Living With The Wild Boys…

At 1am we were rudely awakened by an alert from the government that there was about to be an earthquake and we had about 60 seconds to get outside. Of course in our case, we could not do that. We are on the top floor of an apartment building so our best bet was to get under a table. All 3 of us were dead asleep and not quite functioning within 60 seconds. Luckily for us, it was only around 4.3 on the Richter scale and we didn’t feel anything. We just had to wait for the adrenaline rush to subside and then we could go back to sleep. Needless to say we were all moving slower than usual this morning.

I had to finish my homework this morning so I was running a bit late. The location for class had changed and we were having a bit of trouble finding the two cafes we were supposed to meet our teachers at. In the end I abandoned the bus idea and took an uber so I would not be late. It was a tiny cafe in an obscure place.

Overall, I love the concept of meeting in a different part of the city everyday to experience cafés and parks in different neighbourhoods. It also gave us the challenge of navigating the city on foot, transit and sometimes uber in a pinch.

The park we met at today had an exquisite Pavillion – an example of moorish architecture.

After our class, we said goodbye to our classmates and teachers and headed to a Fonda recommended by Michelle and Lola’s teacher. A Fonda is usually a small, family-run traditional homestyle cooked meal restaurant. It is extreme informal, strangers will sit at any table where there is space, and there is a full menu set for a very affordable price. My meal included a drink, soup, bread, rice, a fish fillet with beans and salad and then a small bowl of jello for dessert – all for 95 pesos! (approx $7.45 CDN)

Next stop was the Biblioteca Vasconcelos. This was where our class was supposed to be held today but there was a strike going on. I found out later that Michelle and Lola’s class went anyway and it was open. Lucky for me, they were nice enough to take me back there after class so I could enjoy it too. This interesting building was completed in 2006, but then was closed down for about 22 months to fix some major mistakes in the build.

Pieces from a youth illustrators exhibit in the library:

After the library we walked for about 40 minutes through many diverse neighbourhoods to get to the Secretariat of Public Education headquarters that doubles as the Live Museum of Muralism. Here are some photos I took along the way. We passed several huge markets, as well as hundreds of people selling their wares on either sides of the street, not in any organized way.

The Diego Rivera murals at the Secretariat of Public Education Headquarters deserve their own post, so I will leave you with one last photo of which highlights the discrepancy between neighbourhoods in Mexico City. This was taken within walking distance of the last photos I posted.

In 2013 I went to the Frida and Diego exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario and was blown away by how great it was. I loved it so much that I took my kids out of school for the day so they could see it with me. Unfortunately almost as soon as we got there, Erez, who was around 11 at the time, doubled over with stomach pains. Long story short, they didn’t get to see much of the exhibit but I bought the book in the gift shop and then walked them through the catalog at home.

Recently Aubrey and I watched the 2002 biopic Frida starring Salma Hajek and also revisited that book I bought at the AGO, so I was ready!

Although I would have loved to have seen the gardens during the day, it was magical at night. I took way too many photos…

The museum is called La Casa Azul ( The Blue House) due to its cobalt blue walls. It was originally constructed in 1904. Frida was born in this house in 1907, grew up there with her parents Wilhelm (Guillermo) Kahlo and Native Mexican Mathilde Calderon y Gonzalez and her three siblings. She also lived there for several years with her husband Diego Rivera. It remained her family home until she died in her bedroom in 1954 at the age of 47. Rivera donated the home and its contents to establish a museum to honour Frida’s legacy.

This house was at the centre of intellectual and artistic life in the Colonia del Carmen area of Coyoacan, hosting many famous artists, poets, philosophers and revolutionaries over the years.

