The Ironic Corn Stalk in Parque Mexico

I am fortunate enough to live adjacent to Parque Mexico, one of the prettiest parks in Mexico City. I’ve sung its praises many times here, from the big fat banana flowers to the shabby beauty of the fountains to the cute signs posted on tree trunks.

The park is maintained by a giant fleet of workers who sweep the sidewalks and keep the plants/trees healthy. On the weekends, it’s insanely crowded with families and dog owners.

A few months ago, though, I spotted a strange sight: A gangly little stalk of corn. I thought that it was funny — was it a silly joke, to see if it would survive? Or something more meaningful, a historical statement on what was likely growing in the park’s area 300 years ago? Or a political statement that anyone who can live near the park can afford corn during a time of severe (and panic-inducing) drought when so many can’t?

I thought someone would uproot the corn stalk by now, or that it would wither away. But no, it’s gotten huge — all by its lonesome — and is now sprouting a little ear of corn.

I’d love to know who planted it, and why:

Mexico City’s Rainy Season Is My Optimal Living State

There is a reason millions and millions of people live in Mexico City, it’s very hospitable to human life. Everyday is basically perfect — I can’t remember a single day in the last two years where the weather was truly bad. It just varies a teensy bit in temperature, humidity, wind and sun levels throughout the year, thanks to its high elevation in the tropics (it’s the best of both worlds).

Right now is the rainy season, which is my favorite. The humidity is a bit higher than normal, making it easier on the skin and the lungs. The temperature never gets higher than 75, nor lower than 55. The sun shines all day, while clouds slowly build in the late afternoon; it sometimes rains at night. The air is clean, crisp and comforting. You can wear a sweater or a tank top and be comfortable either way. Meaning, it’s an absolute paradise (while lowland Mexico is a steam room this time of year).

Plus, stuff blooms. Like crazy.

The center of a very very large bloom, spotted in the park today.

Not as close up. Any guesses?

It's the giant bloom on a 20-foot banana tree!

Plentiful: Awkward Money Situations in Mexico City

Need any fruit? If you sit in a park in Mexico, before too long, one of these guys will wander by. However, they are low-pressure salesmen, for the most part.

My friend and fellow Mexico City resident Alice wrote a recent blog post that highlights some of the awkward money situations we ex-pats find ourselves in here. Her doormen asked to borrow money, which is basically impossible to imagine occurring in New York City. This led to rumination about why her two doormen are doing this, and also how different, in general, the exchange of money in Mexico can be. Some of this is due to the fact that there is a lack of formal jobs in Mexico, leading people to sell things on the street, or ask for tips when you least expect it. And some of it is due to what I politely call “cultural differences.”

To name but a few other examples:

The Grocery Bagger…
Awkward: When the grocery bagger looks down to see how many pesos you’re handing him/her as a tip.

Meaning…yes, you must tip the grocery bagger. Even if you (<– *cough* me) bring your own canvas bag and stuff most of the heavy stuff in the bag before the bagger can use plastic bags.

Then, once you hand the tip over, it’s not unusual for them to look at what you gave them, right in front of you. Again, this is not something you can really imagine happening in the U.S. (but it’s hard to fathom in part because we never tip baggers, at least not in the states I’ve lived in.)

The Waiters…
At restaurants here, sometimes the waiter (almost always a male — especially at nice restaurants, and if anyone can fill me on why this is so, I’d love to know) will watch you sign your credit card slip, or hover close by. Depending on the credit card system the restaurant uses, the waiter also may ask you — directly — how much you want to tip, so he can add it onto the bill. You must tell him the answer in percentages (we usually say 15 percent) then he punches it into this little machine he carries with him, and swipes your card in that machine and hands you a slip to sign. Those few seconds are some of the more awkward moments in your life, especially if the service sucked and you’re dying to get out of the restaurant.

Trick-or-Treaters…

The Mailman…
I tip the mailman twice a year — in November for Mailman’s Day (always men, again) and for Christmas. At first, I was taken aback, until friends filled me  — it’s normal. I now smile and wave at Juan every time I pass him outside. We’re amigos.

