SMA: Where the Wild Things Are

We went clubbing last night.  Sort of.  We started off wandering around the heart of darkness enjoying an arty, open house evening (free drinks and snacks). We went to 10 different galleries, half on Mesones and the balance mostly on cross streets, with the first, fourth and tenth being our favorites. 

The first had a nicely eclectic collection – prints, paintings, casual clothing.  They had a lot of the abstract art that I like and Darcie was taken with the t-shirts with abstract line drawings of animals and things.  Nice fruit punch with a bottle of vodka standing by for self medication. Snacks were pretty decent too: meaty things, guacamole, cheesy bits…

The fourth place was a bastion of Mexican art – some really impressive Dia de Los Muertos sculptures – I would love some but they are just too fragile seeming (and expensive) to feel comfortable shipping although I expect it is done successfully often enough.  There was this huge painting that strongly reminded me of being on the ocean in a small boat at night in the fog.  I remarked this to Darcie and was overheard by one the people we met at the last art show we went to at the Instituto (see previous post) who turned out to be a seasonal salmon fisherman in Bristol Bay, Alaska.  He had been in the process of essentially remarking the same to his wife!

A particular highlight of the night for Darcie was the application of fuzzy-love.  While walking out of the fourth. gallery, she ran into one of the town dogs “Cheeky” who she’s met with her owner at least 5 times during our stay.  Cheeky is a beagle mix who is particularly sweet and friendly and always willing to accept pets.  At about the sixth gallery we met a grayhound named Tinturo who was wearing a coat with “FBI” embroidered on it.  He was also partcularly friendly and sat by Darcie’s side for the entire time we visited.  He even gave her a kiss on the nose.  The day was full of fuzz-love since we’d also run into a german shepherd mix at a bike shop in the morning.  This dog immediately came up to us and begged for loving.  Whenever we stopped petting her, she’d paw us for more.  Overall, a very good day for Darcie.

The last place was fun just for the random and eclectic art.  They also had three burqas, part of their current exhibit, for patrons to try on.  Darcie, Yaya and Mary popped them on:

After the burqafest we headed over to a rooftop restaurant/bar just off the Jardin that had great views, good DJ-spun tunes and good food (We shared a grilled steak sandwich with fries ooh lala).  There are a raft of these downtown rooftop places that are in a lot of ways off the radar.  What I mean by this is that if you didn’t know they were there you would probably miss them since there is always seemingly a restaurant immediately inside the front door at ground level.

After a couple of hours of chatting with Yaya and her friends we wandered down the street to a local institution: Mama Mia’s where the live band was thumping out Mexican rock and roll covers.  The crowd was really into it, singing along most of the time with gusto if not harmony.  We hung out until the band finished their set then wandered off to a bar around the corner which turned out to be pretty quiet.  It was like going to hang out in someone's living room.

We finally wound up at the local Irish Pub, The Limerick!  Owned by two Argentinean's, they have a lively crowd and last night a seemingly well-known DJ who was supposed to have come on at 9pm but didn’t actually hit the decks until 1am!  I expect part of this was the management foolishness of slapping a 250 peso cover charge which left the place fairly empty until midnight or so (roughly when we arrived).  By the time we arrived the cover charge was being waved (possibly selectively – it helped to have a cute front woman – Yaya leading our troupe of 6 we think). 

When the guest DJ took the stage, the crowd got pretty animated, Climbing up onto the bar to dance and swinging the hanging \ceiling lights so hard they were smashing into the bottles on the shelf behind the bar.  This is seemingly a common-place occurrence since there was absolutely no excitement from management and staff.  There were some extra bits added to the special DJ in the form of lasers, some indoor firework sparklers, and finally some glow sticks being thrown out into the audience (perhaps paid for by some people’s 250 peso cover charge).

 

We got home at 2:30am, showered off the cigarette smoke and collapsed into bed!

SMA: There’s Just NOT Enough Pork Fat in our Diet

11am

So let me start off by clarifying the title of an earlier post: “I was OK Until the Chorizo Started Exploding” as I have had several emails asking for such since I was so rudely silent in the actual post.

I was taught by my friend Juan (and have seen here since) that the way to cook chorizo was to remove it from its casing and then fry it gently until the fat has been rendered out: mostly or somewhat depending on the quality of the chorizo.  That accomplished, the pan is tilted to one side and the crispy, meaty nuggets of porky goodness are given a final draining.  With me so far?  OK.  With the locally-made chorizo (longaniza) the ingredients are less finely ground than the factory made sort and thus there are actual pieces of meat/fat.  As this cooks the water inside the fat heats up and turns to steam and occasionally explodes the little fat nugget. The resulting mess is quite impressive.

So now you know.  I laughed when it happened the first time and the title just rolled off my tongue as a declarative to Darcie.  After much collective giggling we decided it was a good title, much diminished by this explanation in my opinion.

Today is Thanksgiving in the US and as should be expected the expat contingent are in full turkey swing, ourselves included.  Here is the fine Chilean bird (bought at the Mega store) we are cooking for today’s gluttony downstairs with John and Yaya and their friends (just a small group of 8 people):

Interestingly you can buy a fresh bird or a smoked (Ahumado) bird at the supermarkets all wrapped up in impenetrable plastic straight from the factory, oops I mean kitchen.  Not knowing the meaning of ahumado could lead to shock and horror I expect.  Of course, it sort of depends on how smoked the bird is and whether one hour, give or take, at 500F would bring new life to the beasty, perhaps a little rendered chorizo fat liberally applied…

While our fresh bird is cooking I will attempt to recall the past few days which as usual have been a smorgasbord of studying, walking, shopping, eating, shopping, walking and so on.

