I Heart DF!

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I was a bit nervous arriving in Mexico City. I was couchsurfing, with a girl named Julia, but I didn’t have a phone that worked in Mexico so our meeting up was pretty hard to do. Luckily she arrived at the bus terminal where we’d agreed to meet and she took me back to her apartment- 16th storey with great views of Mexico City and I got my own room! Thank you couchsurfing.org! The apartment was in a great little compound that Julia says was from the 1970s (apparently they don’t build them like that any more)- so within the walls were 20-30 apartment blocks, but there was also a skating park, oval, a few playgrounds, corner stores, street food vendors, a dentist etc. It was so interesting, and such a nice little community with so much room to move even in the city. Julia and I went to have a quesadilla from a vendor within the compound- good stuff!

Anyway, Julia was pretty busy at the time, with uni and helping to run a film festival. On my first afternoon in Mexico City, Julia took me to see a movie from her documentary film festival- about human trafficking of prostitutes in Denmark. It was pretty interesting. Then she showed me around her campus, which was phenomenal! We got a mango slushie thing with chilli rimming the entire inside of the cup and encrusted on the straw. It was surprisingly delicious- I’d certainly try and make it for myself back home in summer. It’s amazing how quickly the taste of chilli grows on you. Julia’s English was very good, so we talked about all sorts of things. She took me to the Coyoacan district and went to her favourite café. Definitely a great start to Mexico City.

The next morning I woke up and talked to Julia about what I should do that day. (and she bought me a tamale for breakfast- so sweet!) I decided on the historical district, but first I needed to meet up with Jono to pick up LP and a bag with some of my stuff in it (couldn’t be bothered lugging it all the way to Cuernavaca just to lug it back again). Julia said I could use a spare mobile phone she had lying around, but she needed to get a SIM card for it first. So it was agreed that I would go meet Jono, come back to drop off my bag and pick up the phone once it had a SIM and then try to meet up with Julia’s friend in the historical district. Unfortunately things took longer than I expected. Jono wasn’t going to the airport until 2pm so we went to lunch and he told me about the earthquake in Christchurch (I didn’t know how bad it was!) and good things to do in Mexico City. Then I made a quick sojourn to the guide store in Mexico City (I had forgotten that I had to get presents for others in Our Cabana) but got completely lost. In the end I didn’t get back to the apartment until past 5pm, several hours after intended. That was a bit of a shame, because it meant I couldn’t meet up with Julia’s friend. On the bright side though, I got some good stuff from the guide store… (I feel a bit guilty about that).

Another brightside of missing out on the historical district that first day was that it gave me the opportunity to properly plan what I wanted to get done in Mexico City. Julia arrived that night with the her sister who was in town for the weekend to be in a short film for Julia’s friend. The next day Julia’s sister showed me how to get to Coyoacan (don’t know how I would have managed without a Spanish speaker, except for a lot of walking). I went and visited the Frida Kahlo Museum, which was absolutely fantastic.- living spaces kept in tact and lots of paintings, photographs and explanations in English. She’s definitely a lot more talented than I gave her credit for (the same revelation happened when I saw a Salvador Dali exhibition- I guess people don’t get that famous for no reason). In Cuernavaca we had watched a video about Frida’s life, which made everything even more interesting. After the museum I wandered back to a metro station and caught a train (so cheap and easy to use!) to the historical district. First stop was the Palacio Nacional. The first thing you notice as you walk in (after a large amount of security) is Diego Rivera (Frida Kahlo’s husband)’s mural. There were also great exhibitions about Mexico’s history, and I learnt quite a bit (I was especially interested in the people who seemed to have streets named after them in ever place I went to). There’s quite a nice photo opportunity of the historical district streets just outside the Palacio Nacional, so I took a picture. Mistake. I’m pretty sure that it’s only because I revealed the location of my camera in that moment that I got pickpocketed. I guess its my fault for having a camera in an outside pocket, even if it was buckled up. But, to be honest, I was pretty impressed by the pickpocketer’s skills. I was literally holding my bag in my hands at the time. I felt someone brush past me, I had a paranoid feeling (even as I put my camera back in my bag I had a paranoid feeling, thus holding my bag in my hands), so I checked everything was still. Everything was not. Kind of ruined my visit to the Cathedral Metropolitana, but it wasn’t overly spectacular anyway (I’ve been spoiled from so many good churches in Mexico). Oh well, c’est la vie.

Unfortunately this put me in a bit of a bad mood so I just spent the night watching TV on my laptop (I discovered a great new seasons of Skins though, so it wasn’t all a bad thing). The next morning I talked briefly to Julia (I was seeing less and less of her unfortunately) then headed out to Xochimilco- ridiculously easy to get to as that is what the bus I caught back to Julia’s house every day was labeled (I was becoming an ace at Mexico City public transport- so much better than Sydney’s, but what isn’t). I headed to one of the places that the boats leave for tours (what Xochimilco is known for), because LP had said that on weekends there is a cheap option for 20 pesos because lots of family go to do the boat rides as a weekend activity. Wrong. Apparently only on Sundays, and the boat guy was trying to charge me 250 pesos for a 45 minute ride in a boat by myself (less than $25, but still for Mexico that’s expensive). Not my idea of a good time. No instead I wandered back (via a bakery- yum!) through Xochimilco and found the Museo Dolores Olemo Patino. Dolores was the patron of artists such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (kind of like a Mexican Gertrude Stein!) so I was very interested to see this museum (which used to be her house)- women patrons of the modernist movement being a niche little interest of mine in high school. It was worth the walk.

The grounds were exquisite- full of native Mexican dogs and peacocks and ducks and rabbits all running around, with trimmed hedges of course. There were permanent displays with rooms split by artist, as well as some rooms devoted to her collection of indigenous art, or what her living space was like. Some of the more famous Frida Kahlo paintings that I had studied over the years and high school were here (which is always exciting). I bought up big in the gift shop too- they had surprisingly interesting things for sale. Anyway, because I had refused to pay a lot of money to go on the boat ride I had extra time on my hands. I decided to go to a clothing store I had read about in LP called Naco. Its products were worn by my favourite Mexican film actors (and one of my favourite actors full stop): Gael Garcia Bernal; and his best friend and costar Diego Luna is an investor. Anyway, it intrigued me, so I had read into the concept of ‘naco’ which roughly translates to kitsch (but has different connotations in Mexico). So I was pretty eager to check this store out. It was pretty cool and I bought 3 T-shirts which I can’t wait to wear- and I can’t wait to start adopting some naco in my own life- it helped inspire elements of a whole new decorating plan that I had been working on for my return to Sydney.

My last full day in Mexico City was Sunday- the day when most of the museums are free! I headed to Castillo do Chapultepec, a castle harking back to colonial times situated in a park n the middle of the city. There was some great stuff there (which I felt I would have appreciated more if I had a decent understanding of Mexican history). Unfortunately I started to feel pretty sick (not to mention the museum of modern art, my choice of a second destination, was closed) so I made my way very painfully home (you never realize how long it takes to get places by public transport until you feel sick or you’re late for something, and I was too stubborn to pay what I knew were rip off prices by taxi). I got back to the apartment and went straight to bed. I woke up very early the next morning. I had to catch a taxi to the airport around 9.30 so I started getting ready- packing my bag etc. Unfortunately Julia wasn’t home (not sure why) so I never got to say goodbye to her properly- I left her a tube of vegemite and a nice note though! So suddenly I was back on the road again, back to the US of A….

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