The Fake Parking Dudes….
There is also an unofficial system of street parking attendants who expect you to tip them, and in return, as my friend Jeremy says, “they won’t break into your car.” They also will wash your car for an extra fee.

On a recent trip to the mercado, Brendan and I decided to drive there in our rental car. I quickly found a parking space outside, we pulled in, got out, went  in, bought our produce,  went back outside, got in the car, and started backing out of our parking space. Simple enough. But up runs one of these parking attendant men, who pretends to help me back out, waving his hands this way and that (it was not a complicated parking situation; his help was not needed). At that point, it’s expected that I’ll roll down the window and hand this man some pesos for his hard work.

I was not feeling generous that day, and didn’t tip him. Of course, I was immediately worried about my karma, that this would come back to haunt me. Then I had to remind myself that if this happened in the U.S…. well, wait a minute, it just wouldn’t happen.

The garbage men arrive every day except Sunday, ringing a loud bell to let you know they've arrived. It's customary to tip at least a peso per trash bag.

The Garbage Men…

We tip them, and we tip them especially well around Christmas time. Without question, this is the hardest and most important job in Mexico City. This has not been awkward for me.

The Drain Cleaners…
There are also men who come by, ring your doorbell, and tell you’re they’re going to clean the drains out in the street, and would appreciate a tip. This is not an approved city service, and who knows if the drains even need “cleaning.” I wished I would have warned my friend Lesley about this before they came to her door. When it first happened to us, we panicked and wrote our landlord. She explained there is no need to tip them but they also won’t mind if you do. So, now, I usually ignore them, since they always manage to stop by when I’m in the middle of a work phone call.

Basically, Everyone….

Balloon sellers, like this one in Cholula, are *everywhere* in Mexico.

And, I realized recently that everyday, no matter what, someone approaches me for money, in some fashion. Whether it be the roving bands of street musicians who play on our block, a woman selling candy (with three or four children in tow), a guy selling plants from a box, a scammer trying to tell you a sad tale hoping you’ll fork over dough, etc. If you’re in a car, it’s the same: A guy who will wash your windows with a dirty bottle of water and a rag, a guy selling windshield wipers, an entire family of clowns doing tricks in front of traffic, men who juggle, men who sell flowers…it goes on and on and on. (The subway is similar, and even popular beaches in Mexico suffer from too many vendors selling trinkets, although it may only be a “problem” to people like me).

Needless to say, as an introvert and as an American, this can be exhausting at times. I’ve thrown a few babyish fits about it, blaming all of Mexico unfairly, for a shitty day.  But, for the most part, as a New Yorker, I am used to being  approached (on the subway)– once I was even forced to smile. So I had some tolerance built up.

So, at other times, I marvel at how alive and fantastic the street culture is in Mexico City — never a dull moment. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I feel very safe here, walking around, going on about my day. As NPR reporter Jason notes, it adds up, making the city a “symphonic cacophony.” People are everywhere. And I’m not the only one being approached, although it still baffles me when someone calls me out specifically as a guera (white woman).

But, overall, the various street peddlers have changed me. When I first moved here, I would sit with my dog in the park on my lunchbreak, enjoying the sunshine. Then I got tired of people walking up to me and I no longer linger (all the people who insist on walking their dog off the leash is also a huge deterrent).

When I walk down the street, I move quickly, and say a terse “no gracias” (always with a smile) to basically anyone who is trying to sell me something. Thankfully, I now have found that if I walk a few extra blocks to quieter areas of my neighborhood, it’s possible to sit at a cafe and not be approached once. I no longer feel any guilt for not answering my doorbell, I never answer it unless I’m expecting a delivery.

I don’t know if this shift in my behavior is a good or a bad thing, if it’s something locals automatically do, or if they don’t get annoyed by having their personal space invaded, if perhaps, they even find it useful.

I, clearly, don’t.

Can You Help Him Find Love?

Even with the maldito typo, this one stopped me in my tracks. “Omg so cute,” I said out loud while walking my even cuter version.

“I’m looking for a girlfriend.”

Spotted today in Parque Mexico, a park known for its purebred dog populations, including Shih-Tzus. I haven’t yet met a shit-zu.