This was our last week of classes at Warren Hardy for Level 1 (yesterday was the final class).  Monday kicked off with the usual 3 hour class and you could tell that the natives were getting restless as there was much communal hilarity at the expense of several students (one very hung over seemingly and one just a littttttllle late) which was a good excuse for putting off the actual start of the class.  The rest of the day was actually pretty casual for us but finished with a bang at the party hosted by Warren and Tuli at a local bar/restaurant/hotel, Casa Linda. 

What a beautiful location.  There are several terraces floating above an enclosed courtyard all very well designed/presented.  Definitely worth a visit or two.  The rooftop terrace where we all lounged had a magnificent view of the sunset and a good angle to watch the glow off the Parroquia.

Cafe Linda is a double entendre:  It is the name of the owner and means “lovely” in Spanish.  She sent up many hors-d’oevres gratis (we think otherwise thank you Warren and Tuli).  Of course we were drinking 55peso ($5) margaritas at an alarming rate along with beer and wine.  There were several very happy people milling around.  We had fun and met a lot of other people studying at different levels (there are 4 in the WH method).

Tuesday we went for a marathon wander around town walking all the way out to the local hyper market aptly named Mega. They sell everything, really!  We were really on a quest for parmesan, real parmesan, to go with the Caesar salad I am making for today.  There is a cheese shop well on the road to Mega so once we had already gone so far, what the hey? 

We were able to buy huitlacoche (pronounced wheat la koch eh) which for the unwashed amongst you is variously know as corn smut, Mexican truffle and so on.  It is exceedingly tasty and is in reality a black fungus that grows on some ears of corn when conditions are right (humidity, temperature and so on).  In the US and elsewhere it is considered a blight and highly controlled/eradicated.  Foolishly I reckon since the end product is really tasty.  For the squeamish amongst don’t forget we all eat a variety of odd things (hotdogs…need I say more).  We are using it to make an appetizer for this afternoon’s feast.

Wednesday saw the last class come and go for Level 1 Spanish, I am not sure we really learned all that much (that day that is).  Right after the class we hopped in the car belonging to Gregg Blackburn (not directly related as far as we can tell) along with several other classmates and legged it over to the nearby (40km ~25miles) town of Dolores Hidalgo which was the seat of the initial rebellion against the Spanish.  Dolores is doubly famous now as they also have a stupendous pottery addiction.  They produce Talavera pottery by the semi-truck load.  All very brilliantly colored and patterned.  Going into a shop/warehouse sends one into visual-sensory overload:

 

I am sorry but the pics just don’t do the stores justice. I want to bring a truck down and stock up.  Prices were amazingly reasonable:  A full dish service for 8 was 5800 pesos so that works out to $450.   All hand made/painted and very pretty.  We also saw the following sunflower commode:

Priced at an amazingly reasonable 280 pesos!!! Painted inside and out.  There also is a matching sink and set of accessories (toothbrush holder, soap dish, etc.) 

After glutting on the visuals we went further into town and had carnitas tacos washed down with a hand-scooped icecream from the vendors littering the town square wherever you looked.  They had all sorts of unusual flavors: tequila, beer, mole, chicharone….  We mostly all settled for chocolate and I went with guava on the side (yumm). 

We also spent an hour or so in the museum dedicated to Father Hidalgo and the roots of the revolution: mainly made up of murals and a sprinkling of historic documents and mostly presented in Spanish (of course).  Unfortunately the Spanish required a level of comprehension way above any of us (unlike the anthropology museum in Mexico City).  Three of the murals were truly fantastic.  Since you couldn’t take photos you will just have to take my word for it.  Worth going to, it is only 15 pesos ($1.20).

The day was rounded off with a little culture in SMA.  We started off walking up through the chilly and very blustery evening to the Jardin to listen to a string quartet play Beatles tunes.  Two violins, a viol and a cello doing Hard Days Night, Yesterday and so on.  I was too underdressed (shorts and a t-shirt for God’s sake) to hang outside for long (the locals had thick parkas and scarves as if it was the arctic).  We listened to four songs and then hied ourselves over to the Instituto de Allende, the local high-end art school for an exhibition opening,  The art was in parts entertaining and confusing (and perhaps just a little pretentious).

Yes, those are what you think they are meant to be.  There was a performance-art bit featuring a woman leading her teenage son around and then attaching to him a pair of testicles (potatoes I think) and a phallus, made of longaniza, longer than the inseam of the boy.  While she was thus adorning her son, three women came out and danced around wearing masks and tackle made from sausages, potatoes, cucumbers and tomatoes etc. which all eventually wound up getting snipped off and dropped into a large saucepan.  We are still confused.  Don’t know what they were trying to say with/by this.  Anybody want to take a swing (no pun intended) at this (would Carl Jung please step forward).

The evening was capped off by a refreshing glass of wine with one of John’s friends who we bumped into on the way home.

7:30pm

hemos comprado, cocinamos, que comieron más (we bought, we cooked, we overate)!

What a lovely afternoon, spent with a crusty group of characters, much hilarity, in part at one guest’s expense who opened himself up early (he showed up in a pink shirt!).  Eight people did an awful lot of damage – that was a 16lb turkey.  We even managed to watch the Raiders/Cowboys game with the sad but predictable outcome that the Raiders lost.  But the meal was excellent if I do say so myself and the Chilean Turkey was better than most that I have had in the US.  I shouldn’t be so surprised since all the chicken we have had locally has been muy excelente, es verdad!

SMA: Pet Sounds

Actually just sounds in general. 