Frida spent a lot of time convalescing in this home. She contracted polio when she was six, which caused one of her legs to be shorter than the other. At age 18 she was in a devastating bus accident which left her body badly mangled with many fractures in her spine, pelvis, and other parts of her body. She was confined to her bed for about two years and this is when she began to paint to pass the time. Over her lifetime she had approximately 35 different surgeries. I will not go into her whole life story, but I recommend you look her up, as she lived a fascinating life and was extremely talented in so many ways. Her life was a life of pain and resilience, living life to the fullest she possibly could.

Five fast facts:

1. She had a tumultuous marriage to an unfaithful Diego Rivera who was around 20 years older than her. She also had multiple affairs with both men and women, including Leon Trotsky when he and his wife stayed in their home. When Diego slept with Frida’s sister, she divorced him. They did remarry before her death.
2. She was the first Mexican artist to have work shown in The Louvre
3. She had three large important exhibitions while she was alive- In New York, Paris and México. Unfortunately, like many artists, her popularity exploded long after her death.
4. When she finally had a show in Mexico, her doctor forbade her to leave her bed because she was in such rough shape, so she had them bring her whole bed to the exhibit.
5. Although it was a bit of an obscure museum when it first opened, it now has 25,000 visitors a month, and is one of the most popular museums in Mexico City.

The museum was beautiful and absolutely fascinating, containing her artwork, artifacts, photographs and her own personal art collections, including original pieces by prominent artists. There is also an exhibit featuring some of her iconic clothing and jewellery.

Here are some highlights from the hundreds of photos I took:

There are far too many photos to post, but there was one more thing that happened while we were there – one Wednesday a month there is a Danzón class offered and tonight was the night!

Danzón is a graceful Cuban partner dance which influenced later dance styles like salsa, mambo and cha-cha. It is a slow, synchopated dance. We were given fans to use while dancing and I got to dance with the male instructor. It was really cool.

A group of women learning the steps.

It is late now and I still have to do my homework for my last day of class…

This museum was all I could have wished for and more. I am now even more of a fan than ever!

Buenos Noches!

We took the red metro bus again this morning and then got confused on the transfer (Google maps was very unclear) so we ended up walking the rest of the way. Now we were running a bit late and my cafe was farther away than Michelle and Leslie-Anne’s. I speed walked it, arriving quite sweaty as I was wearing multiple layers because I knew I would be out all day until the nighttime. Since I was so hot (even though it was chilly out and chilly in the cafe) I ordered what I thought was iced Chai Latte but I actually ordered an Chai Frappe which is basically a Chai Latte slushy – which was delicious.

Class went smoothly today – we were covering a grammar point I actually had a handle on and got perfect on my exercises! Yay! In the second half of the class we went to a small park next to a school – it was quite nice. We covered some interesting cultural information while talking about the origins of some words and phrases. At one point a man with two dogs walked by and one of the dogs was drawn to one of my classmates. When he heard that my classmate was from California, he went into a 10 minute anti-Trump rant in Spanish. Good comprehension exercise. All in all a good penultimate class.

After class Michelle and Leslie-Anne and my classmate Allan went out for lunch at a great Argentinian restaurant in the neighbourhood called Escadon Corazon. It was beautiful inside ( well it was still kind of outside) and the food was great!

After lunch, Michelle headed back to our apartment as she had a course to do online. Leslie-Anne and Allan and I shared a Uber to go to Coyoacan. I enjoyed it so much the other day, I was happy to go back.

Some other photos from our hours wandering around the area…

Leslie-Anne and I had fun wandering and then we met up with Michelle at La Casa Azul also know as the Frida Kahlo museum at 7:15. That deserves its own post!

Today Lola and Michelle’s class was scheduled at a different cafe than mine, so we started out walking together and then headed our separate ways. We did end up at the same park though – another beauty! Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night, but I have been feeling a bit off. As a result, I was struggling a bit more to keep up in class today. I am learning a ton, but I didn’t feel as confident. Michelle and Lola and I were joking that the first day I was flailing, yesterday I was nailing it, and today I felt like I was failing. Hopefully tomorrow I will be back to sailing!