Companions to None: Film Explores Street Dogs in Mexico

Flickr Photo by Pedro Rueda

If there are two things I love, it’s film documentaries and dogs. But dog documentary Companions to None is one of those films I probably shouldn’t watch because I’ll just cry the entire time.

It’s about the overwhelming street dog population in Mexico (I highly recommend Amores Perros – or Love’s a Bitch in English, for a fictionalized-but-apt examination of Mexico’s bizarre relationship with dogs.)

My neighborhood, as I’ve explained before, is an odd microcosm of this societal ill. There’s people like me, walking our fancy, neutered, well-loved dogs in beautiful Parque Mexico. Never far away, though, are street dogs. Sad street dogs with open wounds, limps and desperately sweet souls. And because there is no consistent sterilization program for street dogs, these dogs keep reproducing, in the shadows, ignored by most. Thankfully, a few kind people in the neighborhood do try to take care of these dogs, such as putting out mats for them, feeding them, and taking them to the vet/groomer’s if they need help. More than once a street dog has followed me home, hoping for a hand-out. Of course I oblige when this happens.

Go to more rural parts of Mexico and profound poverty and cultural norms exacerbate the problem. People barely have enough money to feed themselves (and their large families — contraception for humans is not a wildly popular idea, either), so taking proper care of street dogs is low on the list of priorities.

Flickr Photo by patotenere

As well, a persistent belief that neutering male dogs will make them “gay” keeps sterilization programs from taking hold. One woman in the film trailer credits the Catholic Church with propagating this belief, and I’m not surprised. Homophobia knows no bounds, not even when it comes to pets.

As the LA Times explains, the film may not be widely seen. (I want to give a shout-out right now to the Times for having excellent coverage of Latin America at a time when most news divisions are cutting staff.)

“Problems securing a wide distribution for the film may obstruct the diffusion of what is an important message. Buchanan said American networks such as Animal Planet, Discovery and HBO passed on broadcasting the documentary and that a deal with TV Azteca –- one of Mexico’s two main commercial broadcasters –- fell through.”

I do hope the film gains momentum, or at least the important message it carries. Sterilizing dogs is far more humane than letting them over-populate, starve on the street, and create more starving puppies. And the more your sterilize, the smaller the problem gets with every passing generation.

I Made My First Neighborhood Enemy

Yesterday morning I took Charlie out for a walk, per my usual routine first-thang en la manana. We were walking down Calle Amsterdam, a lovely leafy street with a special walking path just for pedestrians.

A woman approached, walking in my direction with a German Shepherd off its leash. Before I had much time to react, the dog lunged at Charlie and all I heard was vicious growling sounds. Charlie tried to run away, and I got tangled up in the middle of the leash. I was scared, and screamed “Jesus Christ!”

The woman — instead of instantly grabbing her dog’s collar and pulling him off of Charlie — responded, ever-so-flippantly with “Oh, he’s just playing” in English. By this time I had gotten Charlie a few feet away from the dog. But since the woman hadn’t bothered to leash her dog, he lunged again at Charlie. Again I was standing in a tornado of angry teeth and fur. I lost it.

“Can’t you use a leash?” I shouted as loudly as I could. Then, not sure if she understood, I said “LADY: Use a leash. Por favor, use un CORREO!“

“My dog is not aggressive,” she told me in English.

I was shocked — what?? are you kidding me?? — but instead of asking how the attacking was “not aggressive,” I said back to her “well, mine IS which is why he’s on a leash, to protect us.” (This is true.)

Her response?

“No, no no. Dogs are meant to be free!” She shouted it as if high on the dander of her damn dog. “FREE!!” She lifted her hands to the sky, perhaps to puppy heaven, where leashes don’t exist. “FREE” she repeated a third time, walking away with her unleashed dog, as I tried to get a word in.

The best I could up with to battle her mantra? (I am miserable at coming up with powerful-and-irrefutable statements in the middle of a stressful situation.)

“Then why do leashes exist???”

Suffice it to say, after the altercation ended, my heart was racing, I was sweating, and I seriously was harboring violent thoughts to strangle her by her sweatshirt cords. Per my usual reaction during a confrontation, I started crying before I even made it home. Then I brooded for hours. And now I’m writing this post for catharsis.