As you would expect in any town there are the sounds of traffic shuffling around, although remarkably few horns despite the relative density and assortment of vehicles dashing around each other.  It is truly a delight to watch the cars, buses, trucks motorcycles/mopeds and bicycles swirl around each other.  I am told there are traffic laws but the police are so laid back, at least in town, that unless you are a real idiot you are left alone.  It is apparently different on the roads outside of towns where a different set of police are in charge (two sets actually if I recall correctly).

Traffic flows really well, there are few if any stop signs, you are expected to use your common sense (shock horror) and since that is the expectation that is what happens.  The 2-wheel-motivated people dart in and around quite impressively and for the most part seem to get away with this.  In the three weeks we have been in Mexico we have seen one accident and that was in Mexico City when a car was going around a stopped bus – it was a very low speed bump, no injuries, mild histrionics.  I am sure there are accidents of a more serious nature: there are after all memorials littered along the roadsides.  

Most mornings there is a truck cruising each neighborhood delivering gas bottles.  Said truck pays a catchy jingle to get your attention, it reminds me of the ice-cream trucks in England.  The jingle is that sort of annoyingly catchy, stick in your head for hours sort.  There is no centralized gas-distribution network so each house has a bottle hook up for a mongo bottle about 2.5 times the size of one you might see attached to the back of a forklift.  It is really impressive to watch the delivery guys carry these things – they must weigh easily 100lbs.

It is Sunday morning so the tamale truck just passed by.  I had a hard time making out what was being said through the loudspeaker strapped to the roof of the mini van but having watched from the roof for a while I realized that tamales and something else were being sold.  Have to scurry down in time next weekend and try some tamales for breakfast.

There are chickens and roosters in quite a few of the houses hear-abouts and one house up the alley that seems to have a goose or two.  It is great to hear the roosters, reminds me of when we moved to our house in Oakland (before Oakland banned roosters – you can still have chickens though).  The roosters crow off and on all day long sometimes seemingly getting set off by the dogs and sometimes setting the dogs off.

A lot of people have small to medium dogs, frequently roaming around on the roof terrace of the house to which they belong.  Much excitement on the part of the dogs when school lets out and the street swells with people.  There are also loose dogs which are running around,scavenging: the other day we saw a golden retrievery looking dog with the skull of a cow that had been used to make broth – I wish I had the camera with me at the time as it was quite a sight.  The dog was sooooo happy.  The loose and roaming dogs are very aware of their surroundings and take care not to get run over although I imagine it does happen from time to time.  They want nothing to do with people, to Darcie’s chagrin, and rarely make any noise.  They do set the roof-bound dogs off though.

The church bells are very entertaining.  I am used to bells ringing the hour, you know, one bell – 1 o’clock, 3 bells – 3 o’clock and so on. Then there may or may not be some sort of bell tolling at the quarter hour.  Here they do ring the bells but not to tell the actual hour seemingly.  There will be a ringing as you might expect, solemn, well paced and you think aha it is, now wait, let me see, count the tolls, one, two, three… holy cow it can’t possibly be fourteen o’clock.  I haven’t figured it out but what seems to happen is there is a solemn tolling for about 4 bells, then the bell rings madly for a bit and then there is a bit more solemn tolling.  This announces the hour.  In between the bells toll madly at the quarter.  There are quite a few churches within a few mile radius of the house.  It is lovely to hear real bells unlike the canned, loudspeaker variety that is usually used in California.

Children get out of school around 1pm and the street life picks up from there.  A couple of days ago a group of 8 or so boys had a happy rock fight with each other out in the street.  They were hurling golf ball-sized rocks at each other, poorly aimed, but the cars and trucks were occasional, unintended but easy targets for the poorly lobbed rocks.  The dogs were going crazy.  Eventually the police showed up and the boys scattered. 

The lady who lives in the house next door across the alley is a bird lover and has a collection of budgies of some sort under her roof level canopy.  They chatter happily all day, surrounded by the pretty, rooftop garden.  There are also small doves, some sort of sparrow, the ubiquitous pigeons (surprisingly few of these), every now and again a brilliant red sparrow-sized bird with a black mask and yesterday I saw two what must have been birds of prey swirling briefly overhead.  They had pretty large, rectangular wings with long golden wingtip feathers and a tail that seemed to be long and narrow with a feathery bit at the end.  As I was indisposed at the time staring absentmindedly out the skylight that is the best I  can do.  There are also hummingbirds zipping about, chasing each other as usual and performing mid-air acrobatics, one just came in through our wide open door, checked us out and backed off and away. 

In the afternoon there is an ice cream truck that drives around.  It is a pick-up truck with a pitched roof mounted over the bed.  The bed contains a random number of barrels wherein tubs of ice cream are packed surrounded by ice.  Of course there is a catchy jingle to alert you that ice cream is in the offing.  The truck that visits our ‘hood plays a piano tune reminiscent of a 1920’s scat/flapper tune.  Makes us want to get your ‘20’s on and dance around the roof.  The ice cream is not the sort of dreadful factory-made bars, Mr. Softee cones and ices you get in the US and UK normally. It’s hand-scooped into a cup or a cone and quite yummy and only 3 pesos a scoop (about 23 cents).

Every evening starting in the late afternoon, there are men wandering around the neighborhood crying out some phrase in a rising/falling tone – very enchanting but to us unintelligible.  We finally saw one of these fellows a few days ago on one of our wanderings.  He had a pole across his shoulders with a 5 gallon bucket hanging at each end.  We couldn’t make out what he was selling or collecting.  More research needed.  Talked with Yaya our landlady and she said the men are crying “elotes” which is corn.

Again in the evening there is a chap in our neighborhood pushing a metal cart around that has a fire chamber at the bottom and a steam whistle poking up about three feet.  He strolls around periodically tooting the whistle.  It makes this terrific, initially loud and high dying to soft and low sound.  Yaya says they are selling sweet potatoes and sometimes bananas.

