My mom arrived in Mexico City last Tuesday. I've enjoyed showing her around while Patrick continued his archival research, and since of the two of us, I know more Spanish, it's forced me to practice speaking more (otherwise I rely on Patrick to do the talking, though I think my oral comprehension has improved somewhat). We've gone back to the Castillo de Chapultepec, the anthropology museum (this time, going through the rooms in their intended order; it makes so much more sense!), and the Palacio Nacional. I have so much to write about. The big highlight was the Ballet Folklorico performance at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. The energy, the costumes, the music, the variety of the dances were all wonderful. I'll write about that more later.
We just got back from a weekend in Taxco, the silver capital of Mexico. It's a picturesque town, with narrow, cobblestone streets--and it's nestled in the mountains, so it's full of twists and turns, each of which reveals a different view of red-tiled houses, mosaically domed churches, or lush green hills smothered in fog. In addition to sampling the city's best vegetarian food (crepes with Thai curry!), we did a fair amount of shopping for silver. The wholesalers give great deals, and many of the retailers have something unique to offer. Our favorite shop turned out to be the Lapidario Barrera. We bought a bunch of their jewelry, which incorporates pieces of pottery made in the Mexican state of Chihuahua (click on the Mata Ortiz link on their website).
Time for bed. Getting up early tomorrow to make the pilgrimage to Teotihuacan. More later.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Mexico #6
Using his keen powers of observation, my dad noted that I missed Mexico #6. Here is the post I started before my mom got here. I got distracted, so it's taken me until now to finish it. Enjoy ...
I don't know if this came across in my last post [Mexico #5], but for me, Veracruz didn't live up to its reputation as a relaxed, white-skirted place with a strong Caribbean influence. The city of Veracruz felt small and almost provincial. I got called chinita a lot, something that almost never happens in Mexico (remember, that's a reference to the capital city, not the country)--although the supermarket near the hostel does have a cleaning product called "La Chinita" (I think it's kind of like Ajax). China means both the country, China, and Chinese--though for masculine words, the adjective form would be chino (ending in o instead of a). So in this case, Chin[it]a is the feminine Chinese, or a Chinese woman. The addition of the suffix -ita is kind of affectionate, cute and small. An example: if your name were Fluff, in English you might get called Fluffy as an endearing nickname; Flufita would be the Spanish equivalent.
Also, china often refers to all of East Asia and all East Asians here in America Latina, something that annoys Korean and Japanese Americans to no end (not sure how Japanese and Korean Mexicans feel about it) and partially explains why the woman on the can of La Chinita cleaner is wearing a kimono and waving a fan with a big red sun on it. It does not answer the question of why you would think "La Chinita" is good name for your cleaning product, or what this might say about people's ideas about Asians or the use of race in general here. I will leave you to make your own speculations.
For my part, I feel privileged to view this kind of racial "event" as quaint and vaguely odd, instead of as a threat. I know that my race is seen, but I don't expect that to limit what I will be able to achieve in this life (although it's probably a good thing that I don't want to act; I think Hollywood is still pretty weird when it comes to Asian characters). Patrick sometimes wishes that "there was no history"--quite a statement, coming from a historian. No history, for a white man and an Asian woman. I understand his hurt with this, but I'm just counting my blessings. Our marriage will be totally legal; our children will be as free as I am; no one will spit on us in the street or deny us service because of our miscegenation; and we will be far from alone. Mixed-race couples are far more common than they were a generation ago, and the percentage of mixed-race marriages in the US continues to grow. In 1990, 1 out of every 23 marriages were interracial; in 2000, it was 1 in every 15. The numbers are even higher in states with large populations of Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans. It is another comment on our weird take on race in the US that African Americans--most of whom are of mixed racial descent in the first place, but whom we continue to categorize by the "one drop" rule--are still involved in a disproportionately small number of interracial marriages. In California, 13.5% of all marriages are mixed-race; in Alabama, the figure is 3.3%. It isn't for lack of races to mix, is it? There is an article on the demographics of interracial couples in the US with some nice charts here; it's by University of Michigan demographer and Brookings Institution Fellow William Frey. He doesn't get into the intersection of race and gender, but I did find the article to be informative. One thing that totally surprised me was that 75% of the marriages involving Native Americans (including Eskimos and Aleuts) are interracial.
Does this still count as a post about Mexico? My mom (who we put on the plane home yesterday) was very curious about what is "Spanish" and what is "indigenous" in this country. It's impossible to separate everything that way, but her question did lead to some interesting conversations. I thought the guide at the anthropology museum, answered another visitor's question about race very well; she said that in recent years, Mexicans have become more comfortable with and even proud of the notion that everyone is mestizo, or mixed Spanish-Indian. There has been increasing interest and pride in pre-Hispanic cultures (especially Aztec society, which has its large exhibition hall at the center of the museum). But at the same time, you wouldn't ask someone if they were indio; it's borderline insulting. To be Indian here is still associated with being lower class--and most of the models and actors have light skin, often light hair, and European features.
We have more in common with Mexico than we realize. For another quick example: the last election here was very close, won by a margin of less than 200,000 votes. The conservative candidate won. The supporters of the liberal candidate continued for some time to contest the election results. Sound a little familiar? Some major differences: 1) Here, I don't think there were any problems with voters having access to polling places (remember the stories about long lines to vote in some areas of the US). 2) The non-partisan election commission certified the election as it stood. Imagine what you would think of this country if the election were decided by a state governed by the winning candidate's brother.
Here's a weird tidbit, which Patrick just got from our hostel guy. In Mexico, there's a stereotype about people who are lazy and always trying to cheat you: Cubans!
Time to go do more stuff!
I don't know if this came across in my last post [Mexico #5], but for me, Veracruz didn't live up to its reputation as a relaxed, white-skirted place with a strong Caribbean influence. The city of Veracruz felt small and almost provincial. I got called chinita a lot, something that almost never happens in Mexico (remember, that's a reference to the capital city, not the country)--although the supermarket near the hostel does have a cleaning product called "La Chinita" (I think it's kind of like Ajax). China means both the country, China, and Chinese--though for masculine words, the adjective form would be chino (ending in o instead of a). So in this case, Chin[it]a is the feminine Chinese, or a Chinese woman. The addition of the suffix -ita is kind of affectionate, cute and small. An example: if your name were Fluff, in English you might get called Fluffy as an endearing nickname; Flufita would be the Spanish equivalent.Also, china often refers to all of East Asia and all East Asians here in America Latina, something that annoys Korean and Japanese Americans to no end (not sure how Japanese and Korean Mexicans feel about it) and partially explains why the woman on the can of La Chinita cleaner is wearing a kimono and waving a fan with a big red sun on it. It does not answer the question of why you would think "La Chinita" is good name for your cleaning product, or what this might say about people's ideas about Asians or the use of race in general here. I will leave you to make your own speculations.
