Abdiel and Daniel with their friends. We squished seven people into their VW Bug and drove through the rain (yes rain!) to a karaoke bar called the Cotton Club. Linda let it slip that I can sing, so I took a look through the song book and found “Oops, I Did It Again” by Britney Spears among many other gems. I signed up to sing, but sadly my song never came up. We still had a really good time. I actually knew a few of the songs other people were singing, and they had TV screens all over the place so everyone could sing along. Plus, in between karaoke songs they played salsa and banda music, so Linda and I danced with Abdiel and Daniel a little bit. We left the bar around 2 or 3am and all went back to their apartment for some more hanging out. Linda decided she had to teach our hosts the rules of beer pong and I got a great video of her over-the-top explanation. I got tired around 4:30 and snagged a bed before anyone else had even started thinking about sleeping. I found out the next morning that Linda had slept on the kitchen floor but I think that was mostly because she was being stubborn.

SATURDAY (4/17)
We woke up late the next day with no real plan. We ate some of the snacks we’d bought for the bus ride for breakfast and finally headed to the zócalo around 3. Our first stop was the Palacio Nacional on one side of the square. Inside this government building are several murals by Diego Rivera that were really interesting. In the Guadalajara government building there are a bunch of murals by Orozco, but I prefer Rivera’s style much more.

The first mural is a big one with three panels. We stood there for a long time analyzing it just for fun. One side was like native cultures and religion and it wasn’t very interesting. The big panel in the middle was the Spanish conquest depicting the capturing and branding of natives and the conversion to Catholicism.

The third panel was our favorite and we took the longest time analyzing it. It was Rivera’s take on society and corruption but also what he thought should be done about it. Linda said that a lot of his work shows bad, unhappy things but that it always ends happy. This was pretty clear in that panel. My favorite part was at the very top there was a depiction of Carl Marx with a landscape behind him. On one side the land was all ruined and dead and on the other side (in the direction he was pointing) was a idyllic, colorful landscape with shining factories and big cities. We both thought it was pretty clear what he was trying to say there.

On the second floor of the building was another series of murals depicting Aztec culture and the Spanish conquest. We walked around to all of them and Linda told me what she had heard about each one. I missed a day of our culture class when the teacher talked about these murals so Linda told me what she could remember.

When we were finally done with that we were both absolutely starving. My stomach was literally eating itself. So we went back to Bar Gante since we knew it was nearby and I got a hamburger while she got fried chicken. Very Mexican. The waiter was the same as the day before and when he came out to us (we were even sitting at the same table) he said, “OK, two Victorias?” I guess we kind of stood out.

Another girl from CEPE, Sonja, has a friend who lives in Mexico City so she gave him our numbers so we could meet up. Tavio ended up meeting us at Bar Gante while we were eating our very late lunch. When he got there it had started to rain pretty hard so we went inside the restaurant and chatted while we finished up. We switched back and forth between English and Spanish, but mostly stuck to Spanish for that part of the day. His English was relatively good but he really wanted/needed to practice.

Once it stopped raining we went back to the zócalo and I took them to “Mexico en tus sentidos” again. This is the same thing that Dad and I did when we were in DF for one night during semana santa. I think they really liked it. Afterwards Tavio said he felt very proud to be Mexican and I said I imagined you had to after something like that. When we were walking out a camera man came up to me and Linda and asked us if we would do and interview for the exhibition’s website. He took us over to a spot and interviewed us in English, mostly asking what we thought of the exhibition and what we would tell our fellow Americans about Mexico. It’s very possible that our videos are up on the website. I think the URL is mexicoentussentidos.com.mx but I could be wrong.

When we got out of that it was absolutely pouring down rain. There were parts of the temporary building that the exhibition was in that were leaking. We were pretty hesitant to walk out into that mess but the security guys were getting really annoyed and forced us out. There were two girls selling rain slicker trash bags for five pesos each, so we bought some and ran for cover. We wanted to go to the cathedral next but because of the rain we had to walk around the perimeter of the zócalo under the arches of the surrounding buildings.

While we were looking around/taking cover in the cathedral we found out that Abdiel wouldn’t be able to make it back to the apartment until 9 or so, so we went with Tavio to a Starbucks nearby to drink something warm and wait out the rain some more. We were all soaked and freezing and none of us were used to this weather. Tavio is from La Manzanilla, a beach town near Barra de Navidad, and we were used to the sunny Guadalajara weather. We ended up sort of eating dinner at Starbucks and talking about our plans for the night. Linda was still trying to get a hold of Oscar and Tavio thought he might have plans but both ideas fell through. After much back and forth we decided to meet Tavio’s friend and go out to a bar for a little while before going back home for and early night. Linda and I were both tired from the night before and Abdiel was waiting for us back in his apartment.