Once the sun has set and dusk is dwindling the fireworks come out.  Usually they are just little bottle rockets and firecrackers but occasionally there are bigger rockets that woosh up and explode in a deafening bang that makes one jump if you don’t expect it .  Last night the boys at the corner had gotten a hold of some M80’s (about a quarter stick of dynamite) and were merrily setting them off under an old high-top sneaker to much amusement.  Every now and again they would get this just right and the sneaker would leap up 30ft or so into the air – hilarious.  Apparently there used to be a lot more of this kind of thing but the City has clamped down on it so you get 10 minutes or so of such joie-de-vivre and then the police cruise past.  It is a shame but I suppose endless explosions all evening, late into the evening would get a bit tedious.

SMA: I Was OK Until the Chorizo Started Exploding

7am (ish)

Today, November 20, is Revolution Day in Mexico.  Many things will be shut (not tourist things though) and there will be a parade.  You would think that the various English-language newspapers and websites seemingly set up in SMA would have made some to-do about this but I can’t seem to find anything.  There are passing references to the day but no mention of a parade and so on.  You have to rely on previous visitor’s blogs and Flikr sites to get any info and that is of course from years past.  An indictment of the local Anglo-community if ever there was one.  Of course I could just be really lousy at searching…

Last night we went to a play reading that we were invited to by our landlord, John.  It was a gritty Irish monologue, well presented/read by a sixty-something British actor who is presumably currently enjoying the sun and mild weather (and no rain) that SMA provides pretty much year round (well it does rain hard for 3 months a year just not now).  'I'd love to say who the author of the play was and possibly who the actor was but since I don’t get the paper (English language one) and I can’t find a ref on a website…well you get the idea.  Anyway, I enjoyed it immensely, it was dark, depressing, had a sad ending of sorts that occurred at just the right time (from my point of view of course) and included murder, intrigue, life and so on.  I thought the play was probably picked in part to titillate all the expat septa- and octogenarians of which the crowd was mainly made.  There were the expected gasps at swear words, descriptions of violence and so on from the ladies.  It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it.

By the way, for those that didn’t catch the subtle change to this blog:  we have added a link to the website that we are using to host our trip photos (all part of the Google family).  The link is located to the right of this text and just below the “search this blog” bit which is just below the photos of yours truly (us truly just doesn’t work). Click the link and off you go to the main site which shows all the folders.  You should be able to access all but a couple.  Let us know if you are having any trouble either accessing or viewing the photos.

4pm (ish)

We have had our morning language class and wombled up to the Jardin (main square) and watched a portion of the parade.  We missed the bulk of it seemingly as we were busy trying to learn how to conjugate verbs (mwuhahaha.aaaa tremble in fear mortal).  What we saw was a lot of fun, great outfits, terrific Pancho Villa mustaches on the boys, fantastic dresses on the girls, dancing, taekwondo (of all things), horses (horse poop), gritty grandmas in revolution-era dresses with guns, a cable car (it jumped the tracks in SF and headed South apparently), pompom girls doing cheers (another escapee from North of the border), loud music, fireworks, well behaved crowd and almost no police (wouldn’t we like to have that in the US).

 

After the parade was over we had a sustaining ice cream (I was sensible this time and had only lime sorbet and pomegranate ice cream as opposed to a few days ago when I tried mole flavored ice cream  which was a little weird.  Mole, pronounced “mOleh” or there abouts, is a sauce usually served over chicken and made from a variety of ground up seeds, chilies, a little chocolate and a lot of grinding.  Prepared well it is delicious.  In the US you have to make it yourself, from the raw ingredients (a real labor of love let me tell you), since no one seems to make it other than factory-produced pale imitations that you get in a jar, pre-prepared which taste horrid.  If anyone knows of a source of mole in it’s non-sauce form available in either Oakland or SF or reasonably nearby let me know.

We had a nice wander around an art fair that was going on, also in the Jardin, which focused on sheetmetal handicrafts, woolen things and a variety of other lesser-represented crafty items.  There was this really huge mirror for those that need to compensate for something which was wonderfully OTT:

For a size check please note the seated woman, bottom left!  This thing was really huge, on the order of ten (10) feet!!! tall.  Who has a house big enough for this?  Around here? Mirror mirror on the wall.  Who is the fairest of us all?

As always, we had fun both at the expense of others and ourselves (really!  you should hear us (well, me) speak).  Afterwards we went for a stroll through the park and enjoyed a lounge on a bench in front of a fountain that the teenagers felt was the perfect pool from which to splash their lovers/friends etc and of course to try to push each other in when they least expected it.  Much girlish screaming and boyish cackling was to be heard (and I am sure is still to be heard).

We are sitting now on the roof of our palace enjoying the late afternoon, watching the sun turn the hills and buildings colors and having a cocktail in the guise of some quite delicious moonshine derived from the basis of tequila but tasting more like a liqueur.  It is sweetish and syrupy like a liqueur, made by a chemist out in the desert nearby (according to John who provided said bottle).  It is quite tasty and I can’t really describe the flavor from the point of view of something more familiar. It has a herbal/floral flavor and is quite yummy.  The problem will be that the bottle may not last long and then there will be the problem of finding a replacement.

Viva Mexico!

Goodnight and good luck,

Nick and Darcie.

San Miguel: The View From Here

Ok. So I am pilfering a title but it seems apropos.  It seems after a web search to be a heavily used phrase so I suppose it is thus a cliché. 