Sadly, because she owns a dog and lives near me, the chances I will see her again are about 99%, meaning I have my first neighborhood enemy, and Charlie has his. (Who the rest of the day almost seemed to feel bad about what happened — he sat curled up next to me all day.)

She is just one of many people in this neighborhood who refuse to leash their dogs, but she’s the first one to be an unapologetic (perhaps delusional) jerk about it.

(And for all of you out there walking your dog in Condesa, watch out for a short, thin woman with dark hair walking a German Shepherd that’s about 8 months old. She and her dog are totally loca.)

Pros and Cons of Working at Home in Mexico City

The home office is still an office.

“How do you like working at home?” …”in Mexico City?”

Like everything in life, it has its pros and cons.

Pros
- No commute, except the 8-second walk from bedroom to home office. (8 with coffee, 20 without).
- Dog is always available for petting.
- I can listen to music and sing along very loudly.
- I can control the room temperature to my exact needs. No more frozen toes.
- No one can see the faces I make at them.
- I am learning amazing self-discipline skills because I want to keep receiving a paycheck.
- I can wear PJs and not brush my teeth (*see cons).
- I can run errands relatively easy (*see cons).
- I can talk to myself (*see cons) and no one thinks it’s crazy.

Pros (Mostly) Exclusive to Working at Home in Mexico City

- This is one of the quirkiest and kookiest places on earth, so it’s never boring, even when I’m just watching la gente from my desk in my 5th-floor apartment.
- I can watch hummingbirds year-round.
- My view consists of palm trees, many entertaining pedestrians and hot pink, orange and royal blue houses.
- I can eat tacos al pastor and tortas for lunch.
- Year-round highs of 70-75 degrees and lows of 55-60 degrees (for the most part except the winter).
- Several cafes in my neighborhood have wireless, if I get tired of the home office.
- I am just a few steps from a very well-maintained park.
- I can afford domestic help to clean up the mess (*see cons exclusive to Mexico)
- Occasionally there are marimba musicians who know more songs than “Cielito Lindo” (*see cons exclusive to Mexico)

Cons

- No lunches or happy hours with co-workers.
- I don’t really control my own schedule, since I have to keep the schedule of both my co-workers in NYC and my husband (no escape from the alarm clock — I really think “working at home” should come with an obligatory policy of no alarm clocks).
- If I am not careful, I can easily miss out on learning new work concepts/tasks that can’t easily be conveyed over the phone or online.
- It feeds an addiction to Facebook and email, since they’re sometimes my only human interaction.
- Meaning, at times, working at home is incredibly lonely. Some workdays I only leave the house to walk the dog and take out the trash.
- But those workdays are better than the workdays I have to buy groceries (I hate small, cramped grocery stores like hell-on-earth Superama in Condesa).
- The dog sometimes wants more attention than I want to give
- I still get carpal tunnel
- I don’t have peer pressure to keep me from doing things I normally wouldn’t do in an office, like drink from the milk carton
- *I worry I now talk to myself too much when people are around
- *Because I’m at home, I get “honey-do’s” that I normally wouldn’t get asked to do.
- *I have no real need to shower, meaning sometimes I don’t.

Cons (Mostly) Exclusive to Working at Home in Mexico City

- Car alarms randomly going off all day that make me contemplate the limits of my sanity, and propensity for criminal behavior.
- “No solicitation” is not a concept here. People ring the doorbell for random, bullshit reasons at least four times a day.
- Working in English all day is incredibly counter-productive to learning Spanish.
- Hard to order office supplies when you don’t know the words for them.  Or the needed words to make phone calls to complain about crappy internet wirless service (I’m talking to you, Cablevision).
- *I end up worrying my domestic help thinks I’m crazy when I laugh at a funny IM or email from a co-worker. Or when I’m editing something particularly graphic (I edit health information). Or when I use Skype and look like I’m talking to my computer.
- *Hearing “Cielito Lindo” everyday because most of the street musicians refuse to play anything else.

Joy Interviews Self on One Year in Mexico!

Joy in Taxco, Mexico.