For my part, I feel privileged to view this kind of racial "event" as quaint and vaguely odd, instead of as a threat. I know that my race is seen, but I don't expect that to limit what I will be able to achieve in this life (although it's probably a good thing that I don't want to act; I think Hollywood is still pretty weird when it comes to Asian characters). Patrick sometimes wishes that "there was no history"--quite a statement, coming from a historian. No history, for a white man and an Asian woman. I understand his hurt with this, but I'm just counting my blessings. Our marriage will be totally legal; our children will be as free as I am; no one will spit on us in the street or deny us service because of our miscegenation; and we will be far from alone. Mixed-race couples are far more common than they were a generation ago, and the percentage of mixed-race marriages in the US continues to grow. In 1990, 1 out of every 23 marriages were interracial; in 2000, it was 1 in every 15. The numbers are even higher in states with large populations of Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans. It is another comment on our weird take on race in the US that African Americans--most of whom are of mixed racial descent in the first place, but whom we continue to categorize by the "one drop" rule--are still involved in a disproportionately small number of interracial marriages. In California, 13.5% of all marriages are mixed-race; in Alabama, the figure is 3.3%. It isn't for lack of races to mix, is it? There is an article on the demographics of interracial couples in the US with some nice charts here; it's by University of Michigan demographer and Brookings Institution Fellow William Frey. He doesn't get into the intersection of race and gender, but I did find the article to be informative. One thing that totally surprised me was that 75% of the marriages involving Native Americans (including Eskimos and Aleuts) are interracial.
Does this still count as a post about Mexico? My mom (who we put on the plane home yesterday) was very curious about what is "Spanish" and what is "indigenous" in this country. It's impossible to separate everything that way, but her question did lead to some interesting conversations. I thought the guide at the anthropology museum, answered another visitor's question about race very well; she said that in recent years, Mexicans have become more comfortable with and even proud of the notion that everyone is mestizo, or mixed Spanish-Indian. There has been increasing interest and pride in pre-Hispanic cultures (especially Aztec society, which has its large exhibition hall at the center of the museum). But at the same time, you wouldn't ask someone if they were indio; it's borderline insulting. To be Indian here is still associated with being lower class--and most of the models and actors have light skin, often light hair, and European features.
We have more in common with Mexico than we realize. For another quick example: the last election here was very close, won by a margin of less than 200,000 votes. The conservative candidate won. The supporters of the liberal candidate continued for some time to contest the election results. Sound a little familiar? Some major differences: 1) Here, I don't think there were any problems with voters having access to polling places (remember the stories about long lines to vote in some areas of the US). 2) The non-partisan election commission certified the election as it stood. Imagine what you would think of this country if the election were decided by a state governed by the winning candidate's brother.
Here's a weird tidbit, which Patrick just got from our hostel guy. In Mexico, there's a stereotype about people who are lazy and always trying to cheat you: Cubans!
Time to go do more stuff!
Mexico #5
We took off for the weekend and went to Veracruz. Here's a simple map of Mexico, from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, to give you an idea of the geography. We are living in the capital (see the star) for most of the summer; Veracruz is a state and a city as well. We visited the city, on the Gulf Coast directly east of Mexico City.
It was almost miserable getting off the air-conditioned bus; while Mexico City has been in the 60s and 70s, the highs in Veracruz were in the 90s--and so humid! Getting to the beach was doubly relaxing and wonderful.
The mosquitoes got me. I don't think my paranoia about them made any difference. Swimming in the cool salt water of the Gulf was soothing, but the minutes out of the water have ranged from irritated to delirious. Patrick asked our hostel guy for advice and got a recommendation for this lotion which is, in short, a camphor-menthol marvel. I used it all over after I showered this morning, and it's basically very spreadable tiger balm. Wow, what a tingle. I'm sure the moisture makes a lasting difference, too. I am going to have to see if I can get some kind of shot to make me less allergic to mosquitoes.
So while we were on the coast, we had to eat seafood. We had some very nice white fish--and lots of fried plantains. So good! I don't know if you could prepare bananas quite the same way; Patrick claims that plantains have more starch. Anyway, I wanted to see what the other seafood was like, so I ordered some shrimp. I don't think of myself as too squeamish about food; after all, I'm used to seeing whole fish and chicken heads and all that on the table, and I've eaten sea cucumber and eel and corn fungus (I didn't like all of it, but that's not the point). But maybe being vegetarian, or the process of becoming vegetarian, has altered my thinking in ways I didn't realize. Eating those five shrimp was kind of difficult. I mean, I still enjoyed their flavor and texture and all; it wasn't that bad. And I know it wouldn't have been difficult at all if they hadn't been served whole; does that make me some kind of hypocrite? I mean, a shrimp is a shrimp, whether I have to cut the head off and shell it or someone else does. But all night, I kept thinking about the five animals I had just eaten. Does that mean I ate five livers? Do shrimp have livers? Hearts? Shrimp must have hearts, right? Did I eat them?
I've learned a lot of things by having a blog this summer. The writing process itself gets me to think a little more, and often, I do some research as I'm posting. So this time, I have learned about shrimp anatomy. Most of the shrimp's vital organs are located in its head (including the brain, bladder, stomach, and testis, according to this fun picture). Like the wimp that I am, I didn't eat the heads. So I guess I didn't eat all those organs--as if that's better in any substantive way. Yikes, just thinking about all this is freaking me out. Shrimp are so weird-looking. From an environmental standpoint, it's better to eat things that are lower on the food chain, so I guess it's better to eat shrimp than, say, tuna. Although I guess it depends a lot on where the animals are coming from and how they are caught. I've been trying to learn about the eco-friendliness of different kinds of seafood to plan our wedding menu; we want a vegetarian buffet with fish as the entree. (Hey now, "vegetarian" is not synonymous with "rabbit food." I promise, it will be delicious! I love to eat!) All the sources seem to agree that US-farmed seafood is better regulated and cleaner than seafood from other countries. But even some species farmed in the US should be avoided; farmed salmon, for example, is marked AVOID by the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch, while wild-caught Alaskan salmon is BEST, and wild-caught Pacific salmon is GOOD. You can look up a lot of seafood on the Seafood Watch Seafood Guide. Another website that has been useful for me is the Blue Ocean Institute's Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood.
This post has turned out to be less about Mexico than about seafood. Well, you can read more about what we did in Veracruz on Patrick's blog. He has some nice pictures up. He didn't really write about the beach; we left the city after a day and took a couple of buses to Chachalacas. It's frequented by Mexican tourists, and purely in terms of the quality of water and sand, it's not that nice compared to somewhere like Cancun. But it has a nice family atmosphere (whereas Cancun has a kind of Spring Break, Girls Gone Wild atmosphere), and it's not super crowded. Plus, as far as I'm concerned, any beach with water that you can swim in without worrying about getting sucked in by the undertow, dying of hypothermia, or contracting some kind of infection is pretty exciting. Chachalacas is also neat in that you can walk about 5km up the beach to some sand dunes. I'll have to get my pictures from Patrick's camera to post. ... and here's one now!
Most of the beach has little restaurants, hotels, etc. on relatively flat land, instead of the greenery you see on these dunes. And most of the dunes are sandy without all the vegetation. We saw the same beetle tracks that cover dunes everywhere, and snake tracks, too!