It has been deliciously hot and sunny here and I have of course gotten a tad crispy around the edges (back of my neck mostly) thanks to a good long wander in the local Jardin Botanico after our morning spent moving our clobber from mid-way up one hill to mid-way up another.  We finally used our fancy internal-frame packs to accomplish this.  So far, on the plane and bus trips, we have popped our packs into big duffle bags specifically made for such purposes (we have all the mod-cons) mainly to protect the straps etc from the bag handlers.  The move was easily accomplished and we have now unpacked into our new place.

  

The place is small but conveniently located in a bustling local neighborhood filled with flavor and color.  There are three tortilerias within two blocks, half a dozen Rosterias (roasted chicken), butchers, a handful of greengrocers, and the list goes on.  You need it, here it is.  Last night the kids were setting off fireworks and generally having a great, loud, boisterous time.  Heaven knows how/or if they got to school on time or at all.

We made pollo con mole again in our mini kitchen which was mostly easy but required a certain amount of shuffling of pots and contents thereof in one case.  We need to get ourselves a comal (tortilla heating plate) and a tortillero (warmed tortilla holder) since we will be here long enough to need such.  We also need to get a knife sharpener as the knives in the house are BLUNT.

The view from our place is magnificent.  I doubt the photos do it much justice but here goes:

 

I tired to upload an album but I have to have yet another account (with YouTube/Microsoft) to do so and really, don’t we have enough already.  Once I get feedback regarding the functionality (and worthiness (grin)) of the web album I posted I will stick some more view photos up.

We’ve made it half way through our Spanish classes and can use the I and you forms of: to be, to be able to, to need, to want, and to like.  It’s a lot like participating in the ELD courses at Bryant where we practicing using our verbs in various sentence frames.  We’re supposed to have learned the 100 most frequently used Spanish verbs by the end of the course.  It’s easier than we thought it would be.  Once the course is over, we’ll stay on in San Miguel and have one of the school’s teachers take us through the 2nd course (private tutoring since the school is closed for December).  Each day our Spanish does get a little better though we do frequently find ourselves with a word on the tip of our brain, yet inaccessible. Then of course there is just simple stage fright. 

San Miguel – Day 6: Moving Day Tomorrow

We have found a nice place to stay over in a neighborhood called San Rafael-Insurgentes which is just west of the river (currently dry) and up a hill (like a lot of things in SMA).  The light and view are amazing.  Photos to come once we move in which will be tomorrow.  We are going to shuffle our stuff (actually going to use our backpacks finally) tomorrow morning, settle in, reconnect with the internet and get on with our studying. 

We are going to stay in SMA through Christmas and then head off to Oaxaca.  While there aren’t language classes at the Warren Hardy school in December we are hiring a tutor to help us get through Warren Hardy’s second book of verb-conjugations.  Our Spanish is halting but we seem to be able to get by for the most part which is not bad considering our short tie in Mexico so far.  There are times of course when we meet someone who rattles of a sentence or two that goes completely over our heads which is to be expected but people are very patient with us.

We have been having fun trying the various chorizos available and have experimented with some brick of what I thought looked like bacon but actually is meat and skin and some (not much) fat:

I have asked the ladies at the language school what the brick is meant to be used for but didn’t get a satisfactory answer.  Possibly because I didn’t describe the brick correctly. I used it in the bean pot after having fried it till crispy.  Very tasty this way not so much otherwise.  The long, darker brown sausage is longaniza, a chorizo made by the butcher, and the redder sausage is factory-made chorizo or so the butcher was telling us.  Both very tasty.  Yesterday we had chorizo tacos with all the trimmings for lunch.

We have been doing a lot of walking, SMA is a very walkable town as long as you don’t mind hills, uneven surfaces, and the roughly 6400ft elevation above sea level.  It is a very pretty town, at least the older parts, cobblestone streets, amazingly narrow sidewalks, big curbs some places, almost non-existent in others, there is always something happening (last two nights there have been concerts belting out from the Jardin (main town square in front of the church).  Our new landlords tell us that there are fireworks on the weekends most of the time to be viewed from our porch.

A lot of homes have really amazing doorways: either the doors themselves are interesting or the stone frame is and sometimes both.  I have been trying to photograph them when I remember to but I can’t do them justice.  Here are a few:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The roofs of the house are drained directly into the street using in many case stone troughs that extend out a few feet (at most) from the face of the building.  Many of the older ones are carved into creatures:

At some intersections there are small chapels built into the corners of a building, most of them are catholic but in some cases you can see both catholic and Aztec influences:

ttfn, Nick

San Miguel de Allende: Day 3!

We seem to have been remiss in our blogging but really there is just less to blog about now we are away from the tourist Mecca that is Mexico City with all the museums and such.

Nick’s first afternoon on the porch in San Miguel de Allende

Our temporary home on the hill in SMA is really wonderful, nicely landscaped, great light, and tonight we will be trying out the hot tub!  So much for roughing it in hostels!!!! 

Our view of the Courtyard and Pool from the Porch

We, of course, need to find a place to stay more permanently for the duration of our stay in SMA and we need to get going on this search.  There are lots of furnished places which are very reasonable, at least up front.  Some places come with utilities included, some don’t.  Some have daily maid service (don’t need that),some weekly and some for as an extra and so on.  At the end of the day we would like somewhere peaceful, reasonably equipped for cooking, with a comfy bed and a desk.  Grand is truly wonderful but certainly not necessary.  Anyway, we would like to sort this out by the end of the week – have to actually.

We have finally been able to cook our own meals which has massively reduced the hemorrhaging of money spent at various restaurants.  Note that while we have eaten at several holes-in-the-wall I always wind up having a couple or three beers and so the low cost of the food is overridden by the cost of my habit.

