CHAPULTEPEC, ANTHROPOLOGY MUSEUM AND ZOCALO OR POLITICAL HOTBED

First of all, let me advise you to visit http://www.ciudadmexico.com.mx for a general overview of what to see/do/crash @ in Mexico, DF.
Beginnings are not easy. If you are communicating on a language that is not yours the pain increases hugely. It's about typing, it's about looking up words on the dictionary, it's about misspellings, it's about grammar,... but since I am on this side of the pond and... it's not that I try to reach as many readers as possible, but I wanna make it accessible, universal... borderless... Loads of times I go stuck, wordless and start surfing the net or IRCing just to get a break and seek some inspiration... breaks that somehow become long-lasting gaps of writing... hopefully in the long run the option was for the best... in some extend, it makes me feel freer (not Freed, from FCPD...), posting in the English language, despite how inefficient I seem to be at some points...
The style is certainly improvable... I apologise to English-speaking readers... if any...

I got up whit the buzz of an helicopter hammering my neck. Dryness. Dust smell, throat and nose irritated... not really able to tell whether due to the altitude, the contamination, the filth on the room... but certainly not a very pleasant sensation...
I didn’t feel too confident when I started strolling through the streets. Definitely, I had allowed all those warnings to affect me unconsciously. I felt embarrassed to ask whatever to anybody. I went round and round the same block looking for a hardware shop without daring to ask for directions. It was more due to that stupid feeling you have when you travel to any security-related issue… but anyway, that is how I felt. I even felt a bit of shy to get out my room and meet the hostel staff. Originally I thought those guys at the lounge were some other guests, but they happened to be landlady and her cousin, so after an hesitating go forward and backward I finally asked, a stupidly straightforward question, where could I buy some soap and a sponge. The shop was highly similar to those we have in Spain. Maybe as they are everywhere. But it certainly looked more like a Segovia droguería than to a US CVS pharmacy.
Not easy figuring out what to do for the first day. You wanna walk, for this is the best way to experience a city. But you don’t know where to head to. Then you don’t really wanna ride metro (since from now on I strongly encourage dong so. It’s convenient, inexpensive, safe and fast). I finally went for Chapultepec Palace turned into the National Museum of history.
I walked down Av. Chapultepec and bought a couple of disposable cameras since, stupidely, I didn’t take my digital camera with me just in case I got mugged. Disposable camera x2 = N$240. Really lively and frantic Pza. Chapultepec, where the Avenue with the same name ends up, or begins, depending on what way are you looking at. Originally built obeying the sovereign will of France appointed Emperor Maximiliano. I don’t really know how the whole story was like but it ended up with the man being beheaded. I good practice used by certain people such as French, English, Mexican themselves, Russians,… although those last what they really did was shooting the whole family. Getting back to the point, the Frenchman, apparently, was not a big fan of what the views from the castle were, and missing la grandeure française from Paris he decided he wanted a large avenue offering him a good overview of the city and an easy way to put himself in what the administrative core of the city was, el Zocalo.
It might not be easy to describe what a Mexican plaza looks like, but maybe not that much turning it alive. It’s like a huge fleamarket, full of stalls lining up at pavement shrinking it by half, marquee-dodging becomes indeed a pretty funny sport. Burnt CDs, DVDs, appliances of all kinds… fast food… but real Mexican food… al least 30% of all merchants are selling in-the-moment-made fast food. Not just straightforward tacos precooked shit shipped in by a McDonalds carrier. From what I saw, stall keepers get to work early in the morning and start pulling out all their pans, pots… and carefully season, fry, knead, warm… all the food they’ll be selling throughout the day.

• Tacos: the main dish you can get and what appear to be the most popular. The original tortilla is substantively smaller than those you get at any US restaurant. Actually, those that I had in Madrid, somewhere in Chueca and Bilbao are really similar to those sold in mexico. When you get a taco, you are given a small plastic dish to eat it that you should be returning for refill or when you are done for cleaning others use. Gut (tripa), sausage (longaniza), veal (res), chicken (pollo), Mexican sausage (chorizo. En España tenemos el mismo problema. Para nosotros el chorizo es eso, chorizo, no una salchicha. Aunque empíricamente mirado si que es una salchicha)
• Tacos de canasta: I didn’t do those at Chapultepec or Sevilla but at el Zocalo. I don´t think I can really describe what this exactly is, but, roughly, 7 tacos de canasta for N$5 was a pretty good deal, since all the maize you get from the tortillas are a pretty good instrument of hunger-quenching.
• Sope: it´s like a green dough of maize, pressed, stretched, fried, folded and stuffed with a kinda cottage-cheese, beans, and some other stuffs…

There are many more dishes but since I always did tacos and I´m kinda struggling with the wording you guys get urs arses there are experience by urslves… if up to…

that because I was talking about Chapultepec. So… should I get back to the trip…?
Something as easy and going through the underpass become an unreachable milestone...All what you want… it’s all still about those security concerns… towards the end of the trip, those fears pretty much faded away. Do not ask what bus should you be taking to get there cos it’s just a few yards away from the underpass mouth. Chapultepec castle is at the top of a hill. You can get a train that takes you the top and apparently tell some kind oh story about what the story of the place is. I made it walking. Definitelly, I shoud workout a bit more…