We took a taxi from Chachalacas to Cempoala, a religious site that was built by Totonacs, perhaps six or seven hundred years ago. (Pretty amazing to think about, especially in contrast to where they are today: see a picture of their flying performance for tourists that Patrick took outside the anthropology museum.) The Aztecs attempted to conquer them, but with only mild success; rebellion was frequent. Still, the structures and evidence of rituals at Cempoala show an Aztec influence. Anyway, when Cortes arrived on the Gulf Coast, the Totonacs made an alliance with the Spanish and were instrumental in fighting the Aztecs. Too bad so many of them died from disease epidemics. I wonder what their society would be like if more Totonacs were alive today. Maybe it wouldn't even exist as a recognizably separate entity? Or maybe it would be very similar to what it is now, a curiosity for tourists, just on a larger scale. My impression is that the indigenous communities in Mexico that have preserved traditional lifestyles are basically impoverished. I don't know that much about it.
The underemployment in this country was clearer than ever on this trip. In the City (people here call the capital Mexico), you see a lot of people selling food on the street and random stuff on the Metro (flashlights, CDs, gum, whatever). At the beach, there were also a lot of people selling clothes with "indigenous" designs (I don't know how much they've been altered toward tourist tastes) for super cheap, yet hardly anyone was buying. I wonder how much they have to sell in day to support themselves, and how much they actually sell. We took a taxi back to the beach from Cempoala, and as we got into conversation, the driver started telling us about his disillusionment with the Mexican government and economy. He has a BA in some kind of humanities field from the University of Veracruz, and he's working the only job available, driving a taxi. I guess it's not surprising, in this context, that more Mexicans don't bother going to college--and that there are fewer opportunities to do so than in the United States.
Also he loves basketball and Michael Jordan. But I don't think he's considering immigrating. I thought about asking him if he's thought much about moving in general, since he's living in a semi-rural area (the main crop is sugarcane), but I couldn't find the right way to phrase it.
More pictures to follow.
The mosquitoes got me. I don't think my paranoia about them made any difference. Swimming in the cool salt water of the Gulf was soothing, but the minutes out of the water have ranged from irritated to delirious. Patrick asked our hostel guy for advice and got a recommendation for this lotion which is, in short, a camphor-menthol marvel. I used it all over after I showered this morning, and it's basically very spreadable tiger balm. Wow, what a tingle. I'm sure the moisture makes a lasting difference, too. I am going to have to see if I can get some kind of shot to make me less allergic to mosquitoes.
So while we were on the coast, we had to eat seafood. We had some very nice white fish--and lots of fried plantains. So good! I don't know if you could prepare bananas quite the same way; Patrick claims that plantains have more starch. Anyway, I wanted to see what the other seafood was like, so I ordered some shrimp. I don't think of myself as too squeamish about food; after all, I'm used to seeing whole fish and chicken heads and all that on the table, and I've eaten sea cucumber and eel and corn fungus (I didn't like all of it, but that's not the point). But maybe being vegetarian, or the process of becoming vegetarian, has altered my thinking in ways I didn't realize. Eating those five shrimp was kind of difficult. I mean, I still enjoyed their flavor and texture and all; it wasn't that bad. And I know it wouldn't have been difficult at all if they hadn't been served whole; does that make me some kind of hypocrite? I mean, a shrimp is a shrimp, whether I have to cut the head off and shell it or someone else does. But all night, I kept thinking about the five animals I had just eaten. Does that mean I ate five livers? Do shrimp have livers? Hearts? Shrimp must have hearts, right? Did I eat them?
I've learned a lot of things by having a blog this summer. The writing process itself gets me to think a little more, and often, I do some research as I'm posting. So this time, I have learned about shrimp anatomy. Most of the shrimp's vital organs are located in its head (including the brain, bladder, stomach, and testis, according to this fun picture). Like the wimp that I am, I didn't eat the heads. So I guess I didn't eat all those organs--as if that's better in any substantive way. Yikes, just thinking about all this is freaking me out. Shrimp are so weird-looking. From an environmental standpoint, it's better to eat things that are lower on the food chain, so I guess it's better to eat shrimp than, say, tuna. Although I guess it depends a lot on where the animals are coming from and how they are caught. I've been trying to learn about the eco-friendliness of different kinds of seafood to plan our wedding menu; we want a vegetarian buffet with fish as the entree. (Hey now, "vegetarian" is not synonymous with "rabbit food." I promise, it will be delicious! I love to eat!) All the sources seem to agree that US-farmed seafood is better regulated and cleaner than seafood from other countries. But even some species farmed in the US should be avoided; farmed salmon, for example, is marked AVOID by the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch, while wild-caught Alaskan salmon is BEST, and wild-caught Pacific salmon is GOOD. You can look up a lot of seafood on the Seafood Watch Seafood Guide. Another website that has been useful for me is the Blue Ocean Institute's Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood.This post has turned out to be less about Mexico than about seafood. Well, you can read more about what we did in Veracruz on Patrick's blog. He has some nice pictures up. He didn't really write about the beach; we left the city after a day and took a couple of buses to Chachalacas. It's frequented by Mexican tourists, and purely in terms of the quality of water and sand, it's not that nice compared to somewhere like Cancun. But it has a nice family atmosphere (whereas Cancun has a kind of Spring Break, Girls Gone Wild atmosphere), and it's not super crowded. Plus, as far as I'm concerned, any beach with water that you can swim in without worrying about getting sucked in by the undertow, dying of hypothermia, or contracting some kind of infection is pretty exciting. Chachalacas is also neat in that you can walk about 5km up the beach to some sand dunes. I'll have to get my pictures from Patrick's camera to post. ... and here's one now!
Most of the beach has little restaurants, hotels, etc. on relatively flat land, instead of the greenery you see on these dunes. And most of the dunes are sandy without all the vegetation. We saw the same beetle tracks that cover dunes everywhere, and snake tracks, too!
We took a taxi from Chachalacas to Cempoala, a religious site that was built by Totonacs, perhaps six or seven hundred years ago. (Pretty amazing to think about, especially in contrast to where they are today: see a picture of their flying performance for tourists that Patrick took outside the anthropology museum.) The Aztecs attempted to conquer them, but with only mild success; rebellion was frequent. Still, the structures and evidence of rituals at Cempoala show an Aztec influence. Anyway, when Cortes arrived on the Gulf Coast, the Totonacs made an alliance with the Spanish and were instrumental in fighting the Aztecs. Too bad so many of them died from disease epidemics. I wonder what their society would be like if more Totonacs were alive today. Maybe it wouldn't even exist as a recognizably separate entity? Or maybe it would be very similar to what it is now, a curiosity for tourists, just on a larger scale. My impression is that the indigenous communities in Mexico that have preserved traditional lifestyles are basically impoverished. I don't know that much about it.
