Mexico City (CDMX)

Anthea | May 11, 2023, 3:11 a.m. | Mexico

Writing about Mexico City is an overwhelming task for me, in part because I don't know that I've ever been anywhere that I loved so much. It was an incredible city, and I remember on multiple occasions looking over at Jordi and saying "What if I'm never happier anywhere else, what if this is the best and most beautiful place I ever go and now the rest of my life will be a vast disappointment". There was some comedic hyperbole in these exchanges, but honestly, a tiny bit of truth as well. It truly is one of the most incredible places I've been, and despite it being a terribly stressful time for me academically (I began my first semester of grad school here and was entirely convinced I would fail out the whole first semester, drained, exhausted, dead-eyed through much of that time, a little like a hopeless zombie some days) I still would have moments walking around where I would just feel incredible incredibly happy and just filled with how magical things were.  For this reason (and because it was SO MUCH) I am afraid to try to summarize all the things I loved, because I won't do it justice. I've already forgotten things, I'll leave things out, ect, but I'm just going to info dump in a list-like fashion to try to capture as much as I can think of before too much fades with time. I've also written this post two other times and then lost the drafts so that doesn't help.

-The Reforma and Cyclovia, which closed on Sundays for biking (cyclovia), music set up playing anything from the white stripes to mexican style music, or public zoomba classes with crowds of enthusiastic people. Also where you'd get parades, for example the Alibrije and day of the dead parade would funnel through down from the Zocalo. It had enormous markets set up along it, or simply giant plant and flower markets that would come through and get set up with shelter so when it rained you could still wander through. Near a movie theater Jordi and I went to once. You could also keeping walking down it to reach the Chapultepec park.

-Chapultepec park itself was this enormous green space, people casually sitting and having picnics, Oakland A's clubs gathering in their team jerseys to hang out and celebrate a sports team from our most recent residence, Oakland. There was a big lake and square with people often stopped to see political speakers or more likely one of the clowns that many in mexico (and ecuador) love in a way that feels very strange coming from a background with IT in the U.S. but is very fun just the same. Very nice little coffee shop on one side that is a bit bougie but was fun to sit in, built around a big tree. Got a big book with pictures of the park before leaving the city.

-Zocalo -- big square with lights up for various celebrations in these ornate net images that shine onto the square at night, the big day of the dead installations with enormous dressed catrinas, and ofrendas from different municipalities/states as well as ones for things like luchadores.  There were large festivals with food held there as well, including one with the dance of the jaguar (forget the exact name) and of course tons of different food. Even with nothing going on, it was a beautiful enormous space with people selling food, or dancing traditional dances, or just hanging out. Common to see these funny big blow-up pencil things that kids would run around and shoot everywhere, also the site of a very interesting socialist protest tent area just outside, never got the full understanding but lots of communism-type symbols. Also during weeks leading up to day of the dead there was this car that drove around with a singer out front and then would play recordings of old ghost stories while a woman walked behind and handed out certain plants to onlookers.

-Art park -- this is what we called the park just down the road from us. Every sunday they had markets to the side and the whole park filled with artists either working on their paintings or selling works, or selling supplies. It was incredibly beautiful and fun to be near a community of artists that always were there. During the week they also commonly had tent-type markets that would set up and cover enormous swaths of area filled with amazing food and anything you could think to buy. I had possibly my favorite gorditas ever there with jacqui, mark, and jordi one day, and many times went to sit and read and have a baked good from the bakery down the road at night. It was also a skate park and a dog park, and across from a larger square with this great feminist graffiti. The park itself had some very fun madona/dorothy type wheat paste art that I'm pretty sure was queer in nature but couldn't quite define -- but loved it. https://goo.gl/maps/xfkdJrauvkJcPEe97

-Alibrijes (I may never love anything as much, I just love them. The little wooden ones, the paintings, the giant ones, LOVE)

-The use of public spaces (so much and varied and unpoliced)