Yesterday and today we went to the local market at the bottom-ish of the hill, so far spending $35 on enough groceries for most of the rest of this week.  We have two different  chorizos, one apparently made by the butcher called longaniza (one giant long sausage that gets sliced up to the length you want) and the other chorizo made at some factory somewhere or so the butcher seemed to be saying.  We also bought a hunk of some sort of pressed/spiced porky product (I’ll try to take a photo next time) that sort of looked like bacon and sort of looked like the elephant hoof that is al pastor (my favorite taco basis).  In addition we bought a chicken yesterday, using part of it for pollo con mole and the rest today to make a soup that my friend Juan taught me to make all those years ago when I was in college.  We have enough soup left over for at least one lunch and a dinner.

We dropped in to a cafe in town and bought coffee, and learned that the reasonably correct request is “cafe Chiapas molida americano, por favor” or something very like that (translates to coffee from Chiapas ground for a drip system, please).  I also had an espresso (a double called a doble (emphasis on the e)) and Darcie had a mocha made with Mexican chocolate which was really yummy.

We also dropped into one of the local bookstores today.  I bought a book of Mexican short stories written both in English and Spanish.   Darcie bought a copy of Crepusculo (Twilight in Spanish) to see what all the buzz is about and to practice reading Spanish in a context that is hopefully easier than other books.  We’ll see how it goes soon enough.

Darcie also tried once again to use her ATM card in the machine to no avail.  Arrrggh!

Our first language class was yesterday and, except for one teenager, we are by far the youngest in the group of about 12.  The average age being something on the order of 60 if you count us and the teenager out.  The class was fun and we have been doing a lot of swotting today in order to be ready for class tomorrow and thus get the most out of it. 

Most of the restauranteurs/vendors in town, at least those we have come across so far, seem to speak some English (and in some cases are bilingual) and we have been having fun asking for things in our pigeon Spanish, getting corrections, re-asking and then forging on.  Hopefully the corrections stick.  My ear has been getting attuned to listening to Spanish and I am able to pick out what I am being told/asked a surprisingly frequent portion of the time.  I have trouble answering coherently but thankfully patience is thick on the ground.

We have our second class tomorrow morning at 9am.

Just like with Mexico City (really anyplace one goes) it takes a few days to get ones bearings, figure out where you want to go (and how), what places you want to patronize and so on.  We are getting there fairly quickly here in SMA as it is a smaller town, we have a tiny but useful grounding in how Mexican cities work and we have a place to cook in.  We still need to find some holes-in-the-wall to get quick bites at; SMA does not have the endless line of street vendors that the DF does.

I am really loving the ceilings in Mexican shops and residences.  The shops frequently have relatively heavy, exposed beams supporting red clay floor tiles, presumably as a first layer.  Homes have these lovely domed, exposed brick ceilings (which probably would have frequently been stuccoed and painted).  It is nigh on impossible to take a reasonable photo with a point-and-shoot camera since you really need a fish-eye lens to get a good sense of the roof and I don’t have one.  Here’s what we managed to get with our camera.

I am also really loving all the amazing Dia de los Muertos art that is everywhere (at least so far).  Fun, colorful, imaginative and unfortunately fragile (too fragile to ship without serious risk).  The pictures will just have to do.

De Bus Boss, De Bus

I am writing this from our lovely new resting spot in San Miguel de Allende (hereinafter SMA) after a 3.5hr bus ride from Mexico City.  The bus was super luxurious, the size of a Greyhound but only 24 enormous, widely-spaced seats (they come with full-length leg rests!). They show movies no less.  I spent the time reading Band of Brothers and enjoying the scenery as we rolled by. 

Mexico City’s extended squalor seemed to go on forever. I was beginning to think that this was the reality of Mexico when after about 45 minutes the factories and one room masonry shacks gave way to beautiful countryside.  Distant (and not so distant) hills, big meadows, wild flowers and endless corn, white herons all over wherever there was water, progressively more seemingly well-off farms and ranches and then SMA hove into view.

On first blush SMA is a beautiful place, cobbled streets, hills, a Colonial-Era church that is quite amazing: It reminded me of Cortona in Italy except that there is (at least I haven’t found it) no tumble-down fort at the top.

We are off today for the start of our first language class in a short while.  After which we plan to do some grocery shopping and probably some more exploring by daylight (it was quite dark by the time we strolled out yesterday).

We are online (Skype) typically around 7am-ish for an hour or so and then again in the evening around 8pm-ish.  The time in Mexico is GMT – 6, i.e., if it is Noon in the UK it is 6am here, if it is 6am in CA it is 8am here.

Mexico City Day 7: Salud

Today was our last full day here and once again we did battle with the Demons of Art. 

Actually we started off trying to get Darcie’s debit card to work at the ATM but without joy.  We called the bank and they don’t see any problems so it seems that whatever number D thinks she recorded is not the number the bank actually did record.  Of course the only way to find out is to go back to the US to a BofA since it is not info they can (or will) give out over the phone (sensibly I might add).  So we are already down to one card at least from the point of view of extracting cash.  Her card still works fine to charge things against.

We walked back up to Bosque de Chapultepec to get a tourist map of an area south of the city called Xochimilco (pronounced “So chi mil ko” or thereabouts) which was once the breadbasket of the Aztec nation before the Spaniards showed up. We also rambled through the diminutive botanical garden  which did have a great bromeliad/orchid collection in a nicely designed greenhouse.

We had our first minor disappointment with the Metro shortly thereafter.  We paid our outrageous (grin) two pesos (remember that is about 17c!) and then stood on the platform for 20 minutes with an ever increasing crowd.  We smartly, actually Darcie smartly, then figured we could go two stops in the other direction and then hop onto another line to get to where we wanted to be. Problem solved.  We made it down to the end of the line at Tasquena and then hopped on the light rail (looks just like MUNI metro) down to a stop called La Noria (The Well I think although Babelfish translates it to The Chain Dump!). 