The underemployment in this country was clearer than ever on this trip. In the City (people here call the capital Mexico), you see a lot of people selling food on the street and random stuff on the Metro (flashlights, CDs, gum, whatever). At the beach, there were also a lot of people selling clothes with "indigenous" designs (I don't know how much they've been altered toward tourist tastes) for super cheap, yet hardly anyone was buying. I wonder how much they have to sell in day to support themselves, and how much they actually sell. We took a taxi back to the beach from Cempoala, and as we got into conversation, the driver started telling us about his disillusionment with the Mexican government and economy. He has a BA in some kind of humanities field from the University of Veracruz, and he's working the only job available, driving a taxi. I guess it's not surprising, in this context, that more Mexicans don't bother going to college--and that there are fewer opportunities to do so than in the United States.
Also he loves basketball and Michael Jordan. But I don't think he's considering immigrating. I thought about asking him if he's thought much about moving in general, since he's living in a semi-rural area (the main crop is sugarcane), but I couldn't find the right way to phrase it.
More pictures to follow.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Vamos a la Playa
We are going to the beach! Yay! For the weekend. I hope it's sunny.
In the meantime, keep yourself company with LOLcats--the cats that make you laugh out loud. They talk a silly pidgin language that used to bother me. Most of them are waaay cuter than the one below (but this one has a good caption!). We get our LOLcats at http://icanhascheezburger.com/.
In the meantime, keep yourself company with LOLcats--the cats that make you laugh out loud. They talk a silly pidgin language that used to bother me. Most of them are waaay cuter than the one below (but this one has a good caption!). We get our LOLcats at http://icanhascheezburger.com/.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The thing that's bad about having a blog
and too much time is that you start thinking you can just blog about anything, and someone will care.
Here are my recent revelations:
1) The Decembrists make depressing music that I no longer want to listen to. I don't really like the voice of their lead, AND I just discovered that what sounded like the most upbeat song on their recent album, The Crane Wife, is actually about a guy whose girlfriend gets shot dead by her brother, who was actually aiming for him. Well whatever, I didn't buy Patrick that CD. I still love Belle and Sebastian, though, so that's a plus.
2) It is very hard to choose a caterer online. On business days, I've been spending the morning at the archives with Patrick; I take pictures of documents he arbitrarily chooses. In the afternoons, I research and contact the caterers on the B Room's list. There's no shortage of people to go to these various caterers' tastings (and thank you to George, Maria, and my mom for helping us out with the first ones), but I don't know how we're going to compare different people's assessments of different caterers. We need a rubric. A system with international standard units of tastiness, which would be stored in some country like France, but not France because they already have the international prototypes of kilograms and amperes and things like that, besides which they probably couldn't be counted on to be neutral in the area of tastiness determination. They'd probably go around make everything too stinky, like Camembert.
3) The kilogram is actually a rare sort of unit, by Système Internationale standards. Most units have some objective[ly silly] way of being measured; a meter, for example, is "the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second." But a ki is simply "equal to the mass of the international prototype of the kilogram." Ha! I think Mr. Wildermuth told us in 10th grade that there's a cylinder locked up in a room somewhere (in France, I guess) that is an exact kilogram. It defines kilogram.
4) I have been watching a lot of bootlegged DVDs. The best part is the beginning, when they tell you that movie piracy is a serious crime. You want to tell them, Hey, this is a bootleg DVD! But you can't. Anyway I didn't buy any, we just watch the ones the hostel has. Also we watch a lot of internet tv (youtube.com). I can't get these Flight of the Conchords songs out of my head! They're self-described as "New Zealand's fourth most popular folk parody duo." Click on the PLAY button to hear/see a catchy song from their TV show.
This is totally legal--HBO wants me to put it on my blog, that's why they gave me the code! But the version on youtube is funnier.
Here are my recent revelations:
1) The Decembrists make depressing music that I no longer want to listen to. I don't really like the voice of their lead, AND I just discovered that what sounded like the most upbeat song on their recent album, The Crane Wife, is actually about a guy whose girlfriend gets shot dead by her brother, who was actually aiming for him. Well whatever, I didn't buy Patrick that CD. I still love Belle and Sebastian, though, so that's a plus.
2) It is very hard to choose a caterer online. On business days, I've been spending the morning at the archives with Patrick; I take pictures of documents he arbitrarily chooses. In the afternoons, I research and contact the caterers on the B Room's list. There's no shortage of people to go to these various caterers' tastings (and thank you to George, Maria, and my mom for helping us out with the first ones), but I don't know how we're going to compare different people's assessments of different caterers. We need a rubric. A system with international standard units of tastiness, which would be stored in some country like France, but not France because they already have the international prototypes of kilograms and amperes and things like that, besides which they probably couldn't be counted on to be neutral in the area of tastiness determination. They'd probably go around make everything too stinky, like Camembert.
3) The kilogram is actually a rare sort of unit, by Système Internationale standards. Most units have some objective[ly silly] way of being measured; a meter, for example, is "the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second." But a ki is simply "equal to the mass of the international prototype of the kilogram." Ha! I think Mr. Wildermuth told us in 10th grade that there's a cylinder locked up in a room somewhere (in France, I guess) that is an exact kilogram. It defines kilogram.
4) I have been watching a lot of bootlegged DVDs. The best part is the beginning, when they tell you that movie piracy is a serious crime. You want to tell them, Hey, this is a bootleg DVD! But you can't. Anyway I didn't buy any, we just watch the ones the hostel has. Also we watch a lot of internet tv (youtube.com). I can't get these Flight of the Conchords songs out of my head! They're self-described as "New Zealand's fourth most popular folk parody duo." Click on the PLAY button to hear/see a catchy song from their TV show.
This is totally legal--HBO wants me to put it on my blog, that's why they gave me the code! But the version on youtube is funnier.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Mexico #4
You might be thinking that it's time for me to get more creative with my titles here. Well, it's not happening. Maybe later. Not.
So the biggest thing to happen to me in the last few days has been: I got a cold. You might expect that being here in the "Third World" (not really), I would get some exotic disease. But no. A sore throat, runny nose, fever, hacking cough. Boo. You may be pleased to know, Dad, that I got myself some chicken noodle soup at the VIPs. It's a funny chain. Don't be fooled by the fact that it's called VIPs. It was pretty exciting to get to watch the first (or maybe second?) Harry Potter movie while we ate, though. I also learned, thanks to the lovely placemat, that VIPs is owned by Wal-Mart de Mexico, which has earned a good business award for the 7th consecutive year here. Based on their ethical standards, close ties to communities, good treatment of employees, and care for the environment. According to the placemat. ??
I stayed in bed all day on Thursday. I kept asking Patrick to get a thermometer--I had the fevered idea that if he could see how hot I was, he would have to get a doctor. We didn't have a thermometer, but he did go get me some medicine at the farmacia. Apparently, he also asked me several times if I wanted to see a doctor, and I told him no every time. By the way, I just heard on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! that a new study has shown that the couples with the happiest marriages are those in which the woman gets her way most often. Did you catch that one, honey?