-Punk market (great woodblock prints and stickers and wild stuff, local musicians playing, etc, some sort of local infighting happening possibly, also really incredible feminist/political stickers/art right outside on the sidewalk)

-Museum of popular art (the skeletons and clay creations and alibrijes and just ... the most amazing museum possibly ever) 

-Anthropology museum (amazing, home to one of my favorite objects despite being far from the most visually striking, but basically a statue with a plaque describing "auto-sacrifice" where priests would pierce themselves to bleed continually so the gods would constantly be getting a constant drip of blood sacrifice, real baller move there) 

-Frida's house and rivera murals both in the small museum near alameda (feature catrina) and in the National Palace although some also was in bellas artes.

-Catrinas -- the concept and how it changed over time and became this great equalizer in death of the high society folks or the homeless man, very appealing and just aesthetically very fun to see everywhere, really loved the associated art

-Alameda Park -- this is possibly one of my most favorite things/memories. To encapsulate is difficult, but basically just a big square/public park near zocalo and larger parts of the city, so across the street often musicians performing, or dance off circles with hip hop or punk or rock music playing, but the park itself had food stalls and a nearby tent market where you could stop and sit at one of the tables and get street food. One of my favorite nights in memory we walked through and stopped at a family run little place for gorditas or something, and then wandered from a number of full chess board tables with old/young folks playing some very serious games at like 9 pm RIGHT next to the loudest crowd of (salsa?) dancers going off and drinking, young folks skate boarding, little old couples meeting up next to fountains with small speakers to dance together, families and couples clearly there to make out, just about everything all happening at once. 

-Bakeries -- nothing more need be said. big fan. 

"I just really love bread and I don't think you understand how much" - Jordi, early days CDMX.

This one was very fancy and we'd go to it for special trips even though it was a little more expensive than the one right next to us, and all of them were pretty cheap really.   https://goo.gl/maps/wpoHvu7eWFeV9YTn7

-Bugs -- there were a lot of insects that I was very excited to try after listening to this thing a few years ago about insects and how commonly eaten they are other places and debatably a good environmental choice for protein, and just that contrast in culture where so many would find them gross and how we kind of define what is "good" to eat in such strange cultural/racist/classist ways. I just hadn't thought about it too much before that and I think it's very cool, and also for me I still get that "this is so strange and new to eat" thrill which is kind of fun. Anyhow, we tried escamole, which is a delicacy and had at a pretty fancy place for Jordi's birthday (ant eggs) that they collect off of plants and serve sort of like escargot. We also tried scorpion, which frankly was a big chewy for me, and chapulines are incredibly common so we had quite a few of those (also what Chapultepec is named for and grasshoppers seen all over the signage). There were also these little grubs that were mostly texture, ants that tasted like very good cheese, big fan, and these tiny cray fish type things that were a bit fishy for me. Oh, and a caterpillar I guess, based on this picture.

-Markets -- so many, so good. Food, art, clothes, peppers, tlayudas, spell related items, indigenous arts, handicrafts, animal markets (kinda depressing tbh) with all sorts of animals, entire eating sections with the most incredible food. Loved the markets, the ones in the buildings split into parts with virgin mary statues and murals at the entries, the tent ones along streets, the giant never ending tarps going for blocks with poles to poke up the water pools during the rain, so many of them. One of my favorite things.  

-Mariachi square -- where I was introduced to Juan Gabriel <3 <3 <3 They were doing an ode to him near one of his statues covered in flowers in a nearby street to the square, including a special thank you to the restaurant they'd camped outside that was letting all these singers hook an extension cord through the front to power their speaker and microphone. The most incredible performance and like everyone from children to old old people knew the words and were swooning and crying for these 60-year-old singers (including me). Incredible. 

sample ->(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga5Bo4YdgH4)

Also RE: Juan Gabriel: "In response, Gabriel stated, “All art is feminine […] look, if you're handsome and young and beautiful, well, people are always going to say that you're gay.” When Del Rincón finally questioned Gabriel about his sexuality, the singer gave this answer: “They say that what you can see, you don't ask, son.”

https://www.vibe.com/features/viva/juan-gabriel-mexico-queer-icon-gay-sexuality-449217/

Also my favorite hot sauce for elotes with cheese was here. Very hot homemade and they'd warn you every time and then I'd sit there and be basically high with how painful it was. 