Joy and her husband Brendan moved to Mexico City exactly one year ago today. In an exclusive interview with El Blog de Joy, she shares some of the things she’s learned over the past year…and what she’s looking forward to as she continues her Mexican misadventures…(to read previous interviews on Joy’s life in Mexico, go here and here.)

Q: So, a year already in Mexico City. How does it feel?
A: It went by really damn fast, actually. But, looking back, it has been an incredible year. I know so much that I didn’t know one year ago.

Q: Like…Spanish?
A: Well, sort of. After spending my first six months aggressively trying to learn espanol, I sort of got lazy and gave up. The huzzband and I reached a certain level of competency — like ordering food in restaurants and bossing taxi drivers around — and lost interest. I should point out: I quickly lose interest in things I’m not naturally good at, and I’m definitely not a natural at learning new languages in my early 30s.

Q: Que triste! You’re such an American, you mean?
A: Exactly. Almost all of my new friends here in Mexico City speak at least two languages. Many speak four or five — a talent I can’t fathom. How do they remember all those words? How do they keep it all straight in their heads? Amazing. I’ll never be like that, because I grew up a monolingual American.

That said, though, I do have to keep in mind that I work in English all day — editing in English, no less — and so there’s no real impetus for me to learn advanced Spanish. If I had no job, and no internet, I’d be learning a lot more.  We’ve created a little English cocoon for ourselves, and it’s quite warm and lovely and hard to leave.

Charlie enjoys the benches in Parque Mexico, Condesa.

Q: Well, beyond remedial Spanish, what else have you learned?
A: The exhilaration and exasperation of living in a foreign country. New York City was a bit like living abroad, and then I moved to Mexico City and learned what it’s really like. I’m proud of myself for being willing to do it — to chuck most of my former life out the window — and proud of myself for choosing to live in an urban neighborhood without a car, where I live a very fun life not unlike NYC, but far more Mexican. I have met too many Americans here who shelter themselves out in the ‘burbs, behind walled compounds, driving giant SUVs. I’m glad we were bold enough to live in a really cool area.

A kid dressed up for Dia de Guadalupe.

Q: What’s been the hardest thing to deal with?
A: Besides not learning Spanish as easily as I would have liked, the lack of traveling. We spend most of our time like most Americans — working hard, surviving the daily grind. We just happen to be doing it in Mexico City. I had envisioned a very romantic version of life here, one that involved metric tons of sunscreen and margaritas.

…and, well, food poisoning sucks, too. Salmonella truly feels like your stomach is being eaten alive by a rapidly multiplying, pissed off organism — and all you can do is vomit, or worse. And my dog, Charlie, has even been sick. I really wish Mexico could make safe water a national priority. These are the things you learn living abroad — clean tap water is not a God-given right for most people in the world.

Q: Excellent point. Back to the traveling….reading over some of your blog posts, it does seem like you’ve traveled quite a bit?
A: For sure, but it’s never enough. You could say I’m addicted to it. I live in Mexico City, fergodssakes. I can’t get enough. We squeeze in weekend trips whenever we can, and we’ve got a long Mexican trip coming up in December – a road trip through Oaxaca!

Q: What’s been your favorite trip over the past year?
A: I actually appreciate the U.S. more than I ever did before, so the trips back to the places we call home — New York City, Corpus Christi, Texas, Minnesota/Wisconsin — those trips home were really some of my favorites. I drink from water fountains in the U.S. simply because I can.

So far, I am not sad to return to Mexico City as our headquarters. I figure once I am not happy to come back here, then it’s time to go “home” — where ever that is!

A man sells roasted corn in the floating gardens of Xochimilco.

I also want to stress to everyone who hasn’t traveled to the “real” Mexico to do so. Cancun doesn’t count. Neither does the border. Traveling into the interior, away from the tourist resorts and the border — it’s a whole ‘nuther word. The Aztec influence becomes overwhelming here in the “heartland” (popote, totopos, aguacate, jitomate, chocolate, elote, cacahuate, etc) And farther south, the Mayan influence is impressive (huracan, Kukulcan, Oxcutzcab). I can’t wait to visit Oaxaca and learn about the many cultures there, I’ve heard there are at least 60 different languages and related dialects still being spoken there, such as Mixtexa and Zapotec.