This is the stop for a really terrific art museum called La Museo Dolores Olmedo.  She was a rich patron of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and her former house is littered with their respective works.  It was nice to actually be able to see more than one or two Frida paintings (mostly what all the others offer).  Here there were several rooms dedicated.  The grounds are lovely  which is a surprise and a treat since the surroundings outside are rundown for the most part.

Dolores Olmedo was also a breeder of Mexican Hairless Dogs, a dying breed that is facing extinction apparently.  The museum has a whole herd:

In addition to the Rivera/Kahlo art (which you cannot photograph) there was more Dia de Los Muertos-related art:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After spending a delightful (I can’t say enough about this museum – you must go if you come to the DF, slang for Mexico City) three+ hours here we hopped back on the train to the end of the line and Xochimilco.

The fame of this area is the “floating” gardens or chinampas that the predecessors of Aztecs created.  Basically reclaimed land from the lake crisscrossed with canals.  A chunk of this system survives to this day and a thriving tourist market exists to take both the tourists and “locals” around on punts for three to four hours.  We got there so late in the day that it was not worth it (dusk was only half an hour or so off) and a lot of the punts were locked up for the night.  As it was we wandered around for a couple of hours, discovered the market which was great, an outdoor fruit and veg market which went on and on for seemingly blocks and was amazing and yet another town square with a free concert just getting started.

Just before the concert there was a local talent show of hula dancers.  Who would have thought that hula would be popular in Mexico?  Anyway there was a group of roughly seven to eight year olds which were oh so cute and boy could they shake it followed by a group of fifteen or so year olds whose hips did things they just shouldn’t do (grin).

We got some cheap and good espressos from a nearby stand and wandered over to listen to the Mexican rock/blues that was belting out from the nearby bandstand.  The guys were in their late forties/early fifties and having a great time.  The bass guitar player must have had a thing for The Who since he had a bunch of their moves down.  It was all fun.  It looked like it was going to be a while before the next act showed up so we took off for the hour or so ride back to the hotel to freshen up and go off more more great tacos at the local stand.  We had more of the al pastor that I am so fond of and I also tried lengua (cow tongue) which was yummy and some pork rib meat that was good but not great.

Before I forget I also saw my first real destitute/homeless people and the first public drunkard while we were in Xochimilco.  As expected there was also no overt police presence there either unlike the more touristy areas – not that this is/was a problem since everyone is very courteous and there was no argy-bargy going on.  On the ride home there were the usual coterie of hawkers selling tic-tacs, booklets of some sort and CD’s.  We heard a really great version of Coldplay’s “Parachutes” with a really cool salsa beat track laid over it.  Almost good enough to buy but the next three songs on the disc were such crap…

There were also a great many young women putting on make-up while riding the trains.  We must have seen at least 5 today.  We figured, they didn’t have time to put it on at home, or, some were young enough not to want their parents seeing the amount of make-up they had on as they left the house.

We have really enjoyed our stay here and I reckon that once we actually have some language skills under our belts (more than ordering food and drinks anyway) we should be able to have an even better time since then we can actually chat with people and get ideas for places to go that are off the beaten path.

Tomorrow at lunch time we take the luxury bus up to San Miguel for the first of our language courses. 

Mexico City Day 6: Zocalo again “Riverista Style”

Today was a day devoted to Diego Rivera.

We started out visiting the Palacio National in the Zocalo.  The Palacio is basically the equivalent to our white house except it does not have the security hype.  We were scanned and my bag was checked but that was about all. 

The stairway up to the 2nd level is covered with a mural that depicts Mexican civilization from the Aztec Quetzalcoatl to the post-revolutionary period.  Unfortunately I don’t have Nick’s picture taking skills but I did my best.

 

As with many of Rivera’s murals, he has included Frida Kahlo in it.  Once I became overwhelmed with the murals, I kept myself going by looking through them and looking for Frida.  I was successful only 2 times.  Here’s the first.

The 2nd floor of the Palacio is mostly covered with Rivera murals depicting Indigenous life before the Spanish Conquest.  The lighting wasn’t great, but here’s one.

After we finished with the murals, we went down to the Palacio’s botanical garden.  I was able to satisfy my “fuzzy love fix”by taking as many pictures as I could of the approximately 15 cats we saw there.  Here are a few.

 

Finally, we visited the Secretaria de Educacion Publica which used to be a monastery.  It is almost completely covered with Rivera murals.  All 3 levels and some of the stair wells.  At this point, we were a bit overwhelmed with Diego but enjoyed the murals none the less.  I even was rewarded with a Frida image.

We both greatly appreciated the architecture of the building.  I’ve included some images of the view from the 2nd floor. We’d love to come back to see the courtyard when the Jacarandas are in bloom.

Once we’d powered through the murals, we were definitely ready for lunch.  We revisited the restaurant, Puro de Corazon, that overlooks the cathedral.  It was the perfect place for us to just hang out, enjoy extremely well-made local dishes, and just people watch.  At this point we were both feeling quite tired and needed the down time.

Mexico City Day 5: Teotihuacan

Sad to say but we succumbed to convenience and actually booked a tour!!???  It was pretty much what I expected, a chaperoned way of relieving you of cash without, at the end of the day, actually giving you much more than an easy ride direct from the hotel and back.

That is not to say we didn’t get much out of it but the reality is we got about 1.5hr in Teotihuacan which, even being philistines such as ourselves, was not enough. 