-Luchador Show -- I've realized I'm a big fan of certain types of wrestling shows recently after going to another hood slam in Oakland, and luchador shows are everything I love about hood slam and more. We went to an incredible one in Oaxaca and the one in CDMX was also incredible. The costumes and the storylines and the crowd chanting and excitement and fake indignance on the part of the wrestlers... just amazing drama. 10/10

-Food -- we had so much great food I don't know if I can come up with a list of it all honestly, my memory will fail me.  

-La llarona in xochimilco 

Bellas Artes -- the wild folk ballet with indigenous dances, dueling guitars, lassos, and just an incredible amount of talent. Also just a really lovely building to walk by all the time on the way to the zocalo or coming out of alameda park, and had a spectacular surrealist art installation with one of my favorite surrealist painters Remedios Varo (see examples below):

-Independence square -- we went here late at night sometimes to get elotes or tamales. There was a very cool rap group that would do battles at the foot, but also dance groups and kids running around throwing these glowing bouncy balls. Also where football games were displayed on a giant screen (possibly the first time I've been actually excited and invested in a game, how much people care really makes you care sometimes).

-Teotihuacan

-Basilica de gaudalupe

-Our favorite abandoned house filled with cats

-Our favorite giant theater

-Making chillis on a string with corn for our christmas tree

Random Memories:

-I remember one lunchtime, I'd sat through hours of SIM lecture (Simulation, mostly a bunch of math I still don't understand about pseudo-random number generators, a bunch of statistics and calc equations, and the occasional much easier lecture on Arena and simulation in that particular software) and Jordi suggested we walked down the street and get some huitlacoche quesadillas for lunch, and despite feeling entirely overwhelmed and like I'd signed up to be executed, it was still a very out of body type experience where you can't believe where you are and how incredibly lucky you are kind of thing.

- There was one night that Jacqui and I were out walking late and this man started shouting, an old old man with his groceries and there was another man clearly trying to mug him and tugging his bags out of his arms, and we weren't immediately sure what to do (from a position of privilege I'd rather pay to replace someone's groceries than get my ass kicked to be completely honest) but then a huge group of teenagers came RUNNING full tilt down the street, and a woman and man from across the street who had been going into a fancy restaurant then started walking over, and some guy with a tire iron (though it was a little unclear what he was doing tbh) so we also turned around and started walking towards them and it was just a very nice moment of seeing a community coming together to help protect someone with a happy ending. Also a convenient story for when people ask about how dangerous mexico city is, and I can compare it to the MUCH worse things I've seen in our old neighborhood in the United States. 

-- "A massacre in Mexico: The True Story Behind the Missing 43 Students" was a book I read while here which I appreciated for it's critique of the US and also an explanation of the missing 43 and the background as we saw posters for them all over the place (also a large permanent tent installation on the reforma) and it was nice to have political context. I also am grateful for having learned about the normal school and who the normalists were and their pedagogy.  

I also read The Story of My Teeth (kind of an artsy sort of book written and read to factory workers in pieces in mexico and translated to english), and Certain Dark Things (same author as Mexican Gothic, indigenous vampire story set in CDMX, not as amazing as I'd hoped tbh but fun).  There was also this great documentary I watched before coming called Maize in Times of War about the importance of corn in indigenous culture in mexico which was really great.

-There was a lot more but I can't possibly cover it all. CDMX was by far my favorite place we've visited. The culture, people, art, food, city itself, nature, public spaces, politics -- really incredible, so I'll leave it here for now. This doesn't even include Oaxaca (incredible) or the yucatan but that's too much to try to add all here!