as succintly as i can, the rest of my spring break trip:
san miguel de allende grew on me after a while. by first impressions, i liked guanajuato more, but i started to see a different side to san miguel three days into hanging around there. i met a bullfighter. seriously. half of our colonial city group left, and the remaining two of us visited queretaro, which has impressive aqueducts (i can upload some more pics on flickr when the month ends) and a slightly-bizarre, yet admittedly entertaining easter tradition of hanging "judas" dolls in one of the town squares and blowing them up with firecrackers (i have video to prove it). we were told the papier-mache dolls are made to resemble mexican political figures.
by the start of the second week, my friend and i split in two directions, one heading to guadalajara, the other to el d.f. (distrito federal), one of the world's most populous cities (i'm pretty sure its population is two-thirds the pop. of canada).
mexico city was everything i'd hoped it'd be.
i saw everything i'd wanted to see: the castle and museum of history in the humongous chapultepec park; the zocalo (the ruins of the aztec templo mayor) and the historical centre of the city; the hip and pseudo-bohemian, yuppy ("fresa") neighborhood of condesa; coyoacan and san angel--important neighborhoods in the lives of frida kahlo and diego rivera (i visited the house they had made in san angel for their marriage; it's actually a cool, architecturally modern-looking two houses joined by a bridge...i also visited the house where diego rivera was born in guanajuato); the impressive ballet folklorico at the grandiose palacio de bellas artes (even the super-macho phys. ed. teacher loved it!); the aztec pyramids in teotihuacan (climbed both "the sun" and "the moon"); a personally guided, thoughtfully-condensed tour of the amazing anthropological museum (also in chapultepec park); an amble through the ritzy shopping street in polanco, where the chanel and louis vuitton shops all had a black-sunglasses-and-suit security guard standing at the door; and finally, a ride on the gondola-like trajineras on the floating gardens of xochimilco.
unfortunately, the walkmen concert at the hard rock cafe was cancelled. that would've topped off a nearly-perfect trip, but i really can't complain too much.
i met up with alex and jen for the mexico city week of my trip, and we stayed at my department head's mother's house (her american mother has lived there for around 50 years and my dept. head was born there). holy crap, was staying there an exercise in being pampered! there were cooks and maids and drivers and gated driveways. we were obviously in a very nice part of town, and we were certainly experiencing the privileged, safe side of life in the city. i guess it was a welcoming, if not a little sheltered, introduction to the place that has acquired such a good reputation for being extremely dangerous.
anyway, there were many times where i was tempted to defect and just not return to vallarta. i'm discovering more and more that i'm most likely a city girl. i like the culture and vibe of the metropolis. for what it's worth though, i will say that when i flew back to p.v. on my birthday, it was nice to feel the humid air (holy shit, is it dry and unbelievably polluted in the centre of this country!) and small-town familiarity of the town.
it's mindboggling to think that i've been living here for about 10 months now. i've got another year to go (although it's unbelievable how this school year is practically over already), and a heck of a lot more of mexico to explore.
san miguel de allende grew on me after a while. by first impressions, i liked guanajuato more, but i started to see a different side to san miguel three days into hanging around there. i met a bullfighter. seriously. half of our colonial city group left, and the remaining two of us visited queretaro, which has impressive aqueducts (i can upload some more pics on flickr when the month ends) and a slightly-bizarre, yet admittedly entertaining easter tradition of hanging "judas" dolls in one of the town squares and blowing them up with firecrackers (i have video to prove it). we were told the papier-mache dolls are made to resemble mexican political figures.
by the start of the second week, my friend and i split in two directions, one heading to guadalajara, the other to el d.f. (distrito federal), one of the world's most populous cities (i'm pretty sure its population is two-thirds the pop. of canada).
mexico city was everything i'd hoped it'd be.
i saw everything i'd wanted to see: the castle and museum of history in the humongous chapultepec park; the zocalo (the ruins of the aztec templo mayor) and the historical centre of the city; the hip and pseudo-bohemian, yuppy ("fresa") neighborhood of condesa; coyoacan and san angel--important neighborhoods in the lives of frida kahlo and diego rivera (i visited the house they had made in san angel for their marriage; it's actually a cool, architecturally modern-looking two houses joined by a bridge...i also visited the house where diego rivera was born in guanajuato); the impressive ballet folklorico at the grandiose palacio de bellas artes (even the super-macho phys. ed. teacher loved it!); the aztec pyramids in teotihuacan (climbed both "the sun" and "the moon"); a personally guided, thoughtfully-condensed tour of the amazing anthropological museum (also in chapultepec park); an amble through the ritzy shopping street in polanco, where the chanel and louis vuitton shops all had a black-sunglasses-and-suit security guard standing at the door; and finally, a ride on the gondola-like trajineras on the floating gardens of xochimilco.
unfortunately, the walkmen concert at the hard rock cafe was cancelled. that would've topped off a nearly-perfect trip, but i really can't complain too much.
i met up with alex and jen for the mexico city week of my trip, and we stayed at my department head's mother's house (her american mother has lived there for around 50 years and my dept. head was born there). holy crap, was staying there an exercise in being pampered! there were cooks and maids and drivers and gated driveways. we were obviously in a very nice part of town, and we were certainly experiencing the privileged, safe side of life in the city. i guess it was a welcoming, if not a little sheltered, introduction to the place that has acquired such a good reputation for being extremely dangerous.
anyway, there were many times where i was tempted to defect and just not return to vallarta. i'm discovering more and more that i'm most likely a city girl. i like the culture and vibe of the metropolis. for what it's worth though, i will say that when i flew back to p.v. on my birthday, it was nice to feel the humid air (holy shit, is it dry and unbelievably polluted in the centre of this country!) and small-town familiarity of the town.
it's mindboggling to think that i've been living here for about 10 months now. i've got another year to go (although it's unbelievable how this school year is practically over already), and a heck of a lot more of mexico to explore.
posted by oxymoron @ 12:18 PM
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