Posing in front of yet another beautiful Mayan ruin in the Yucatan, in 2004.

In reality, my favorite part of Mexico is a place I visited before I moved here: the Yucatan. We did a week-long road trip across the peninsula, and I still think about that trip almost every day. The ruins, the turquoise water, the jungles, the underground pools, the Mayan people…it was all like a dream.

Q: Let’s do some stream of consciousness chatting here. Food?
A: Arrachera steak, michelada cervezas, mangos chilados, hot chocolate, pan de elote, crab taquitos, pescado de tlacotlapeno (or something like that). fresh tropical fruit out the wazoo, tacos al pastor (OMG – TACOS AL PASTOR), cochinita pibil, cecina, salchichas, chiles en nogada, tepache, agua de jamaica, paletas de mamey…and exercising more than I ever have to enjoy all these culinary luxuries.

Joy in front of the Aztec Templo Mayor.

Q: Travel?
A: Watching bad dubbed movies on the bus, staring at ‘cactus trees’, dancing in the plaza in Tlaxcala, feeling woozy on a poorly planned booze cruise in Puerto Vallarta, watching telenovelas with our host family in Cuernavaca, eating carnitas at the world’s largest Mexican restaurant in Tlalpan, shopping for sugar skulls in Toluca, touring the anthropology museum with Mom, Dad and Dora, laughing with Bob and Martie as an impromptu parade in Xochimilco blocked our vehicle, getting lost in the rental car only a few miles from our house, drinking pulque and mezcal, listening to fireworks where ever we go, falling in love with NYC all over again.

Q: Mexico City?

A: Amazing! More fun and more international than I expected, full of adventures, beauty and ultimately, chaos. No more polluted than New York City, but far more enormous.

Our self-portrait.

Q: Friends?
A: Gratitude! Dominoes! Well-earned hangovers! (I have to say, the best thing about living here in Mexico City has been making so many new, wonderful friends! And the hardest part is watching them move away. Ah, the ex-pat life.)

Q: Finally, what’s the weather like? We know this is a favorite topic of yours.

A: Today is perfect, like most days. A few of the trees are beginning to lose their leaves, just to remind you that in certain parts of the world, it will be very cold very soon. But not here. It will still be perfect.

10 Great Reasons to Visit Mexico City

The cathedral in Mexico City and an art exhibit with a long line, in front. Photo by Mr. Bob.

Mexico City often takes a verbal beating from Americans as a place no one would ever want to spend on a vacation. From what I’ve heard and read, yes, there was a time when the city was a hellish cacophony. Now, not so much, especially if you stick to the areas recommended in guidebooks.

But, keep in mind, even with a strong economy and tight pollution controls, it’s still not a relaxing place, it’s an exhausting place, but in a good way. Like New York. The reason I’m blabbing about this is I just read an article from SFGate.com today entitled “Smile: You’ve Got 10 Great Reasons to Visit Mexico City.”

The writer did an excellent job at nailing down the spirit of the city…here’s a few of the passages I especially endorse:

“The oldest part of Mexico City compresses 700 years of history, including Aztec ruins, Spanish colonial grandiosity, Art Nouveau showplaces and avant-garde experiments.”

Indeed, the centro should be a must-see for every tourist. Be sure to visit the Aztec Templo Mayor.

“Take a detour into leafy Colonia Condesa, a happening place with trendy bars and restaurants, and a mix of classic architecture and sleek lofts and apartment buildings….The centerpiece of Colonia Condesa is the oval-shaped Parque México. The one-time horse-racing track makes for an especially beguiling stroll in spring, when lavender jacaranda drift to the pathways.“

For sure, come to my neighborhood! And grab a fruit juice at Frutos Prohibidos on Calle Michoacan (I recommend the strawberry) and rest your feet in beautiful Parque Mexico.

“Geography, disparate civilizations and an international roster of conquerors and immigrants have produced an almost infinite variety of Mexican cuisines.”

Anyone who has read my blog before knows I get practically weepy and misty-eyed whenever I discuss the food here. Before long, I will start bursting into song.