Anyway, I'm totally done with the fever. I even spent all of Saturday out! We got together with three other people from the University of Chicago (I didn't realize it, but the department is very strong in Mexican history, so many of the students are either finishing their year abroad here or are visiting for summer research, as Patrick is). One of them is Mexican, and his mom lives in Mexico City, so he drove us all to Tlalpan. It seemed like another city, but it's actually just another neighborhood. Sadly, he made an illegal U-turn and got a ticket! Well actually, no one gets tickets here. You get pulled over (for legitimate reasons), the cop tells you the fine and says your car will have to be impounded for 24 hours. You say, "Oh, man, is there anything else I can do?" and then they give you the option of giving them some amount of cash less than the fine. Plus you avoid the impounding. So we paid about the equivalent of $45 to avoid all the trouble. Apparently it's a very uniform system; last time this happened to Carlos, he said the cop said almost exactly the same lines, word for word. At the end of the day, they go back to the station and their superiors require a certain fee from them, depending on how busy the intersection where they were stationed generally is. What a system.
So this is why we went to Tlalpan in the first place. It's a convent, designed by Luis Barragan. He's the most important Mexican architect in the Modernist style--sort of a Frank Lloyd Wright of Mexico, in terms of fame and influence. His buildings are minimalist, and it was interesting to see how this would work in a convent. I thought it was very effective, actually. His use of color (walls painted pink, orange, etc.) and light created some very soft spaces, while the spareness and lack of ornament in a relatively large space achieved basically the same effect as a Gothic cathedral; it makes the visitor feel quite small. Carlos observed that the architecture felt very controlling, very dominating to him. No room for your personal touches; everything exactly as the architect designed, right down to the kind of candle you burn. I don't know for a fact that Barragan was a controlling person, but it's not uncommon for famous architects to view their work as their art, not your living space. Anyway, we got a tour of the place from one of the nuns, but she kind of mumbled so I can't tell you too much about it. I didn't even take this picture (we weren't allowed to photograph the inside). I'm not sure who did, I just got it off the web. But the cross is painted the same color as the wall behind it. You only see it because of light and shadow. Isn't that neat?
Patrick has some more pictures of the convent, and more to say about Tlalpan, on his blog. His pictures are hot lately. Did you see the butterfly one? It's amazing!
Not much else to report. Went to the archives with Patrick, helped him take pictures of old newspaper articles, etc. Tried not to drip snot on them. Succeeded. Yes! Went to an outdoor market, bought mangoes, chiles, an onion. Cooked up some bean stew.
Now it is time to go to the bookstore. If I don't leave now, Patrick will go without me! And he was already so nice to come home with me this afternoon, when I was too tired to walk around the zocalo anymore. I'll have to post some pictures from the enormous cathedral there. Later.
So the biggest thing to happen to me in the last few days has been: I got a cold. You might expect that being here in the "Third World" (not really), I would get some exotic disease. But no. A sore throat, runny nose, fever, hacking cough. Boo. You may be pleased to know, Dad, that I got myself some chicken noodle soup at the VIPs. It's a funny chain. Don't be fooled by the fact that it's called VIPs. It was pretty exciting to get to watch the first (or maybe second?) Harry Potter movie while we ate, though. I also learned, thanks to the lovely placemat, that VIPs is owned by Wal-Mart de Mexico, which has earned a good business award for the 7th consecutive year here. Based on their ethical standards, close ties to communities, good treatment of employees, and care for the environment. According to the placemat. ??
I stayed in bed all day on Thursday. I kept asking Patrick to get a thermometer--I had the fevered idea that if he could see how hot I was, he would have to get a doctor. We didn't have a thermometer, but he did go get me some medicine at the farmacia. Apparently, he also asked me several times if I wanted to see a doctor, and I told him no every time. By the way, I just heard on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! that a new study has shown that the couples with the happiest marriages are those in which the woman gets her way most often. Did you catch that one, honey?
Anyway, I'm totally done with the fever. I even spent all of Saturday out! We got together with three other people from the University of Chicago (I didn't realize it, but the department is very strong in Mexican history, so many of the students are either finishing their year abroad here or are visiting for summer research, as Patrick is). One of them is Mexican, and his mom lives in Mexico City, so he drove us all to Tlalpan. It seemed like another city, but it's actually just another neighborhood. Sadly, he made an illegal U-turn and got a ticket! Well actually, no one gets tickets here. You get pulled over (for legitimate reasons), the cop tells you the fine and says your car will have to be impounded for 24 hours. You say, "Oh, man, is there anything else I can do?" and then they give you the option of giving them some amount of cash less than the fine. Plus you avoid the impounding. So we paid about the equivalent of $45 to avoid all the trouble. Apparently it's a very uniform system; last time this happened to Carlos, he said the cop said almost exactly the same lines, word for word. At the end of the day, they go back to the station and their superiors require a certain fee from them, depending on how busy the intersection where they were stationed generally is. What a system.
So this is why we went to Tlalpan in the first place. It's a convent, designed by Luis Barragan. He's the most important Mexican architect in the Modernist style--sort of a Frank Lloyd Wright of Mexico, in terms of fame and influence. His buildings are minimalist, and it was interesting to see how this would work in a convent. I thought it was very effective, actually. His use of color (walls painted pink, orange, etc.) and light created some very soft spaces, while the spareness and lack of ornament in a relatively large space achieved basically the same effect as a Gothic cathedral; it makes the visitor feel quite small. Carlos observed that the architecture felt very controlling, very dominating to him. No room for your personal touches; everything exactly as the architect designed, right down to the kind of candle you burn. I don't know for a fact that Barragan was a controlling person, but it's not uncommon for famous architects to view their work as their art, not your living space. Anyway, we got a tour of the place from one of the nuns, but she kind of mumbled so I can't tell you too much about it. I didn't even take this picture (we weren't allowed to photograph the inside). I'm not sure who did, I just got it off the web. But the cross is painted the same color as the wall behind it. You only see it because of light and shadow. Isn't that neat?Patrick has some more pictures of the convent, and more to say about Tlalpan, on his blog. His pictures are hot lately. Did you see the butterfly one? It's amazing!
Not much else to report. Went to the archives with Patrick, helped him take pictures of old newspaper articles, etc. Tried not to drip snot on them. Succeeded. Yes! Went to an outdoor market, bought mangoes, chiles, an onion. Cooked up some bean stew.
Now it is time to go to the bookstore. If I don't leave now, Patrick will go without me! And he was already so nice to come home with me this afternoon, when I was too tired to walk around the zocalo anymore. I'll have to post some pictures from the enormous cathedral there. Later.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Mexico #3
I am losing track of the days. I thought today was going to be Saturday; it turned out to be Monday. Fortunately, it doesn't matter much!
I am facing some confusion with this blog. I didn't start it to be a journal for an audience of one (me), but I feel like that's what it's becoming with this trip. Anyway, I hope you all find more interest in it than not. And by the way, if you're reading, hello, Uncle John.
Yesterday was Saturday. We went to Lucha Libre with Sara, who is a year ahead of Patrick at the U of C; Rebecca, a friend of Sara's from the US who is studying anthropology on the Mexico-Guatemala border; and Dan, who is Rebecca's husband. It's nice to have friends here.
