winding down

it's my last weekend day in mexico city. i have two more days of work, and then it's off to the airport at 4am on wednesday morning. ouch. brendan left yesterday afternoon, and dang did we have fun. aside from a torrential downpour our second night in guanajuato, the weather cooperated, and i got to show him some of my old favorites and experience a bunch of new things together.

the last night in mexico city was probably the highlight. we got back from guanajuato in the early evening. the 5 hour bus ride was a piece of cake, mostly because the buses in mexico blow anything greyhound could ever hope for out of the water, in terms of both general comfort and amenities. we got served a drink and a lunchibon croissant sandwich, which quickly took its place at the top of our favorite mexican junk foods list, and were treated to two more movies. as you'll recall, the movies en route to guanajuato left something to be desired, so we were sure we had nowhere to go but up. WRONG! the first movie was something hideous with steven seagal and a lot of shooting and blood. when i went to puebla with my parents, we were treated to hotel rwanda. i don't know who makes the movie decisions for these busline companies, but they might want to try something a little lighter and more family friendly. i will say, though, that we were pleasantly suprised - shocked, actually - at the second movie selection on our return trip. a movie that we had never heard of called heights, that stars meryl streep and a lot of good looking twenty-something hipsters. highly recommended, though we don't know how it turns out. they don't time the movie viewing to the length of the journey, so when we rolled into mexico city's north bus terminal, we probably had another 20 minutes to go. i can't decide if seeing a movie - even a good one - in such circumstances is worth anything at all.

so, frustrated by not knowing how it all of the drama turns out and back in mexico city, we cleaned ourselves off back at the hotel milan in the roma, the same place we had stayed before going to guanajuato. we had decided to have a date night, with a fancy restaurant followed by either mariachis at plaza garibaldi, or a dance club in our neighborhood where we could watch people shake their latin booties without having to necessarily participate. we ate at a wine/tapas bar sort of restaurant... shared a bottle of red and did a main course, a dessert and a cappucino to help us power through our night. we decided to forego garibaldi, since i had been there a couple of times and we were both kind of into the idea of staying near the hotel and watching the dancing population of mexico city do their thing.

we headed to gran leon, which couldn't have been a better choice. the guidebook described it as a less hip option than mama rumba across the street. hip it was not, but that's why we liked it. we each had a cup of tequila, brendan sipping his, me choking mine down. i don't think i will ever be able to drink the stuff as though it were a little glass of coca cola. and i'm okay with that. we were treated to two different live bands... one with older poofy haired men and one woman, and one that was a bunch of good-looking young guys wearing matching hawaiian shirts. we much preferred the second group, and i think you can understand why... their lead man was a trip and we were captivated by the guy who had apparently been hired just to show off his dance moves (who also - for the st. mary's crew - in my opinion bears a striking resemblance to matt of matt and dan). the music was great, and the dancing was mostly unbelievable. we sat in awe, vowing to start on those salsa lessons we have talked about for so long.

guanajuato had given us a much needed reprieve from all that is mexico city. we were taken by its small size, its sun and its familiar feel... its colonial architecture and layout felt thoroughly european. we spent two days walking its handful of streets many times over, and got to know its nooks and crannies pretty well. we made the requisite visit to the mummy museum, which fulfilled any disturbing expectations we had. the deal with the mummies of guanajuato is this: there is a public cemetary, where there is limited space for bodies. so, if you wish to maintain your loved one's burial spot, you have to pay occaisional fees. if you don't pay, the body of your loved one is exhumed and cremated. the crazy thing, though, is that the soil in guanajuato is apparently freakishly rich in the minerals required to preserve dead bodies. so those that were disinterred and looking especially intact have been put on display at the mummy museum. we saw over a hundred corpses, which mostly looked like they were made out of paper maché, but that paper maché was actually dead but preserved skin. some of them still had hair in the usual places, and at least one had eyes that were open and there. we even saw what looked like it must have a been a premature baby that had died, and bore the proudly displayed distinction of being the smallest mummy in the world. and all of this just before lunch! it was interesting, but i don't think i will ever again feel the need to see mummies if the opportunity presents itself. it struck me as a once is enough sort of proposition.

brendan has great (mummy-free) pics of our trip on his fancy google photo site. the photos include a couple of shots of the TV from the state of the union address debacle that had me so transfixed. the first photo is of the unfortunate soul who was left to bring the whole thing to order, with no success. the second shows members of the PRD who took over the whole stage, so as to prevent fox from taking the podium to give his address.

not much has changed since calderón was declared the president-elect last week. the tent cities haven't moved, and probably won't anytime soon. any changes will probably come after independence day, on september 15th, since the lefties are planning a september 16th convention of sorts to figure out what they are going to do in terms of the continued civil disobedience. i have to say that i am relieved i will be gone before then. last time i talked to my dad on the phone, the first thing he said was "has there been a revolution yet?" the interesting part is that he was less than half kidding.

as my days here come to a close, i have mixed feelings. i am looking forward to going back to seattle and seeing my friends and making the major transition of moving in with brendan at the end of september. i am crossing my fingers for some nice weather before the seattle grey sets in. i was hoping that my spanish would be a little further along than it actually is after three months, so in some ways i wish i had more time. i also didn't get to travel outside of the city as much as i had hoped, but there's not a whole lot i can do about widespread civil unrest in oaxaca, is there? im trying to see all of that reasons to return. it has been a whirlwind of an experience, and better than i could have ever hoped for. there is so much in this city to be appreciated and savored. i'll be back.