Mexico City Week One
(Warning: this post contains a painting of boobs)
We arrived in Mexico City on a Monday night and as I said in my last blog entry I got cussed at and I believe cursed by an ancient woman on the street. Since then, by the way, I have given money to countless old ladies, even ones not asking, and have been counter-cursed several times over. I also gave money to the large cathedral here in Mexico City and I drank some of the holy water. So anyways, the next day we waded into the protest and have since witnessed three other protests and countless numbers of armed police, military personnel with big guns, and riot cops in full gear. Funny thing is with all these protests and all these police I have yet to see anyone arrested or any violence whatsoever. We actually joined that big protest for a while. Being Santa Cruz protest pros we thought we could show them a thing or two about how to get some things accomplished. Felt kind of awkward being the only naked ones though. Protesting all day is hard work and we had built up quite an appetite. We grabbed some dinner and headed back to our hotel to sleep and have dreams about societies that actually actively protest their government’s unfair/ corrupt policies instead of simply partaking in telephone opinion polls.
We woke up the next morning at Casa de Los Gringos (I mean Amigos) and we headed downstairs to have the dollar-fifty breakfast special. They served chilaquiles, at least that’s what they called them, (they were actually gringoquiles - stale corn chips smeared with black bean paste and topped with mozzarella cheese) and corn flakes for breakfast with stale bread and coffee. Yum!!! I was starting to long for the Starbucks we had noticed near the town square the day before. It was the last breakfast we would eat at our hotel.
First we visited the Palacio governor’s palace military base thingy. The Spanish conquerors apparently built all of the main buildings on top of the main pyramids of the original Aztecan/ Mexicas, after they destroyed them and killed all the people of course. The Palace, however, is very large and impressive and Diego Rivera painted a ton of murals on the walls depicting the history of the evil gringos killing, raping, and ravaging all of the native people and destroying their amazingly beautiful advanced city. The murals are quite impressive. The whole place is crawling with military police carrying ak-47’s so it’s difficult to take too many pictures (they will confiscate your camera if they see you, even accidentally, taking any pics of them). There is even a garden in the middle that is filled with desert plants
and at least twenty cats. It’s the only place so far that I’ve seen cats on this entire journey and one of the few places in the palace that it was safe to take some pics. Awwww so cute:
After the Palacio we headed into a marketplace that seemed to go on for miles. There were people yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs to buy their goods. Hot dog vendors yelling. Drink vendors yelling. The very large crowd of buyers all seemed to be yelling at each other. There was music blaring everywhere – all English music btw – Bob Marley, Queen, No Doubt, Usher, Blondie and many more. After a while Melanie and I even started yelling at each other, even though we could have heard each other talking normally, until we finally made it out of the market. It was like some sort of trance – very strange.
On to the main cathedral we went. Again built by the evil murdering catholic disease-bag Spanish conquerors. Actually other than being immensely huge it wasn’t that impressive looking. There was several cool side room shrines dedicated to patron saints/ martyrs (one usually goes with the other I guess). There was also the black Jesus shrine (don’t see that every day – usually he’s bleach white) – how’d they get away with depicting him as someone of color with the church? There were also a couple of other creepy monuments. 
One with a skull and bones of some martyr 
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/01/26/pope.breakdancers.ap/
Totally unrelated but has anyone checked out the controversy regarding the chocolate Jesus?… it’s very disturbing to watch babbling Christian extremists making foolish arguments and threats. The sculpture itself raises a good point for everyone to think about the true meaning of the religious holidays that you celebrate. And, by the way, I’ve seen many paintings this week depicting Jesus having a penis, albeit not a chocolate one. But I bet there’s a good chance some of you are eating a chocolate Easter egg as you read this.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/50069/
Back to the blog… We headed back home but on the way stopped at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the main performance theatre and an art gallery, to check out some murals painted inside. There are murals painted by Diego Rivera, Orozco, Siquieros, and many more – all amazingly impressive. Check out this one by Siquieros – definitely my favorite (repressed children cover your eyes):
The next day started with our first stop at Starbucks for breakfast and coffee. They actually have good coffee and ½ and ½, which in Mexico is a miracle. Also pretty darn good breakfast sandwiches as well. Ashamedly we have pretty much eaten breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Starbucks every day since… :( I know it’s bad, but I love Starbucks more than ever now. We have since found four or five more including one a couple of blocks from our hotel. 
We mostly walked around taking pictures all day and then that night went to a folk Ballet performance at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, which included singing, musical performances and, of course, dancing. It was an amazing performance.
That was pretty much our first week here. We took a couple of day off to rest – we were pretty pooped from miles and miles of hiking in the hot sun. We’re currently at the end of week number two and I will write about that soon. I climbed a huge pyramid – can’t wait to show you all.
Until then,
Chris
No comments:
Post a Comment