I did get a little distracted by the dance class across the plaza- the music was infectious and the dancers were great!

There was also a boxing lesson happening next to us.

After class, Michelle and Lola and I headed to Woolworth’s (remember them?) to pick up a couple of things, then headed to the Medellin local market where we had a lovely lunch.

The market is divided into different areas, and is clearly a market for locals to get everything they need. Lola and I and shared another vegetarian plate of alambres, along with some great tempura, and I tried Michelle’s fish filet and lemonade with chia seeds – all delicious!

I always love to wander around a good market!

Here are a few fun photos of things I noticed while walking around:

I have been feeling slightly off today, so when Michelle and Lola wanted to have a quiet afternoon I decided to chill too. Also, my first draft of last night’s Lucha Libre post was almost entirely erased by accident, so I had to recreate it. Thankfully after some down time I seemed to feel much better.

Michelle and I went for a walk around the neighbourhood to get out of the apartment and stretch our legs. When we came home we had a light dinner. I ate a fried egg on half a piece of toast and the other half of the toast had peanut butter. I wanted to take it easy as my stomach hasn’t been quite normal today.

My teacher Carmen told me about a dance class offered at a club called Mama Rumba on Wednesday nights from 8:45 – 10:00pm. It turns out it is only an 11 min walk from our apartment! Latin dance lessons in a club in my neighbourhood? Yes please!

Michelle and Lola wanted to go to bed early so I headed out there on my own. It was great!

They lesson started out with an instructor calling out the steps that we could follow as a big group for awhile as individuals. The dance floor filled up as more and more people arrived. After this “introduction”, they sent the individuals upstairs while keeping established couples downstairs. Once upstairs, the instructor split us into two groups: “chicos”and “chicas”. We each learned our parts, then they put us in two sets of couple lines and rotated the chicos through ( there were more chicas than chicos). It was a lot of fun! Bucket list item checked off for me! Around 10, I walked home. What a great activity 🙂

Now to do my Spanish homework!

Buenos Noches!

When Michelle, Lola and I were talking about this upcoming trip, Lola mentioned that she has always wanted to go to see Lucha Libre in Mexico City. Michelle was not at all interested in going. When I decided to come on the trip, I agreed to go with Lola so she would not have to fulfill this bucket list dream alone.

Whenever I stayed with my Mom and Len growing up, Len would often be watching WWF in the 80s – the days of Hulk Hogan, Randy the Macho man Savage and Hacksaw Jim Duggan. I even went to see the WWF once with my friend Jason Tanner when he got tickets. So, although I was never passionate about it, I had early exposure to the professional wrestling genre of entertainment.

Lucha libre is the term for the style of professional wrestling originating in Mexico. They are known for their colourful masks, dramatic high flying aerial manoeuvres and audience participation. It was a cultural experience I was not going to pass up, and I certainly was interested in witnessing Lola realize her lifelong dream.

It was around a 20 minute walk to the Arena Mexico from our apartment. We knew we were getting close when we saw the bright lights emitting from the merch and snack vendors around the venue. The energy was palpable around the Venue.

The concession stands near our seats

We got there super early so we could soak up every part of the experience that we could. We were among the first ones there.

As usual, the focus was on the snacks. They were selling all sorts of chips, hotdogs, tostadas, fruit cups with hot sauce, beer with a salt rim, beer with a chili powder mixture on the rim…the atmosphere was amazing.

Finally the time had come for the matches to start. The was so much fanfare in the introductions, huge screens, flashing lights, theme songs blaring, people cheering and booing, it was all calculated for maximum drama.

The crowd was very invested. Many people wore the full head masks, and were very enthusiastically participating in the spectacle -sometimes chanting and yelling at the wrestlers and/or the refs – all for fun.

