South of the border...down mexico guey.
So I am still alive after 4 days in Mexico City, to be honest the only time I have felt unsafe is walking past the policia carrying MP5 machine guns. This will be a picture free post because I don't have my laptop down here with me (just another thing to lug around and has very little practical value without abundant wireless).
My attitude has been very laid back so far. I am here for 6 weeks and will probably be back in Mexico City for at least another 3 or 4 days before I leave so there is no point tiring myself out trying to do everything, there is always mañana. My hotel is in the centre of Mexico City only about 4 blocks from the Zocalo which is the centre of Mexican government and I guess the city. Of course in a city the size of Mexico being in the centre has limited practical value. It still takes almost and hour or more with traffic to get anywhere else worth going. A lot of the people from Vancouver (¡Hola Chilangos!) live out in an area called Satelite which is quite a car ride north west of the city centre. We have still managed to have a couple of great dinners though.
I spent the first couple of days just walking around the Historical area in which I am living, there is a lot to see in this area and after about 3 or 4 hours it is time to rest anyway. The Palacio Nationale and the National Museum of Art (Munal) were my favourites for that area. Really though it is all about soaking in the very old buildings with the street vendors lining them with so many batteries, fake dvds and coloured pencils that a consumer is left spoiled for choice. This is what makes walking around the area so much fun.
Yesterday I travelled down to Coyoacan which is an older district of the city in which Frida Kahlo, Diego Riveria and Trotsky lived. The streets are much quieter and the buildings are all very nice. I visited Frida Kahlo's house/museum which was a bit of an eye opener. The collection they had of her works was a nice taste of Kahlo and I suspect I will see more of it around Mexico. I next headed up to Trotsky's house but I couldn't be bothered going in (¡Stalinist!) because other than the fact he got assassinated there I didn't really see much point in it.
Today is my last day in Mexico City and I travelled up to the Basilica de Guadalupe which is a very important place in the Mexican psyche because the Virgin of Guadalupe (the miraculous vision for which the area is known) is really the patron saint of Latin America. The churches there are quite impressive but I didn't really think too much of the more modern church where the miracle shirt is housed. It was built to be able to manage more crowds but loses a lot in the whole appeal of a grand old church.
The last two days I have been using the metro to get around town and have found it to be just about the easiest to understand that I have been on. Every station has a symbol and a name so even if you don't have a clue what the name is you can just look for the symbol. Secondly where two lines intersect the station has very clear signs showing where to go to change to the other line, once you get there they again show clearly which direction to go for each north/south or east/west trip. Each trip is a KINGLY 2 pesos so it is a very cheap way to get around town.
Tonight I am going out with some of my friends from Vancouver and tomorrow we are going on a road trip to Teotihucan which I am really looking forward to seeing. Though I am leaving on Saturday night for an overnight bus to Monterrey there are still a few things to do here in Mexico City so I think I will set aside a few days before I fly out. I still have to see the Anthropological museum which gets rave reviews. It is in the Chapultepec area which has a number of sights to see.
So I am having a good time down here, the language barrier is difficult but I am slowly learning to count (past ten) in spanish, so when I ask how much something is (¿Cuanto?) I know what the reply actually means. After all, if you can eat everything else is gravy.
My attitude has been very laid back so far. I am here for 6 weeks and will probably be back in Mexico City for at least another 3 or 4 days before I leave so there is no point tiring myself out trying to do everything, there is always mañana. My hotel is in the centre of Mexico City only about 4 blocks from the Zocalo which is the centre of Mexican government and I guess the city. Of course in a city the size of Mexico being in the centre has limited practical value. It still takes almost and hour or more with traffic to get anywhere else worth going. A lot of the people from Vancouver (¡Hola Chilangos!) live out in an area called Satelite which is quite a car ride north west of the city centre. We have still managed to have a couple of great dinners though.
I spent the first couple of days just walking around the Historical area in which I am living, there is a lot to see in this area and after about 3 or 4 hours it is time to rest anyway. The Palacio Nationale and the National Museum of Art (Munal) were my favourites for that area. Really though it is all about soaking in the very old buildings with the street vendors lining them with so many batteries, fake dvds and coloured pencils that a consumer is left spoiled for choice. This is what makes walking around the area so much fun.
Yesterday I travelled down to Coyoacan which is an older district of the city in which Frida Kahlo, Diego Riveria and Trotsky lived. The streets are much quieter and the buildings are all very nice. I visited Frida Kahlo's house/museum which was a bit of an eye opener. The collection they had of her works was a nice taste of Kahlo and I suspect I will see more of it around Mexico. I next headed up to Trotsky's house but I couldn't be bothered going in (¡Stalinist!) because other than the fact he got assassinated there I didn't really see much point in it.
Today is my last day in Mexico City and I travelled up to the Basilica de Guadalupe which is a very important place in the Mexican psyche because the Virgin of Guadalupe (the miraculous vision for which the area is known) is really the patron saint of Latin America. The churches there are quite impressive but I didn't really think too much of the more modern church where the miracle shirt is housed. It was built to be able to manage more crowds but loses a lot in the whole appeal of a grand old church.
The last two days I have been using the metro to get around town and have found it to be just about the easiest to understand that I have been on. Every station has a symbol and a name so even if you don't have a clue what the name is you can just look for the symbol. Secondly where two lines intersect the station has very clear signs showing where to go to change to the other line, once you get there they again show clearly which direction to go for each north/south or east/west trip. Each trip is a KINGLY 2 pesos so it is a very cheap way to get around town.
Tonight I am going out with some of my friends from Vancouver and tomorrow we are going on a road trip to Teotihucan which I am really looking forward to seeing. Though I am leaving on Saturday night for an overnight bus to Monterrey there are still a few things to do here in Mexico City so I think I will set aside a few days before I fly out. I still have to see the Anthropological museum which gets rave reviews. It is in the Chapultepec area which has a number of sights to see.
So I am having a good time down here, the language barrier is difficult but I am slowly learning to count (past ten) in spanish, so when I ask how much something is (¿Cuanto?) I know what the reply actually means. After all, if you can eat everything else is gravy.
posted by denny at 10:22 AM
1 Comments:
How'd you do dat without a computer??? Bismarck and Elizabeth ask if there is any gravy left????
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