Back in the Bay

We're officially back in San Francisco for a few more weeks. Hayden and I have sublet an apartment for the month of February at Grove and Divisadero--we moved in yesterday. It seems fine: walking distance to grocery stores and the gym, plenty of restaurants near by.

I'm really happy to be back in the land of decent winter weather. I spent last week in Mexico City with Hayden's sister Jessica, which has a comparable climate. Mexico City is an interesting place, if not necessarily a place you'd want to live in. It's very spread out and a bit hard to get around (think Los Angeles or Atlanta). The streets aren't the cleanest, though the air quality wasn't bad at all (we were lucky to get some rain and wind, which blows the smog away). The altitude does take its toll--I felt tired most of the trip.

The city has a few excellent museums. If you visit, I'd recommend a stay of 3 days, avoiding a Monday (everything shuts down). We saw the Pyramids outside the city (remarkable; 2000 years old, huge and in fairly good condition). I hadn't realized that the pyramids were built 1500 years before the Aztec civilization--the Aztecs mimicked the pre-existing structures, which makes everything look contemporaneous.

The following day, we saw the Palacio Nacional (Diego Rivera murals; we hired an excellent guide we explained what was going on in each, and also provided a good summary of the history of the city), Templo Mayor (the Aztec temple excavation, with an excellent attached museum), the national cathedral (very European in design and appearance), the house of tiles, the Inglesia de San Francisco (a very old church remarkable for the fact that it was obviously sinking--as the entire downtown area of the city is. The church listed about 15 degrees to one side), and the Palacio del Belles Artes. There was a fair amount of commotion in the belles artes--we discovered after the fact that it was a funeral for a famous Mexico songwriter. As we ate lunch in the cafe, we were joined at the next table by none other that Gabriel Garcia Marquez! It was pretty exciting. He seemed quite friendly, even agreeing to take photos with several people in the restaurant.

We next hit the Anthropology Museum, a remarkable collection of artifacts, including the famous Aztec calendar (which was discovered in the Templo Mayor we visited earlier in the day). There were few tourists at the museum, or anywhere else, for that matter. It's definitely worth a visit. We wrapped up the day with dinner at the Hotel de San Angel, a beautiful monastery converted into an upscale restaurant.

Monday was spent walking in the Polanco district. On Tuesday, I headed back to the San Angel neighborhood to visit the Leon Trotsky museum (worthwhile if you're in the neighborhood already; a bit run down) and the Frida Kahlo Museum (excellent; beautifully maintained and packed with Frida's paintings and personal belongings. A very lovely structure in and of itself.). After debating about returning to the Anthropology Museum, I decided to walk up to the Chapultapec Castle to see the view. This is a museum that the guidebooks really sell short--I'd put it on my top 10, maybe even top 5, museum list. The view is spectacular, the collection comprehensive and impressive, the building itself quite grand. The main collection covers the history of the city from the time of Spanish occupation. There are suits of armor, carriages, religious artifacts, a collection of flags of the various conquistadors, very clear explanations of how Mexican and Spanish traditions were combined (everything from religion to agriculture), jewelry, weapons, etc. It took two hours to go through this section, which led to a dramatic Sisquieros mural and the main body of the castle, which contained recreations of the contents of the rooms the various rulers of the city occupied from the 1860s-1930s.

All in all, it was a busy and educational trip.