So what is Lucha Libre. It is the Mexican version of WWF. I don't ever watch WWF, though, so it's hard for me to compare. These are things you need to know about it:
It's also full of drama. Some of the wrestlers are incredible hams. One curious example: Marco Corleone, whose picture is here. His real name is Mark Jindrak, and he is from the US. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro did a piece for NPR about foreigners in Lucha Libre, with a bit of an interview with him. He was in the 3-on-3 fight, just before the headliner, and so funny to watch. First of all, he's probably a foot taller than anyone else on stage--I mean, in the ring. Second, the ladies love him, and he has a habit of putting his hands behind his head and grinding his hips to their adoring screams. The best part was when his opponent, Sangre Azteca, did it to make fun of him. Ah, good times.
Dos Caras Jr. almost lost the title fight to Ultimo 2000 (who for some reason, had a horseshoe/cowboy theme?). Ultimo had a mean growl, which he kept flashing at the crowd as they cheered on Dos Caras (the good guy in the fight). I have no idea how he became so popular, but the entire stadium (which was, admittedly, small) was for this guy. There was a woman in front of us, there with her husband and kids, who just went crazy for him. The crowd started chanting, "Si se puede," which was a little weird for me; I learned this phrase at rallies, and in the US, it dates to Cesar Chavez and the UFW. I don't know what its connotations are in Mexico. It translates literally as, "Yes, it can be done!" I guess the spirit of it would be something like, "You can do it" or "Yes, we can."
We finally went to the grocery store. No peanut butter, but they do have Nutella. Nothing too remarkable about it. We'll have to go to a real market, probably, to get good produce. We're just starting to cook here at the hostel. It's a challenge. I miss having a kitchen--my own, clean, orderly kitchen--as much as anything else. I have been pretty impressed with the cleanliness of the city, though. Public transportation is not only cleaner but also far more convenient than in Chicago. Buses come every five minutes, it seems, and trains come more often than that. And they're still crowded. Interestingly enough, they reserve cars on the Metro just for women during rush hour. I guess because they get so packed.
We got some work done today, with Patrick's first visit to some archives. The people were very friendly and helpful. We also went to the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, the Plaza of Three Cultures. There are Aztec ruins right next to a colonial-era church, across from the modern Institute for Foreign Relations. I can't get over how the Aztecs built their temples, in layers and layers; there's no interior space, because they'd leave the old structure intact and build solid new walls over it, to make it bigger. So different from how I think of buildings. Anyway, part of why they're ruins is that some of their stones were taken to build the church, which also explains why the church and the ruins look eerily similar.
Our last big event of the day was the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Oh and how can I forget, a great lunch of street gorditas. I wouldn't buy a drink from one of those carts, but for less than 80 cents a person, you can eat pretty well. So, Bellas Artes is having a big celebration of Frida Kahlo, on the 100th anniversary of her birth. The place was PACKED. I couldn't believe it could be so full, on a Monday afternoon in the middle of the exhibition's run. The cult of Frida really started to get to me. She was a good painter, fine technically and very creative, very expressive, but her painting was so self-absorbed. But people need their idols, even if they have to invent them ... did I ever post my Photoshopped Kerry as Che? I'll have to look for that; I guess it was on my old computer.
Anyway, Bellas Artes is a pretty impressive place, and I decided it was absurd to say that Siquieros is so much better than Rivera. But Rivera's mural in the Bellas Artes, the one that he originally painted for Rockefeller but which was destroyed due as Communist propaganda, freaks me out. He was so wrong about the Soviet Union, the future of human society. I guess they all were.
I've given up on finding yarn here. Remind me to pack a whole lot when we're here for that year.
I am facing some confusion with this blog. I didn't start it to be a journal for an audience of one (me), but I feel like that's what it's becoming with this trip. Anyway, I hope you all find more interest in it than not. And by the way, if you're reading, hello, Uncle John.
Yesterday was Saturday. We went to Lucha Libre with Sara, who is a year ahead of Patrick at the U of C; Rebecca, a friend of Sara's from the US who is studying anthropology on the Mexico-Guatemala border; and Dan, who is Rebecca's husband. It's nice to have friends here.
So what is Lucha Libre. It is the Mexican version of WWF. I don't ever watch WWF, though, so it's hard for me to compare. These are things you need to know about it:- There are good guys (tecnicos) and bad guys (rudos). Sometimes fighters can switch sides.
- Many luchadores wear masks, especially the tecnicos.
- Everyone goes to Lucha Libre. Mexicans go with their families, like Americans go to a ball game. People make signs to cheer on their favorite wrestlers.
- The rules are confusing and clearly stretched to favor the good guys. (I have never heard anyone almost count to three as slowly as the ref when Dos Caras Jr. was down)
- According to Sara: 1) Many luchadores get into it through family. Dos Caras Jr., for example, is probably the real-life son of the original Dos Caras. 2) Few luchadores make enough money to support themselves solely by wrestling, though there are stars who manage to do it.
It's also full of drama. Some of the wrestlers are incredible hams. One curious example: Marco Corleone, whose picture is here. His real name is Mark Jindrak, and he is from the US. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro did a piece for NPR about foreigners in Lucha Libre, with a bit of an interview with him. He was in the 3-on-3 fight, just before the headliner, and so funny to watch. First of all, he's probably a foot taller than anyone else on stage--I mean, in the ring. Second, the ladies love him, and he has a habit of putting his hands behind his head and grinding his hips to their adoring screams. The best part was when his opponent, Sangre Azteca, did it to make fun of him. Ah, good times.Dos Caras Jr. almost lost the title fight to Ultimo 2000 (who for some reason, had a horseshoe/cowboy theme?). Ultimo had a mean growl, which he kept flashing at the crowd as they cheered on Dos Caras (the good guy in the fight). I have no idea how he became so popular, but the entire stadium (which was, admittedly, small) was for this guy. There was a woman in front of us, there with her husband and kids, who just went crazy for him. The crowd started chanting, "Si se puede," which was a little weird for me; I learned this phrase at rallies, and in the US, it dates to Cesar Chavez and the UFW. I don't know what its connotations are in Mexico. It translates literally as, "Yes, it can be done!" I guess the spirit of it would be something like, "You can do it" or "Yes, we can."
We finally went to the grocery store. No peanut butter, but they do have Nutella. Nothing too remarkable about it. We'll have to go to a real market, probably, to get good produce. We're just starting to cook here at the hostel. It's a challenge. I miss having a kitchen--my own, clean, orderly kitchen--as much as anything else. I have been pretty impressed with the cleanliness of the city, though. Public transportation is not only cleaner but also far more convenient than in Chicago. Buses come every five minutes, it seems, and trains come more often than that. And they're still crowded. Interestingly enough, they reserve cars on the Metro just for women during rush hour. I guess because they get so packed.