On the foot of the hill there is a national monument for independence. Interesting.
Then getting to the top and pulling into the castle. Surprisingly, what shocked my the most was how many Mexican nationals tourist were on all the places I visited. Was it at Chapultepec, at museums, at the National Palace at the pyramids… I wouldn’t be wrong to say 90% of the visitors were Mexican nationals. Not meaning that there were not foreigners, specially on highly-visited routes, but there was an evident interest in locals (or no so locals) and national schools in visiting their national heritage.
On the way up I met a couple from Zaragoza that reminded me how funny “coger” sounds like when used to the mexican speaking. A really tiring stroll with the altitude. A stop was a must every 10 min or so, although I’m in pretty bad shape…
Interesting in itself the castle. Loads of tourist wardens. Well maintained. Well organised and structured following and understandable timeline from the first settlements of prehispanic civilisations to the most recent periods such as the porfiriato. On the outside, a memorial to los niños heroes, the cadets of the military academy who held the assault from the US army at the castle during the US-mexican war until surrendering yielded into the Stars and Stripes flied at the castle mast. Summing up: prehispanic civilisations, spanish conquest, spanish rule, independence war, first constitution, Benito Juarez, porfirito, revolutions, American war, PRI… I’ d say Spaniards came off pretty well from the whole exhibit. And asking around to take me a picture became pretty interesting above all for them, meeting a Spaniard walking on his own seemed pretty unusual and “satisfying”?

I then headed to the National Museum of Anthropology. Visit the website, it’s great: http://www.mna.inah.gob.mx. In Mexico, as in anywhere else, when professionals are given resources the outcome is certainly rewarding. When you get into the main lounge you’ ll be welcomed by a message from the President who opened the museum praising the heritage of the pre-columbian era which should bring inspiration, hope and cheer to the Mexican people. Built in the 60s, the inside shows what I’d consider, was I in Spain, a typical public building with old-fashioned dark wood slats. Let’s say that a more updated deco would something like large glass ceilings and see-through plastic partitions. It might seemed quoted from “Viaje a la Alcarria” by Camilo Jose Cela, who said about the public school of Pastrana, (or was it Brihuega?) “that it was in derelict conditions but clean, neat and tidy”. The MNA is no extent derelict or bad maintained. On the contrary, its floors were continuously cleaned and polished; at least 2 security guards per room kept an eye on visitors. But it somehow lacked a XXI appearance. It covered all civilisations from all regions of the Republic. Huge pieces of art, the most stunning the Solar Calendar that you will find on the football national team t-shirt. A must for anybody visiting Mexico. No flash allowed and strictly enforced. Professional and friendly staff. It s a pleasure visiting Mexico.
I was certainly suffering from height-sickness, I had to seat for some minutes at each room. I was really worried,… I know I might drink heavily (well, US standards, nobody else would take the trouble to grade one’s drinking…) but my smoking is not that sever and I didn’t turn 40 yet so… Why am I so exhausted? Well, I finally found out. Or was it just an excuse…? Who knows...
Very nice the museum. I’m not a museum kind of guy so, I wouldn’t say that I rushed through the exhibit, but I enjoyed the ruins and took off. Indeed, I spent as long recovering from the tiredness than looking at the models. If you cannot stay long, give a gander to the stones and move.

I moved to El Zocalo. That is the bit of the city I enjoyed the most. The square itself remind me, somehow, the layout of the Plaza Mayor (although much larger and with many more historic landmarks), the vitality of el Retiro, the hub sensation you get at Puerta del Sol, as icon for DF as Cibeles for Madrid and as political stage as the Paseo de la Castellana. So that, you really feel being in Mexico there. As I got pretty late in the evening I didn’t do much, just hanging around and getting into the Cathedral which, as most, results more impressive inside than outside. It is the largest in south of Rio Grande and since there is not much to give about those n the north it is most remarkable Christian building in the American continent. What shocked me the most was the political atmosphere you get in the surrounds with plenty of Zapatistas supporters not demonstrating, but deploying banners with vivid slogans awakening conscious, spoiling the place or messing around, it all depends on who’s looking at it. I rather say that it gives a sense of freedom of speech and democratic health. Alas I took no pics of those guys… you don’t really wanna look a dummy bloke snapping as Chinese...
There was a native american puffing smoke from an aztec-looking pipe into a chick who was certainly spanish: that mysticism face she pulled can only be achieved after years of training on instituciones liberales

Highly patrolled the whole square.
There were groups of kids performing different acrobatic acts.
I got to Calle de la Moneda and it was like a huge fleamarket. When I did Palacion Nacional, whose windows face that street, the uproar made it looking like a huge demostration, but what it was, was hundreds of stalls selling clothes, crafts,... everything. And loads of food. Very busy. Loads of chilangos (no quiero ser peyorativo) strolling, buying, hanging... living, indeed...
As I wondered the streets, I lost my way, and remembering Tepito is no far from there, I rushed a bit to get back to Zocalo.
There was a books fair going on. It's a shame not having time enough to read everthing you might want... and all those books, that explosion of Iberamerican litterature, revolutionary, political in general, cultural, novels, miscellaneous styles... everything very appealing... it really makes you swing from english written litterature to Spanishamerican... that much time wasted.
Funnilly, there was a radio presenter, Spanish, announcing the release of his new book. Something about sexuality. She then answered questions from the audience. When asked what she thought about the discrimination gays are subjected to, she did a bit of cocksucking to the authorities, praising them for passing a bill in the DF prohibiting any restricition when applying to a job due to sexual orientation. Well... good law to have.
It then started raining cats and dogs. The conference was stoped cos the electrical equipment might become a bit dangerous with all the rain water.

And that’s pretty much it. I got back home in metro, got to a restaurant in Sevilla, got a torta, pulled my newspaper, read most of it (cumbre iberoamericana in Salamanca) and got back home. Pretty tired… recovering from the heights…