recent stuff 2

We have been to a few exhibitions as well these weeks, one was at the College of San Ildefonso where we have earlier seen the Vik Muniz exhibition. This time we saw two new things: one was called "Viento del Oeste, Viento del Este" which basically comprised of 20th century Spanish art that is in a way or other related to Mexico. They did have one Miro, one Picasso, and one Dali painting which they heavily advertised (of course) but mostly they were unknown artist with a wide variety of styles some of which I really liked, others were pretty schematic. But the other exhibition which we saw by chance only was a very interesting retrospective of Julio Galán, a Mexican artist who lived in New York for awhile. I did not know anything about him before, but I became a fan. It's hard to describe his stuff because it's really complex with lots of influences that melt into a very personal style. He is called a neo-expressionist by critics mixing very subjective, autobiographical motives (a la Frida Kahlo) with surrealist imagery and gay themes full of allegories from fairy tales and childhood fantasy. He used to hang out with Andy Warhol in New York for awhile but I don't think that pop art influenced him much, although his later works use multiple registers and materials. I am posting a picture here to give you a sense of this. Both me and James really liked his stuff, especially the earlier ones.
We also went to the Anthropology Museum for the first time last week (it will need at least 6 or 7 visits). It was pretty amazing, James will write about it soon...

recent stuff 1

It's not like we stopped doing things on the weekend, it's more like I got a little lazy with writing them up...but here is a brief update.
Two weekends ago we visited the final site of Mexico City that is a major tourist attraction and that we haven't seen yet. It is called Xochimilco and it is on the far south side of the city. Took us over an hour to get there. But it's a very unique place, it shows the original characteristic landscape of the city from the time of the Indians. It is a set of little islands connected by numerous canals. The big attraction, of course is to rent a boat and travel around the canals with many other boats looking at the mainly agricultural landscape. It can be real fun, but I think you need to be a big group of people, because the boast are big for 8 people and up and mostly what everyone does it they have a huge picnic with lots of drinks and food on the boat. Well, we didn't know this, so we were mainly watching as other were having the fun. Although Tod and James did have one huge beer each with lots of chili powder on the side of the cup. James to my great surprise really did not like this "michelada."

Juice on the weekend

This is something I haven't blogged about yet, even though it's probably my favorite thing in Mexico City so far: the fresh fruit juices all year round. They are sold on the street like everything else, at stands which specialize on juices only. There is a great place right around our corner that Julie told us about so we tried it for the first time about 3 weeks ago...and since then we have to have one every single day! It stared with the "Antigripa" when I was sick (still one of my favorites), which contains guava (super high in Vitamin C), pineapple, orange juice, lemon and honey, but since then we branched out in all different directions: mamey and milk(special fruit here, James' favorite cause it tastes like pumpkin pie by itself), grapefruit, strawberries, banana, the "Vampiro" which is red because of the beets, and the "Verde" which is green because it contains mainly celery and parsley...I won't go into further details, you really have to be here and try it. Oh, and the most expensive mix costs 13 pesos (1dollar)! Sometimes I feel guilty for drinking it every day, but then I cannot resists and console myself saying: "What the heck! I won't ever have anything like that once we leave Mexico..."
Here are some pictures with fruits (mamey and guava) and the Pan de Muerto from last week since I didn't post a pictures of it then.
PS: Tomorrow we are going to Xochimilco, very exiting! Will blog about it later.

Day of the Dead a la Mexico

These last few weeks I have been busy and lazy, but we are indeed enjoying (if this is the right word) the Dia de Muerto here in Mexico City. I have started attending an intensive Spanish class, so this takes up a lot of time on top of everything else. But one of the good things about the class is my teacher who is really cool and sweet. She brought a special cocoa drink to the last class that the Indians used to make and it has chocolate, corn flour, water and spices. It's a thick and slightly sweet drink, a great way to kick off the day of the dead which here is more a celebration of life (remembering that it's short). The other cool thing is an exhibition that was put out on Paseo de Reforma, with so called 'alebrije's - huge monstrous wonderful creatures made of paper (see pictures). Some are scary but others are really beautiful and full of imagination.

We also had pan de muerto, a sweet bread a few times this week and I am sure all our Mexican friends who live in the US envy us for it because it is truly delicious! It can be small or big, it's a little buttery and eggy, and there is sugar on the top. We bought and hung the 'papel picado's - punch papers made for this festivity especially showing different skeletons figures. We also bought the compulsory chocolate skull and some really cute skeleton musicians to display for our beloved dead ones...Mexicans usually put out a plate with their dead relatives' favorite food and drink. So we are celebrating life this weekend and remembering those we lost.

On this note: my beloved cat passed away this week at home in Romania. His name was Lacika and he was 15 years old. He will be missed and celebrated on every Day of the Dead from now on.