We got some work done today, with Patrick's first visit to some archives. The people were very friendly and helpful. We also went to the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, the Plaza of Three Cultures. There are Aztec ruins right next to a colonial-era church, across from the modern Institute for Foreign Relations. I can't get over how the Aztecs built their temples, in layers and layers; there's no interior space, because they'd leave the old structure intact and build solid new walls over it, to make it bigger. So different from how I think of buildings. Anyway, part of why they're ruins is that some of their stones were taken to build the church, which also explains why the church and the ruins look eerily similar.
Our last big event of the day was the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Oh and how can I forget, a great lunch of street gorditas. I wouldn't buy a drink from one of those carts, but for less than 80 cents a person, you can eat pretty well. So, Bellas Artes is having a big celebration of Frida Kahlo, on the 100th anniversary of her birth. The place was PACKED. I couldn't believe it could be so full, on a Monday afternoon in the middle of the exhibition's run. The cult of Frida really started to get to me. She was a good painter, fine technically and very creative, very expressive, but her painting was so self-absorbed. But people need their idols, even if they have to invent them ... did I ever post my Photoshopped Kerry as Che? I'll have to look for that; I guess it was on my old computer.
Anyway, Bellas Artes is a pretty impressive place, and I decided it was absurd to say that Siquieros is so much better than Rivera. But Rivera's mural in the Bellas Artes, the one that he originally painted for Rockefeller but which was destroyed due as Communist propaganda, freaks me out. He was so wrong about the Soviet Union, the future of human society. I guess they all were.
I've given up on finding yarn here. Remind me to pack a whole lot when we're here for that year.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Mexico #2
You might say my entry titles are lazy. Well, you'd be right.
We spent all day yesterday in el Bosque de Chapultepec (the park with the castle from the day before in it), this time at the national anthropology museum: el Museo Nacional de Antropologia. (Spanish is pretty hard to understand, huh) The museum is gigantic. They cover a handful of pre-Columbian cultures, which I haven't learned to keep straight. I thought the Mexica (Aztec) pottery I was looking at was the best, but then I discovered that I was actually in the Oaxaca section of the museum. Whatever that means. Anyway, there were also monumental Mayan and Aztec sculptures that I had my fill of last time I was here. The top floor was dedicated to modern indigenous people. It provided some contrast to the Museum of the American Indian, which we saw in DC and did a much better job of avoiding the easy trap of portraying Indians as people of the past who had exotic customs but are no longer around (since they were the victims of our nation's history). The DC museum gave the exhibit's subjects (American Indians, in case you forgot) significant space to represent themselves, and had a great exhibit that connected traditions, politics and history to the present. The DF museum (de antropologia) had some mannequins wearing weird clothes, and also a video that I sort of slept through. But that was my fault. Anyway, what you really want to see are my pictures.
[Pictures will be inserted here once I get back to Chicago. Keep checking!]
We had a great evening with a dozen friends from the University of Chicago. Julia and her husband, Spiro, hosted a delicious dinner, and I'm always so impressed by how interesting and friendly that group of academics is.
Today, we went to Leon Trotsky's house in Coyoacan (a neighborhood, or colonia, of Mexico City). What a life. I'm so glad no one I know is an enemy of Stalin's. Trotsky's history in Mexico is also a striking reminder of how small the circle was; there was a lot of overlap amongst groups that now seem distinct. The same people were famous artists, intellectuals, and political figures. The muralist Siquieros led the first Mexican attempt on Trotsky's life. Before that, Trotsky was living with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
After la Casa de Trotsky, we went to a strange Museum of Intervention. It is housed by a building that used to serve as a Franciscan monastery. Some of the exhibits show what monastic life there was like, but the main rooms basically deride Spain, France, and the US for "interventions" in Mexico (mostly invasions) in the last two centuries. It was kinda boring. Plus I was really hungry.
It's Tequila Night at the hostel. Not sure if we'll attend; I'm enjoying all the social activity, but we've had two late nights in a row already. And really, is the prospect of lots of drunk American college-age tourists (and a Czech guy who we met at breakfast who loves the Second Amendment, y un mexicano con su novia espanola) appealing at all?
Nap time. It's raining, hard.
We spent all day yesterday in el Bosque de Chapultepec (the park with the castle from the day before in it), this time at the national anthropology museum: el Museo Nacional de Antropologia. (Spanish is pretty hard to understand, huh) The museum is gigantic. They cover a handful of pre-Columbian cultures, which I haven't learned to keep straight. I thought the Mexica (Aztec) pottery I was looking at was the best, but then I discovered that I was actually in the Oaxaca section of the museum. Whatever that means. Anyway, there were also monumental Mayan and Aztec sculptures that I had my fill of last time I was here. The top floor was dedicated to modern indigenous people. It provided some contrast to the Museum of the American Indian, which we saw in DC and did a much better job of avoiding the easy trap of portraying Indians as people of the past who had exotic customs but are no longer around (since they were the victims of our nation's history). The DC museum gave the exhibit's subjects (American Indians, in case you forgot) significant space to represent themselves, and had a great exhibit that connected traditions, politics and history to the present. The DF museum (de antropologia) had some mannequins wearing weird clothes, and also a video that I sort of slept through. But that was my fault. Anyway, what you really want to see are my pictures.
[Pictures will be inserted here once I get back to Chicago. Keep checking!]
We had a great evening with a dozen friends from the University of Chicago. Julia and her husband, Spiro, hosted a delicious dinner, and I'm always so impressed by how interesting and friendly that group of academics is.
Today, we went to Leon Trotsky's house in Coyoacan (a neighborhood, or colonia, of Mexico City). What a life. I'm so glad no one I know is an enemy of Stalin's. Trotsky's history in Mexico is also a striking reminder of how small the circle was; there was a lot of overlap amongst groups that now seem distinct. The same people were famous artists, intellectuals, and political figures. The muralist Siquieros led the first Mexican attempt on Trotsky's life. Before that, Trotsky was living with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
After la Casa de Trotsky, we went to a strange Museum of Intervention. It is housed by a building that used to serve as a Franciscan monastery. Some of the exhibits show what monastic life there was like, but the main rooms basically deride Spain, France, and the US for "interventions" in Mexico (mostly invasions) in the last two centuries. It was kinda boring. Plus I was really hungry.
It's Tequila Night at the hostel. Not sure if we'll attend; I'm enjoying all the social activity, but we've had two late nights in a row already. And really, is the prospect of lots of drunk American college-age tourists (and a Czech guy who we met at breakfast who loves the Second Amendment, y un mexicano con su novia espanola) appealing at all?
Nap time. It's raining, hard.
Friday, July 06, 2007
July 6, 2008
Save the date! We're tying the knot!
This page should answer most of your questions. If it doesn't, please comment and I will respond--or you can just call my mom. :)
MENU
passed hors d'oeuvres
ACCOMMODATIONS
For our guests from out of town, we will be reserving blocks of rooms in Bay Area hotels. More information will be coming soon!
GIFTS
As you may know, we will be leaving the country in late summer/early fall to conduct ten months or so of research abroad. (Well, Patrick will be conducting research. Nicole will be doing whatever she can in French and Spanish.)
