First Day of Christmas Vacation

We’ve made landfall at District Federal, and I’m forming my first impressions of the fabled capital; fabled in that it should provide a divergent and more authentic view of Mexico. The airport was clean and efficient, and like Monterrey, consumed with the obsession of providing a “good first impression.” Our cab was very clean and quick, if not overpriced (250 p). Our little hotel room is quite comfortable and close enough to the necessary amenities and attractions. Oh, yes, on the way to the hotel we were passed by what can only be described as a rancid meet truck; large hunks of meat piled precariously en route to what I can only assume are the heartiest or unluckiest consumers. We will venture out this afternoon to Franz Mayer Museum, the markets, etc.

The Franz Mayer Museum is essentially the personal collection of said namesake, donated to the people of Mexico. The collection spans all manner of style and genre, the most impressive of which were wooden inlays, silver church liturgy, and several Mexican 16th century paintings (I suppose I should say Spanish Colonial era paintings). It was quite a marvelous place, and the galleries seemed to stretch on endlessly, unfortunately time did not. We had to hurry through the ceramics and furnishings; however, I saw enough to consider this collection to even be the equal of the Monterrey National Museum. I took some pictures of the wooden inlays and the garden in the centre of the plaza. Apparently, the building used to be used as a public hospital for women (prostitutes). A rather grim reminder of this heritage was the remaining wall tiles indicating bed numbers and wards.

Prior to this museum visit, we visited a cathedral graveyard museum. We actually stumbled upon the thing and were surprised to learn that it held mostly deceased generals from Mexico’s War of Independence. All throughout the day we walked and occasionally waded through local makeshift markets, especially around the Belle Artes. The merchandise was primarily rubbish; however, I developed a powerful craving for the street food as the day wore on. We did attempt to view the Belle Artes museum, but unfortunately it was closed today—perhaps tomorrow.

For supper we wondered some very busy streets before settling on “Madero Red,” a pleasant thriving hole in the wall. Most conveniently it had a numbered menu which led to comparatively few linguistic challenges. The hostess insisted upon some of her own selections which we gladly capitulated to. By the time we returned to the hotel that night we were well fed, exhausted, but anxious for another day of adventures—bull fighting lies ahead!.

Morning with Technology

Good afternoon to all you loyal, although I assume by now sporadic, blog readers,

The time has come on this rare Mexican long weekend to tell the tale of our great Christmas excursion. But first, a point on a minor adventure I had this morning. You see, my internet connection had flippantly decided not to work (a not uncommon occurrence in this supposedly developed country); and like any warm blooded, male communication reservist, I chuckled at my laptop's impertinence and set about to fix the bloody thing.

An hour later, an improvised runway has been constructed between the laptop in the kitchen and the desktop in the living room. Back and forth I galloped, instructions from the help site of one computer being applied to the other. After a few rounds of this I came to the embarrassing realization that my laptop is indeed a laptop, and can be moved, and then set about typing various potions into the command prompt, hoping the right combination of sweat, cursing, and typing would somehow birth a viable wireless connection. No such luck.

Later, I found myself teetering on one of our high quality Mexican dining chairs attempting to decipher what kind of, you know, black box wireless router thingy that we owned. Why teetering at heights you ask? Because it is only logical that our most technical computer equipment would be stuffed on a decrepit shelf above the open fuse box with a kaleidoscope of bare wires dangling out of it. You have to hand it to the industry of the Mexican electricians; when they wire a house, they also put their own modernist art interpretation into the final product. Alas, I prayed, typed, ran, climbed, nothing would work. The last trouble shooting strategy on my list was to dump the laptop on the bed in front of Caroline.

I then set about the less technical task of taking out garbage and polishing my shoes, when a call came from our room. You see, Caroline discovered, in basically 30 seconds, that SOMEBODY (probably a Russian spy) had selected the unfathomable option of “work offline” on the internet explorer browser. I ask you, what kind of machine contains an essentially “Do not work” switch. It’d be like having an ignition port in the steering column of your car that read “Turn to flood engine.” It makes NO SENSE, and I blame Microsoft, and America, and the 21st century for these travails. From now on I stick to shoe polishing!

The Rest of the First Day

Pushing through the crowds, we made our way to the Palacio de Bellas Artes (click here if you want to see the map of the day), which is an opera house. Made in the early 1900's, it is full of marble and murals from some of Mexico's most famed artists, most notably Diego Rivera. And, unsurprisingly, the weight of the building has been causing it to slowly sink a few centimeters a year. The outside of the building was amazing, full of sculptures and carved stone. (As always, click on the picture to enlarge it.)



There is a large plaza surrounding the hall, and it was packed with people and some sort of protesters when we got there. We made our way inside, only to discover that although their posted hours had them closing at 6pm, they were now closing at about 2. We cut our visit short, hoping to return when we had some time.

It should be noted that the large park across the street (Alameda Park) was packed with food vendors and homeless. So basically the country's premier opera house is situated beside the country's poor. Outstanding. There are also 'tourist police' in place to help lost/confused foreigners. Guess what they look like to stand out? (Note the vendor stands in the background.)



We headed for our next stop, which was the Museo Franz Mayer. This is just outside the museum (which we are facing in the pic; a very old, tilted cathedral is in the background).