“The village of Xochimilco, now a southern colonia, is a living museum of pre-Hispanic Mexico City, offering a unique opportunity to join Mexican families on outings to the last remains of ancient canals and chinampas (floating gardens) that predate even the Aztecs.“

We took my Minnesota in-laws to Xochimilco in February, and I can only imagine, for them, that it was the complete opposite of the St. Paul winter climate. They don’t believe in muted colors in Mexico, and Xochimilco is one of the most colorful places in the world, if not the most colorful.

What I wouldn’t recommend that was mentioned in the article: The Alameda Central. It’s gotten a bit down-around-its-heels-lately, and its utterly cramped and dirty on the weekends. As the author mentions, Bosque de Chapultepec (Mexico City’s Central Park) is a better bet, and you must — must — walk up to the castle for terrific panoramic views of the city.

And what the writer didn’t mention, but many tourists enjoy: the ancient, sprawling ruins of Teotihuacan.

Note to Self: You Can Order Jugo de Sandia – What Else Do You Need?

(My delicious jugo de sandia that I had with my lunch today.)

I live in two worlds each day: My English world (work, husband, a few friends) and my Spanish world (all errands, tasks, and daily living stuff). The transition is sometimes painful (a nasty mix of Spanglish sometimes comes streaming out of my mouth, before I can stop it) and sometimes delightful (discussing muñecas with an 8-year-old in the park who fell in love with Charlie, mi cucharrito.)

I constantly beat myself up for not knowing enough Spanish, or not using it enough. I forget, often, how my day goes, how I navigate around my neighborhood listening and speaking espanol without much effort. True, it’s not very advanced stuff — I’m not discussing the government’s recent decision to freeze prices of basic food items, but I’m at least getting shit done. Con una sonrisa.

Today, I took a lunch break and did the following, all in mi mundo de español.

- Fui a la tintorería (dry cleaners) y dejé mucha ropa. (Las van a estar listas el sabado!). Yo bromé con la dueña de tintorería sobre mi nombre. (Diciendo “Joy” es imposible para los Mexicanos.)
- Hice un reservation en el restaurante (Dude, hacer kills me. Check out all the ways you can conjugate this damn verb.)
- Retiré efectivo del ATM
- Mandé comida rapida, y mientra que esperé, leí un artículo de noticias sobre de los jitomates con salmonella y del calentamiento del planeta
- Tambien, vi un cartel en el parque sobre una fiesta “México-Israel” con comida, musica y regalitos – el proximo Domingo!

Photos: Slices of Everyday Mexico City Life

My father-in-law took lots of great photos on his second visit. (Photos by Bob Walsh.)

At the weekend mercado in Roma. We wondered “how long does it take her to set up all those toys?”

Want more? No problem…

Photo: Carlito en el Parque

Leafy, Liberal La Condesa Serves as Muse for Many

Today I opened up my email to read two nice articles about my neighborhood, La Condesa.

First, a new boutique cafe has opened in Dallas, La Condesa Comida y Tequila. I intitally wanted to roll my eyes, since, well, the cafe is located in Dallas, but the owners actually described La Condesa fairly and accurately (the architecture – not the food, it’s really too varied here to have a cohesive style of food):

Owner Donald Chick “remembers walking Mexico City for days, ‘looking at things, taking pictures, eating everywhere we could.’ Where they ended up most often was La Condesa, which (co-owner Jesse) Herman likens to ‘the SoHo of 10 years ago’ with its Bohemian vibe and young artists. Like the SoHo of today, it’s also a magnet for upscale hotels, restaurants and galleries.

‘Mexico City is a thriving place right now,’ Herman says. ‘For the first time, you have a true middle class where the children are now our age, in their late 20s and early 30s, and they’ve had the opportunity to travel outside of Mexico and take things they’ve seen in the rest of the world and bring that back home. There is so much good design.’

Midcentury Mexican architecture, with its emphasis on concrete, wood, hand-hewn textures and what Herman admiringly describes as ‘embracing imperfections’ became the basis for La Condesa’s aesthetic.’

And then, today there’s an AP news story about La Condesa serving as a shelter for writers who have fled war-torn countries. Not far from my home is “Citlaltepetl Refuge House, a renovated mansion in a leafy neighborhood of the world’s second-largest city.”