With this in mind, we humbly submit these gift suggestions:
This page should answer most of your questions. If it doesn't, please comment and I will respond--or you can just call my mom. :)
MENU
passed hors d'oeuvres
- New Potatoes with Monterey Jack and Cilantro
- Tomato, Basil and Kalamata Olive Crostini
- Polenta Hearts with Sundried Tomato, Artichoke and Garlic
- Watermelon Gazpacho Shooters
- Glazed Figs with Marscapone and Toasted Walnuts
- Baby Greens with Sun-Dried Bing Cherries, Toasted Almonds, Gorgonzola and Champagne Vinaigrette
- Basa* in Caramelized Pineapple Glaze and Panko Crust
- Three-Mushroom Gemelli Pasta with Shiitake, Crimini and Portabello Mushrooms
- Grilled Baby Carrots and Asparagus in an Orange-Scented Balsamic Reduction
- Garlic Roman Foccacia and Ciabatta with Butter
ACCOMMODATIONS
For our guests from out of town, we will be reserving blocks of rooms in Bay Area hotels. More information will be coming soon!
GIFTS
As you may know, we will be leaving the country in late summer/early fall to conduct ten months or so of research abroad. (Well, Patrick will be conducting research. Nicole will be doing whatever she can in French and Spanish.)
With this in mind, we humbly submit these gift suggestions:
- Carbon offsets.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Mexico #1
Hello from DF, Mexico's Federal District and the equivalent of DC in the United States. Patrick and I have arrived without any real incidents--though it was pretty hard to sleep last night, what with the handful of mosquitoes buzzing around (I hope we can buy a net today) and all the noisy neighbors in the hostel. The owners of the hostel are really nice, though, and they moved us. Most of the beds in the hostel are sort of dorm-style, where you share a room with random other travelers (can be a fun social experience). We had a private room last night, but the walls are paper-thin. Knowing that we are going to be here for a while, and that it is a work trip for Patrick versus a pure vacation, they offered us a private "room" downstairs. It turns out that we will have the whole floor to ourselves; it used to be a cafe, but there wasn't enough foot traffic to support it. We'll still have to go upstairs to shower, but look how many couches we have!
Today's highlight was our walk to Chapultepec Park. We were going to go the Museo Rufino Tamayo (contemporary art), but the way was blocked by a parade of PRDistas, the party of Lopez Obrador, who lost the Mexican presidential election by a very small and contested margin. It was hard to tell whether they're still protesting the election, just having a parade, or what. There were lots of flags. Anyway, we changed our plans and headed to the national history museum at el Castillo de Chapultepec (castle). "Chapultepec" means Hill of Grasshoppers in Nahuatl (an indigenous Mexican language).
The castle grounds were absolutely beautiful. We envisioned a lovely wedding there, but they probably don't rent it out since it is part of "our shared Mexican patrimony," or something like that. There are so many wonderful spaces, though; marbled patios, sculpted courtyard gardens, tiered staircases ...
It's easy to see how in a world like this, Alice could have dreamt up Wonderland. Apart from the grounds, there were several rooms preserved from the past; the castle was a residence for Maximilian and Carlota (Hapsburgs called on by the French to rule Mexico in 1864) and later, Porfirio Diaz. My favorite parts were the elevator (wow! who knew they had those back then) and the bathroom, with beautiful tiles that showed a strong Chinese influence (chrysanthemums, etc.).
Besides the glitzy look-at-the-castle bits, the museum also had several exhibits reviewing key moments in Mexican history, from pre-Colombian times to the Porfiriato, the dictatorship that resulted in Mexican modernization. I learned some things from the displays, but as usual, I loved the art most of all.
There was a heart-stopping mural by Siquieros, which wrapped around walls arranged in a trapezoid to almost completely surround you. I can't wait to go the Palacio de Bellas Artes again, where there are more of his murals. His painting is, for me, infinitely more powerful than Diego Rivera's, especially if you compare their most overtly political works. There was also a surprise jewel, by a painter I'd never heard of. I haven't quite figured out how to read Llegada de los generales Zapata y Villa a Palacio Nacional, by Canadian Arnold Belkin. But I love his way of painting time into this basically two-dimensional medium. This image isn't very good (one problem is that it's been flipped horizontally), but it's the best I could get.I am now completely exhausted and hoping for a nap before we go party tonight. Oh, and I haven't even gotten to write about the squirrels. Next time.
Hasta luego.
Vancouver
We had a very nice trip to Vancouver with my parents. My mom's family had their first ever official reunion; I met lots of cousins who I'd never met, and got a chance to talk with people who I've always known but never very closely. The event organizers tried to seat us by generation, splitting up families to get us to mingle. I think it worked pretty well. There was also a fantastic DVD put together by my cousin Graeme, with some of the only pictures I've ever seen of my mom's parents. I loved seeing how my grandparents' generation looked when they were young; a lot of family resemblances that I'd never noticed suddenly started popping out.
I don't really have pictures of all the people. Somebody needs to send me some.
We drove, so in addition to all the extended family, Patrick (who was a very good sport as he was plunged into the Wong family for the first time, 76 at once) and I spent a lot of time with my parents. The redwoods were amazing, so ancient and awesome but also creating shady, almost intimate spaces. Seattle was a lot of fun, too. We went to the Pike Place Market and had delicious fresh cherries, and at a leftie bookstore, I found a good breakfast recipe. I'll have to share that some other time. We also visited the University of Washington. It was pretty. I would be pretty satisfied if Patrick got a job there.
Most of my pictures are on my camera, and I neglected to bring the cord to transfer them to my computer. But here's one that I took on Patrick's camera. Plants are pretty amazing. How do they survive this kind of drastic manipulation? This image is the best thing I've got on America's Best Value Inn in Eugene, OR. I guess the value was pretty good, too, if you don't mind having a bed that spills into the bathroom and peanuts on the floor. Okay, so it was only one peanut. It was still pretty discount.
Now we are in Mexico. My next post will be about that.
I don't really have pictures of all the people. Somebody needs to send me some.
We drove, so in addition to all the extended family, Patrick (who was a very good sport as he was plunged into the Wong family for the first time, 76 at once) and I spent a lot of time with my parents. The redwoods were amazing, so ancient and awesome but also creating shady, almost intimate spaces. Seattle was a lot of fun, too. We went to the Pike Place Market and had delicious fresh cherries, and at a leftie bookstore, I found a good breakfast recipe. I'll have to share that some other time. We also visited the University of Washington. It was pretty. I would be pretty satisfied if Patrick got a job there.
Most of my pictures are on my camera, and I neglected to bring the cord to transfer them to my computer. But here's one that I took on Patrick's camera. Plants are pretty amazing. How do they survive this kind of drastic manipulation? This image is the best thing I've got on America's Best Value Inn in Eugene, OR. I guess the value was pretty good, too, if you don't mind having a bed that spills into the bathroom and peanuts on the floor. Okay, so it was only one peanut. It was still pretty discount.Now we are in Mexico. My next post will be about that.
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