Tavio’s friend, Roque, lives in a pretty nice neighborhood close to the Eugenia metro stop with a few other guys. He has an adorable black lab, Sparky, who is about a year and a half old and full of energy. We drove from his house to the Condeza neighborhood (think Greenwich Village in NYC) and went to a bar called the King’s Pub. It seemed to be a chain but it had a good atmosphere and, later, a good live band. I was pretty sleepy and boring until the live band started up with “Don’t Stop Believin’” and then I perked right up. The guys at the table next to us were practically drowning out the band with their singing along. We left the bar around midnight and made plans to meet up with them the next day for some sightseeing.

We had successfully gotten back to the apartment early-ish, but ended up staying up and talking to Abdiel until nearly 2am. So much for an early night.

SUNDAY (4/18)
That morning Linda and I decided to take Abdiel out for breakfast as a thank you. When we were walking to the breakfast place Abdiel told us that he had to go home that day and wouldn’t be able to come back for the night. This was a huge bomb to drop on us at this point because it meant we had to find somewhere else to stay for the rest of our trip. So we went back to his apartment very irritated and packed up. Linda got a hold of Tavio who told us we could stay at Roque’s for the night, so that was all set, but it was still annoying that we had to just get up and go. We still took Abdiel out for breakfast at Sanbourn’s (the Mexican Denny’s) but this time we had our suitcases with us.

After breakfast we went to Roque’s metro station and he and Tavio picked us up and took us out for more food. We weren’t hungry but they hadn’t eaten yet. The restaurant they took us to was right next to the bull fighting arena, but hopefully that’s not where the bulls go afterwards…After our very late brunch we went back to Roque’s house to pick up a few of his roommates and hit the town.

First we went to Chapultepec Park where the National Anthropology Museum is, along with a lot of other museums, the zoo, and acres and acres of green park grounds for the people of Mexico City. We made a quick stop at the Anthropology Museum because we had been told that it was a must see. The people we were with didn’t seem terribly interested in the museum’s contents, so that made it a little difficult to enjoy. We zoomed through a few of the exhibits on indigenous cultures and spent a little bit longer in the Aztec exhibit. There were several really interesting pieces there including a giant sacrificial altar with the calendar on it and a replica of Montezuma’s headdress.

After the museum we headed out for Xochimilco, one of the most recognizable parts of Mexico City in my opinion. It shows up in a lot of movies set in Mexico City, kind of like Central Park and NYC. Mexico City was originally the capital of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan, which was built as a group of islands in the middle of a lake. It must have been very impressive in its day. Xochimilco is kind of the remnants of this series of islands and channels. Large groups of families and friends head to the colorful boats for an afternoon of food, drink, music, and relaxation. We rented a boat for about an hour and did a good circuit of the channels, but I have a feeling there was even more to see. Every island had something different on it from restaurants to plant nurseries to petting zoos. Out on the water was no different with tons of smaller boats selling food and drinks, even one selling bonsai trees. We ordered food from one of the boats and they hooked themselves up to our boat to prepare the food and serve it to us. I got enchiladas with mole and it was delicious. All the other food people got looked good too.

One of the best parts about Xochimilco was the mariachi music floating all around us, literally. There were smaller boats with full bands on them that went around getting hired by various groups out on the water. It was pretty common to see a mariachi group playing on their boat which was attached to the side of a bigger boat with people eating and drinking and dancing. Sometimes there would be a smaller mariachi group right on the boat with their temporary employers, the lead singer singing right in their faces. I don’t know if it gets more Mexican than Xochimilco.

After that we just went back to Roque’s and hung out. His roommate, Luis, who also knows Sonja from La Manzanilla, took us out to a taco place nearby for dinner. Luis plays for a professional soccer team in Mexico City, but I don’t know enough about the soccer scene here to know if his team is any good. I’ve forgotten the name anyway. We ended up sleeping on a mattress on the floor in Roque’s room.

MONDAY (4/19)
We woke up late and didn’t end up leaving Roque’s house until nearly 1:30 absolutely starving. I grabbed a bag of chips before we got to the metro station and then when we were changing lines we both got something at Domino’s Pizza in the metro. Breakfast of champions for sure. We got to the bus station and immediately bought tickets for the next bus to Teotihuacan.