“(Kosovo poet poet Xhevdet) Bajraj’s first impression of Mexico City was a riotous mix of pastel-colored buildings, sidewalk food vendors, people and noise.

But Kosovo still haunted Bajraj and his family. He said it was months before he could sleep without worrying that someone would break into the house to kill them.

For weeks he sat at his computer, unable to write. But eventually the words came. His first book containing poems written in Mexico, ‘‘The Liberty of Horror,” won Kosovo’s top literary prize.

…Bajraj’s first book of poems written in Spanish will come out next year. He calls it a way of repaying the country that took him in.

‘‘When I came to Mexico, I was dead,” he said. ‘‘And here I started to live again.”

Flat Stanley Tours Mexico City, Embarrasses Hosts a Little

Before they came down to visit us last week, my in-laws were given a mission: photograph and document the Mexican adventures of Flat Stanley. Stanley (seen above, trapped in a gigantic agave plant) is part of a school project of Catie, their first-grader grand-niece, and he’s actually quite popular: Many schools participate in The Official Flat Stanley Project. Stanley’s purpose: to travel the world, and document his visits.

What it meant: We schlepped little Stanley with us across Mexico City, and my father-in-law would occasionally ask random residents to hold Stanley and smile as he snapped a photo. Being the exceedingly polite people Mexicans are, everyone said yes, although you could tell they were a bit perplexed. And Brendan and I, being the shy people we are, had to look away whenever this happened, cringing and praying that the cultural divide was not too great.

However, by the end of the trip, Stanley was a source of great amusement. Where could we photograph Stanley next? (My idea, which was roundly turned down: Between the cow tongues at the butcher in the mercado….)

Here’s a few photos of ole’ Stanley, and the PDF my in-laws created is good enough to be a children’s book on Mexico City. If you’d like me to send you a copy, leave me a comment. (I’ve already sent it around to a lot of my faithful readers).

Flat Stanley checking out some noche buenas (poinsettias) in our neighborhood, La Condesa, and some little abuelitas in Parque Mexico.

We realized Stanley would look better if we cut him out of his paper, but this lead to a long philosophical debate: Are we allowed to do that? Would we get Catie in trouble? Would we hurt Stanley? Finally, after a phone call back to Minnesota, it was decided that we could give Stanley a trim:

And off we went. First to the Zocalo, Mexico City’s great central plaza. If you’re an English-speaking tourist, you’re always approached by schoolchildren working on school assignments to practice their English, which they document with video cameras. So, after our second time being approached, and going through the always-awkward interviews (my favorite was when the schoolgirl asked me to “speak mas fuerte”) we asked one of the schoolgirls to hold Stanley.

After that, we retired to a local bar, where I read up on my Aztec history, and Stanley rested:

Then, the next day, the canals of Xochimilco:

I don’t know exactly what this means, but we spent a lot of time moving beers out of the way before we took photos of Stanley. In reality, you would have seen a lot more cervezas in several of these shots.

Hidden Gem: Parque Mexico in Mexico City

(Flickr photo by Uncle Toss)

Parque Mexico is not a big park, like Chapultepec, but it is a park full of little details — and terrific landscaping. While I am sometimes tempted to rush out, walk Charlie, and rush back to editing whatever I’m editing, I’m greatly rewarded when I linger a little.

At the center of the park is an outdoor ampitheater that has seen grander days. The paint on the art-deco sculptures have long faded, and the columns look only one earthquake away from collapse, but it has retained a eerie beauty.

(Flickr photo by Uncle Toss)

If you look up, you’re rewarded with some of the world’s tallest palm trees.

(Flickr photo by beco)

(Flickr photo by monterd)

If you look low, you’ll see a tiny altar to Virgin Mary nailed to a tree. Or a big altar full of fake and real flowers.

(Flickr photo by zeebahtronic)

During the week, while never empty, the park is tranquil. I can walk Charlie without worry. I can always find an empty bench if we want to sit. On the weekends, though, it’s quite crowded, full of families, vendors and energy.

(Flickr photo by Ekz)