First Week in CDMX

It’s hard to believe I’ve only been here a week. I feel like there’s been a month’s worth of activity packed into these past days.

My area of Mexico City is calmer and more lush than I expected. I’m staying in Condesa which is leafy and pretty and filled with yoga studios and fancy cafés. It reminds me of Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin or Park Slope in Brooklyn. It’s funny how one gentrified neighborhood kind of looks like all the others. I can’t hate though, it’s super nice and quiet and central.

It’s cold as hell in the mornings and my shower only reaches a balmy 40C, so I layer up inside and run into the sun as soon as it’s warm. In Mexico City there are easily three seasons in a day. Winter from night to morning, Spring from 11am to 2pm, and Summer from 2-6pm. I leave the house in full kit, all of my layers on my person, ready to shed and re-suit throughout the day.

Spanish

Spanish class has occupied my mornings. It has been a great way to rekindle my chops, untangle Spanish from Portuguese, and give some structure to my days. We learned the subjunctive past tenses this week, so now I can say things like:

Si yo hubiera comido más tacos, yo habría vomitado

If I would have eaten more tacos, I would have thrown up.

New milestone unlocked: I survived a date entirely in Spanish. I was terrified at the beginning, especially as she rattled off full paragraphs without me understanding a word. Luckily, tacos and Mezcal are a universal love language.

Moctezuma’s Revenge

In 1521, Hernán Cortés violently overthrew the city of Tenochtitlán and killed thousands of the native inhabitants, including the then king, Moctezuma. Legend has it the Spaniards cut out his stomach with a sword. Now, 500 years later at taco carts all around Mexico City, Moctezuma exacts his revenge on unsuspecting gringo stomachs, such as mine.

On Wednesday after Spanish class, I went solo in search of a Torta (Mexican sandwich). Google Maps steered me to a tortería nearby that looked delicious. On the walk, everything seemed good. There were art museums and buses and people selling stuff. Then I noted an increasing number of drugged out homeless dudes. Then an increasing numbers of prostitutes.

Finally, among the love hotels I found my tortería–a hole-in-the-wall joint with a line of workers hungry for a cheap fill on their lunch break. I ordered the first sandwich on the menu, paid my 50 pesos ($2.5) and bounded towards the Alameda Central with my sandwich, feeling almost smug that I had found this secret Bourdain-esque spot all by myself. I ate my Milanesa (Mexican schnitzel with cheese and pickled peppers) in peace. All was right and good.

That night I awoke at 2am to hundreds of sharp triangles in my stomach. I shot up and rushed to the bathroom. Fuck. Moctezuma got me.

It’s three days later and I’m still paying the price. I’m sure yesterday’s spicy curry, several al pastor tacos, and mezcal cocktails haven’t helped. But how are you not supposed to eat and drink in Mexico City? I will eat a banana and rice for dinner and see if I’m sorted tomorrow. Inshallah.

Art, Culture, and Communism

Leon Trotsky’s House

I visited famous communist Leon Trotsky’s house the other day. Apparently, his rivals gunned down his whole family and he spent years on the run, finally winding up in the leafy southern suburbs of Mexico City. He posted up to finally write some communist pamphlets in peace. For a while.

Then one day in 1940, Trotsky’s “friend” walks into his office and asks if he can solicit some help editing an important paper. Trotsky says “sure!” grabs the paper and starts slashing through typos with a red marker. Suddenly, this “friend!” whips out an an ice pick and stabs him in the head. Trotsky died a few days later. Sheesh!

Bellas Artes

In the Palacio de Bellas Artes there was a great Diego Rivera mural “Man at the Crossroads.” The story goes: he was commissioned to paint a piece for Rockefeller center in NYC. Then, he snuck in a few too many communist images, if you know what I mean….

Nelson Rockefeller came to check his progress and found a Where’s Waldo of Vladimir Lenin hiding in the mural. Not the biggest fan of early communist leaders, he ordered Rivera to stop and for the mural to be destroyed.

Rivera flew back to Mexico and repainted the huge-ass mural in the middle of Palacio de Bellas Artes, one of the most important museums in Mexico. Respect.

Losing It at the Rivera Mural

As part of Spanish class on Thursday we went to the Diego Rivera mural museum in Centro which houses his massive “Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central.” It depicts the story of Mexico from the time of the Spanish Conquista all the way up to the 1950s. It reminded me of Thomas Hart Benton’s big triumphant murals about the American West.

I immediately thought, Dad would love this! and I reached for my phone to text him. Then I remembered.

I felt my throat get tense and my eyes start to water. I’m not sure if it was the art moving me, or if it was the spirit of Dad, or if it was just the cumulative newness of everything coming at me all at once.

I remembered last October when my Dad had taken Braydn, Steph and I to the Reina Sofia in Madrid. Braydn and I stood back looking at Picasso’s massive abstract piece Guernica while my Dad saddled up next to our guide, peppering him with questions, the guide’s eyes wide at Dad’s encyclopedic knowledge.

Looking up at the mural, I wished Dad were standing next me. Just so I could ask him, “What’s the deal with this?” I know his eyes would have lit up and he would have told me some tidbit about where Rivera was born, or what the skull woman symbolized, or why Rivera had in painted a frog in his pocket. I felt him in that moment.

Then, my classmate walks up to me while I’m staring glassy-eyed at the end of the mural and asks, “Dude, now what are you nerding out about?”

Listening to

My spanish teacher taught me about “Corridos Tumbados” which is like a fusion of mariachi and trap. It’s apparently huge here. This one is a banger.

Reading

The Broken Spears - It’s about the Spanish conquest of Mexico through the eyes of the Aztecs. Really nicely written and narrative. Cortéz was really a piece of shit.

Watching

Documentary about draining the lake that used to surround Mexico City.