Teotihuacan is another Aztec city that is much older than Tenochtitlan and was deserted by the time the Spanish arrived. It’s a good thing too or else the Spanish would have destroyed it too. Teotihuacan is also the home of the largest pyramid left in Mexico. It’s only about a 45 minute bus ride outside of Mexico City, but when you get there you feel like you are millions of miles away. Linda made the comment that only a few miles away was one of the largest, most densely populated cities in the world, but there we were in a place that was pretty much the opposite. I’m sure that Teotihuacan gets packed with tourists, but on this random Monday we were nearly the only people there.

I hired a guide for us because I didn’t want to just be looking at piles of rocks without knowing what they were. He took us around on a lengthy tour and showed us a bunch of things we probably would have missed without him. There was a house that was way off the path that you could walk through. It was protected by a metal structure to keep the rain from damaging the original paint designs that are still on the walls. We definitely would have missed that without him. We also learned that the religious ball game that the Aztecs played varied greatly from the Mayan game because it is thought that they used sticks (something like intense croquet) instead of hitting the ball off their hips, knees, and elbows. To end the tour he took us to a corner of the plaza of the pyramid of the moon to demonstrate the odd acoustics. When he clapped, the sound bounced off the buildings and came back sounding like sort of animal. It’s hard to describe but, never fear, I took a video!

After our tour we climbed the two pyramids; first the smaller pyramid of the moon and then the largest pyramid in Mexico, the pyramid of the sun. The pyramid of the moon was blocked off so we could only go up half way, but that was good enough. It had the same weird acoustic phenomenon and we had some fun clapping out beats and dancing around. After catching our breath and taking lots of pictures we moved on to the mother of all pyramids.

The sun was starting to set so we knew we had to hurry to climb the more than 250 stairs to the top before they closed for the day. Climbing up wasn’t even really that bad because there were a several flat areas between the flights of stairs where we could stop and rest. When we finally got to the top, though, we were exhausted and it took us a few minutes to recharge. Right when we started to take pictures, a security man came over and told us it was closing time and we had to go back down. We asked him for a few extra minutes and then scurried around to the other side of the platform at the top where he couldn’t see us. We were so high up that you could see for miles and miles in every direction. The wind was blowing pretty strong and I just happened to have our rain slickers from Saturday still in my purse, so I got a really epic picture of Linda with her “cape” on at the top of the pyramid. We are the epitome of cool. After that the security guard saw us again and we actually had to get off the pyramid. We were the last ones to leave Teotihuacan that day.

When we finally got on the bus to go back to the city we were actually starving. Remember, we had only eaten a bag of chips and an ice cream cone (me) and a mini Domino’s pizza (Linda) more than five hours before. We had decided that since we didn’t have anywhere to stay that night that we would just get on a midnight bus back to Guadalajara and get there early Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, Linda had left a pair of shoes at Abdiel’s apartment, so before we could eat we decided to go all the way back there. We got there around 9 maybe and only stayed for a few minutes to drink a glass of water and tell him about what we did Sunday and that day. With her shoes in hand, Linda and I said good bye to him one more time and went to Sanbourn’s again for dinner.

This is where things got complicated. At dinner Linda finally got a hold of her friend and we made arrangements to meet up with him for maybe an hour. This was a problem because we still had to go back to Roque’s to pick up our suitcases before going to the bus station (all of which we would have to do on the metro) and the metro closes at midnight. So we rushed through dinner thanks to our excellent waitress and ran off to the metro to meet Oscar. It was really bad timing, but this guy was basically the reason Linda came to Mexico so they had to see each other at some point (and I really wanted to meet him). We figured out that with the amount of time we had left we would only get half an hour with him, and then he was late so it turned into fifteen minutes. We went into a nearby VIPS (the Mexican IHOP) and sat at a table while they caught up. After that we zoomed off to Roque’s house, grabbed our stuff, and said a quick good bye. At this point it was 11:20 and we still had to get to the bus station.

We were actually ahead of schedule by a little bit, so I started to relax bit. I relaxed a little too much because after we’d been on the train for a few stops I realized we were going in the wrong direction. We got off immediately and lugged our bags up and down the stairs to the other platform but the train didn’t come for another 15 mintues or so. At this point it was somewhere close to 11:50 and we still had to transfer lines to get to the bus station. The transfer between the line we were on and the one we needed was a very long tunnel that takes nearly 15 minutes to walk, so we got off the train and started running. We weren’t the only ones which made me feel a little better. At least the natives thought they had a chance if they ran too. We lucked out and a train did come.

It was about 12:15 when we finally got to the bus station. We bought tickets for the next bus which left at 12:30, hopped on, and finally got to rest. After that whole long day of pyramids, buses, metros, and stairs we spread ourselves out on the bus and fell asleep for the night. We arrived back in Guadalajara at 7:30 Tuesday morning which gave me enough time to get a taxi home and go to school. A strange end to a crazy trip.