We also spent about 30 minutes at the Basilica de Guadalupe which in theory is the most frequented church in all Mexico.  Bearing in mind that this was a Thursday and we arrived somewhere around 10:30am it was amazing to see a service in process and about 500 people, maybe a thousand, in attendance.  So I would say that theory is reasonably accurate in this case.  There are actually three churches in the complex:  the original, very small church at the top of the local hill, then the second church down at the main plaza level which has a pretty impressive four foot or so change in elevation from one corner to the other across the front face  creating a very noticeable tilt to one side.

and then there is the new church that can hold 12,000 people on a crazy day (December 12 being the craziest).  Church #2 is undergoing restoration to limit the unequal settlement, fix the broken bits and generally restore the majesty.  Church #1 was outside of our window of opportunity so if we want to see it we have to go back under our own steam and since it is way North is unlikely to happen on this trip.  Too bad since it seems to me that the more interesting parts are to be seen between and including Church #1 and #2.  The new church is important simply because it holds the catholic relic (a poncho) which actually got this complex started almost 500 years ago.

Guadalupe (Christ’s mother) appeared to a man and told him that a church needed to be built upon that spot.  When the Spanish priests did not believe him (surprise, surprise), he went back to the spot to get evidence that he’d actually seen Guadalupe.  She told him to go to a certain spot and collect roses there.  He did, put them under his poncho, and when he took the poncho to the priests, the roses became an image of Guadalupe.  The priests were convinced, and, viola!  they decided to build the first church. 

We were able to view the actual poncho which is now beautifully framed and displayed in church #3.  We had to walk down a level and stand on a short conveyor belt so that we could look up at the poncho and photograph it.  We did this with a number of other visitors and all the while, did not disturb the sermon which was being presented right above us under the poncho. 

You may be wondering why I am focusing so much on the Basilica?  Well, let me tell you. That is because for the most part that is where the guide gave us the most information.  By the time we had gotten to Teotihuacan (pronounced te o tea wa can by the way) the knowledge imparted was no more than I had already read at the Templo Mayor the day before (see previous post) and from, of all places, the Lonely Planet guide.

Suffice to say that the “guided” part of this tour was limited and a waste of money but the convenience of hotel pickup/drop-off was pretty nice. 

The place itself is pretty amazing particularly when you know that it was started nearly two thousand years ago.  Of course what you see today is actually a reconstruction done in the early 1900’s which in itself is an amazing feat.  Apparently the archeologists had bumps in the landscape to look at covered in trees and cacti (there are still some today). Removing the accumulated vegetation and earth unveiled a pile of rocks overlying more earth.  That what we see today was extracted from this pile of rubble is amazing.  Just think of the manpower and money that was brought to bear on this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finished the day walking around our neighborhood, getting some cash from the ATM (Darcie’s card appears not to work but thankfully mine does) and sharing a bottle of Argentinean wine ( a delicious Tempranillo) and basket of fried potato products: papas soufflé (thin slices fried till they puff) in a basket essentially made of potato chips all sitting on a bed of skinny French fries (clearly a non-Atkins item).  The dish is really meant as an accompaniment for a main course but we made it dinner.  I got the feeling that the waiters were not amused.  I was interested in trying some of the other dishes but neither Darcie nor I were really that hungry.

Mexico City Day 4: I see art everywhere

We woke up later than we have been which was fine as we got to meet a new group of hotel guests along with the Owner, Jorge, and his family.  The hotel is so rambling and without a focused lounge area that people can hang out in that it is easy to think that there is no one here other than for the few things that go bump in the night.

Jorge gave us some ideas and tips for places to go and see or eat at which was nice. 

We spent the day back in the Centro Historico looking at the ruins of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, that Cortes demolished so as to ensure Spanish/Catholic supremacy (and to have some great stones to build with).  The excavated area represents a tiny fraction of the original city/temple as the rest of it is buried below current Centro Historico buildings.  It is likely that there are some really amazing artifacts littered around under present-day Mexico City but without razing more of the city (which is what they did to get what we see today) these things are likely to remain underground for a while to come.  Not that the current buildings are all that much to look at for the most part or indeed in good condition but since they are standing and owned by someone…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After nearly four hours of archeology and interpretation (Spanglish is getting pretty reasonable at least the written Spanish to mental English) we broke back out into daylight and headed off to a restaurant on the way to our next venue: The Museo de Arte Poplulare.  I head pollo con mole which was nice but not as good as the mole we had at the Best Western restaurant on the main plaza of all places.  Darcie had a combination plate that was very good.

The Museo was wonderful.  Filled with fun Mexican art pieces, a lot of them influenced by the Day of the Dead art forms.  They were having an exhibition of piñatas some of which were terrific although I am sorry to say the photos don’t really do them justice (what do you want for a point-and-shoot?).  In addition to this there were all sorts of pieces that I will try to post online somewhere when I have spent some time photo-shopping them.

We also stopped in at the Main Post Office or Coreo Nationale which is an amazing, guilded french-colonial pile across the street from the Museo de Belles Artes that we went to two days ago.  It is well worth the visit (it only takes a few minutes to wander through)

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our last cultural stop for the day was the Diego Rivera Mural Museum which contains one giant Rivera mural and a bunch of little (by comparison) paintings by a number of his contemporaries.  Seeing as we are art-philistines and we had spent 6 hours or so looking at objets we kind of whisked through after spending ten minutes or so absorbing the mural.

On our way home (we walked the two miles rather than brave rush hour on the Metro) we stopped at the Mexican equivalent of a donut shop and had hot chocolate and churros.  Churros for those that don’t know are fried strips of dough much like donut batter that are then rolled in sugar and sometimes cinnamon.  They were delicious and became dinner. Sinful.