A big part of Lucha Libre is the audience partipation. This guy in the old school Blue Demon mask, surrounded by kids was maybe a little bit too into it…

The first match was a three member tag team. One team had two big scary looking wrestlers wearing masks and one short guy not wearing a mask – his stage name was Shockercito. He is 45 years old, stands at 50 kg and is just over 4 feet tall.

Lucha Libre is famous for dramatic storylines. Each match has a storyline of Técnicos (heroes with clean technical skills) vs Rudos (villains who will often use dirty tricks). In the second match, the Rudos were way more engaging, and I found myself rooting for them rather than the “good guys”. And, they had a cool bird mascot in a cool costume!

Lucha Libre is a huge part of the culture here. It is a form of pure entertainment and escapism which has a very long history. The CMLL ( in English: the World Wrestling Council) is celebrating its 92nd year!

In 2018, Mexico City officially declared Lucha Libre as an intangible Cultural Heritage of Mexico City.

Masks are an integral part of the costuming for Lucha Libre, but not all luchadores (wrestlers) wear masks. The ones that do take it very seriously- it is supposed to be illegal to take someone’s mask off while they are in the ring, but some of the Rudos do it anyway – threatening to do it is often a part of the drama. Most unmasked characters distinguish themselves through hairstyles: either completely shaved heads, long luscious locks, or boldly coloured hair styles and intimidating makeup

Here are some highlights from the evening:

On our way home we came across people doing dance lessons in the park – I can’t begin to express how much I love this concept.

On the way home I picked up a late night snack from my current favourite: El Califa Taqueria – the vegan tacos al pastor hit the spot. I needed fuel as I still had to finish my homework!

Am I going to follow professional wrestling from now on? Probably not. Would I recommend checking it out? Absolutely! I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing another fascinating aspect of Mexico City culture.

We started our day taking the red metro bus to meet our teachers at a cafe in a different area of town. Michelle and Lola met their teacher at the same cafe as mine so we travelled together. It was rush hour so that was an experience. As I explained in a previous post, the red metro bus is on an exclusive road that runs down the middle of the Avenue with platforms to get on and off like look like a subway station.

On the platform, there are screens that show you the timing of the bus departures. This morning there were buses running constantly, and they were all full! We managed to get in the bus, but were squished in like sardines. The ride was about 35 minutes long and at some stops, people really had to push their way out. Luckily our stop was a popular one, so we were able to go with the tide of others that were exiting.

The cafe where we were meeting was called Hey! Brew Bar (insert Hebrew puns here).

One of my classmates moved up to a higher level so it is only me and two others now who are much better than I am. I feel that I improved a lot, mostly because I spent a decent amount of time on my homework, so I felt more prepared. Unfortunately, Japanese, and French vocabulary were still getting in my way at times.

I tried a new warm beverage called Champurrado. It is made from Mais, and this one contained cocoa, cinnamon and sugar. It was was a bit thick, was not overly sweet but quite tasty.

It was not as cold as yesterday but I still wore my fleece all morning. We then headed to another gorgeous park and enjoyed some time in the sun.

After class, we made sure that Lola go to her bus stop and then she headed home for a quiet afternoon siesta so she would be awake enough for the night’s festivities.

Michelle and I headed by Uber to another area called Coyoacán. It was a charming area filled with markets, shops, cafés, ice cream places, and restaurants. I really enjoyed the feel.

We met up with the Brazilian family we met on the trip for lunch in the main market and had a delicious plate called Alambres – mine was vegetarian – potatoes, onions, peppers, cheese and nopales ( prickly pear cactus leaves) it came with tortillas to make tacos.

We really enjoyed chatting with Sergio and Daniella. After lunch we each headed our separate ways to explore the area. I regret that we forgot to take a group photo with them and their two teenage boys. They were so lovely!

I found a cool interactive art installation, which I of course had to interact with.

We will be returning here on Thursday to see the Frida Kahlo museum, I am looking forward to coming back.

Michelle and I headed back to the apartment for a break and then Lola and I went to see Lucha Libre. That activity warrants its own post…