It is located in an old hospital that was built in the 1600's, and is full of Franz Mayer's collection of decorative art. (Mayer was a financier, photographer and collector.) There were rooms full of paintings, mostly religious iconography, antique furniture (all of it intricately carved, and many with complex detailing and ivory inlays), ceramics (bowls and basins from the early and colonial periods of Mexico's history), and silver (platters, antique lighters, religious ornaments and chandeliers).

Here's a slightly blurry pic we snapped of a carved wooden panel:



It was almost over-whelming, and the museums twists and turns made it seem like we were walking forever. At one point we accidentally dozed off on a bench...

There was also an inner courtyard that was really tranquil, with benches, a fountain, and maintained plant beds.





We found the art library, which housed many old tomes; we were looking for the 6000 copies of Don Quixote that my travel book lists as one of the museum's features. Alas, they were nowhere to be found (and no one who spoke English to help us out), which was disappointing as that was the primary reason we hit this museum above all the others in the city.

Coming on to supper time, we found a pedestrian street, lined with over-priced shops, pharmacies, and restaurants. We settled on a small place named Madero Red, because their deal was salad, soup, a toquito, entree, and dessert for $75Mex. Beer went for the same price as water, which was $20Mex. The food was okay: my meat and nut stuffed poblano chili was served cold for some reason...

Walking back to the hotel, we found that it wasn't nearly as dangerous as TripAdvisor said it would be (although then again, I wouldn't want my parents walking around there after dark...). Due to being up since 4am, we were exhausted, and ended our first night in Mexico City by going to bed at 8:30.

Settling in in Mexico City

This is the beginning of a series of posts relating our extensive, and exhausting, Christmas vacation. Getting to travel around is half the reason we came to this place, so we crammed a lot of sites into our two weeks, and there certainly is a lot to report. I'll post a continually updated map showing where we go. You can see today's map, by clicking here.

In the wee hours of December 19th, we arrived at Monterrey's airport, to start out Christmas vacation. As a note, the manner in which they inspect your bags is before you get to the ticket counter, they place your suitcase on a six-foot table, open it, and proceed to rummage through your clothes while everyone in line behind you watches (luckily, there was no one in line behind us). The flight and everything was fine; however there was a very distinct layer of brown-ish haze hangning over Mexico City that was clearly visible as we made our descent.

As a side-note, Mexicans refer to Mexico City as either 'Mexico' or 'D.F.', which is for 'district federal.' Although this metropolis is very large (almost 9 million people), it is still somehow very overcrowded.

During the taxi ride from the airport to our hotel, we observed and/or experienced:

• bumper-to-bumper traffic;
• a horse pulling a rickety wagon packed with people; and
  
• a pick-up truck whose box was over-filled with unwrapped giant slabs of raw meat.

We stayed at the Hotel Lepanto which actually had some pretty poor reviews on Travel Advisor. The hotel is located pretty close to downtown, which is good because that's were all the attractions are. Also, it is only a five-minute walk to a subway terminal, something I didn't realize when I booked our room. (A full report on the subway system is forthcoming; we didn't try it out until our second day in the city.) Bad points: in a pretty run-down area. So much so that there was a little hovel, constructed out of a couch and a torn-up box-spring, on the sidewalk a block away (on the way to the subway). It seemed like two guys lived in it; they'd eyeball us when we'd walk by at night, and the area smelt like human waste (but then, the entire city generally smelt like that...). Overall, I think our hotel was a pretty good deal, and we were happy with it.

We left the hotel to explore, as it was only mid-day. As we walked, we cut through a park in front of a cathedral. We quickly saw that the park was home to many homeless, one of which was shaving in the fountain. One friendly gentleman yelled "Hey you!" to us. We decided not to cut through any more parks.

Time for another note: pretty much every inch of sidewalk to filled with stalls and vendors. These installations all look temporary, but are in fact permanently installed. Apparently the Mexican government has no problem with people randomly setting up shop where ever they want. People are hawking everything:

• shirts;
• thongs;
• pirated CDs and DVDs;
• candy (Mexican candy, all of it gross looking);
  
• tourist trinkets;
• magazines;
• jewelry;
• manicures and hair styling; and
  
• food -- everything from tacos (Mexican style, with soft shells) and drinks, to fried meats and potatoes.
  

Believe me, this list is by no means exhaustive. There was an old man on a blanket selling combs and rusty looking watches. Anything goes. But definitely the most prevalent things are the food stalls. It seems like anyone that can afford a little burner, some oil, and a metal cooking surface (they really love to fry food) sets up shop. At first the smells are kind of appetizing, but after a few days of it, it's really nauseating. And some areas are really really crowded to walk though, with people pressing up against you. Also, it's really really loud, especially if they are selling CDs or DVDs. They constantly have something playing on speakers at full volume, I guess to attract custumers. The cars are honking at each other non-stop as well (no one there knows how to drive). And the smell of the sidewalks...it is a pungent mix of car exhaust, sweat, food frying, and fresh human urine. I cannot emphasize the urine enough. If I never smell pee again, I'll die happy.

Stay tuned next week for part two of our first day (with less human waste and more pictures, I promise)...