felipe, frida y yo

so, last night felipe calderón was declared the victor in the presidential election. i was out at dinner with four frenchies, two mexicans, and another american (jennifer) when it was announced on the news. those who don't live here were mostly inquisitive (three of the frenchies and myself), and those who do live here (one frenchie, two mexicans and jennifer) were thoroughly forlorn. miguel talked emphatically about moving to another country... sound familiar? i wonder if the hits on the canadian embassy website will spike like they did in early november 2004. though there doesn't seem to be a viable escape from conservative commanders-in-chief in north america at the moment. at the very least, calderón does not appear to be strutting around making statements about all of the "political capital" he has to spend given his win by .57%. and power in congress is thoroughly split, which gives some assurance against truly reactionary policies. the good news on the congressional front is that the far-left presidential candidate (who is a woman, a feminist *and* on the Board of GIRE!) got enough votes for her party to become officially recognized. so there will be representation and recognition of truly progessive ideas in the legislative branch... to get anywhere, they will have to cozy up to the more mainstream parties, but it is still a step in the right (or left! oh! were you ready for it?) direction.

the evening out was a trilingual bonanza. we had the frenchies practicing a bit of spanish, the mexicans practicing their english, the americans translating from spanish and french to english, and everything in between. it made my head spin at times, but it was a relief to be able to formulate something above the level of toddler in a foreign language for a change. i'm still not sure what happened exactly, but it took a good couple of hours before the french crew put together that the year i spent in southern france in college, and the six weeks i spent in paris last year indeed meant that i speak french. it was a great little group, but i probably will only get to see two of them again - the couple that are friends of miguel and jennifer, who put the evening together. though they're off to travel around mexico and france for their nine weeks off (they are both french teachers here), we may see more of them in september.

i also went to the frida kahlo museum yesterday. it was my second attempt. i had gone on tuesday after work, showed my student ID, and handed over a 50 peso bill to pay the 20 peso student admission. the young lady at the ticket booth asked me if i had change. i showed her that i didn't, and she told me that she didn't have change, in a very matter-of-fact, "and there's nothing i can, or will, do about it" kind of way. i'm not sure who is behind the profit-making operations at the frida kahlo museum, but not being able to make 30 pesos in change is probably not their best approach. at any rate, i took exact change yesterday and was successfully allowed in. i was more taken with the house itself (where she and diego rivera lived) than the art on display, and i was left baffled by the movie they were showing, which more that anything involved a lot of interpretive dance and brought to mind the phantom of the opera movie i had to watch in my middle school music class. but it did teach me some things about frida's life that i didn't remember from the salma hyek version. my impression by the end of my visit was that i preferred the paintings by diego rivera to those by frida, and that i'm not sure i would even want to be a fly on the wall of frida's psyche. too unsettling.

this weekend will hold something new in store. i am planning to take the bus to taxco, which is a little silver mining town in the mountains of guerrero. from the photos i've seen, it looks picturesque and hilly. i'll pack my walking shoes. i'm debating spending a night there, or just going for saturday. i'm going to the bus station to investigate tickets this afternoon, and i'm guessing the bus schedules will help me make up my mind... a good dose of clean mountain air and a silver shopping extravaganza at their saturday market should be a nice change to my weekend routine. and watching the world cup finals on sunday in a sleepy little town is probably more my cup of tea... though they might be expecting me at vips.