so i finally broke down and did it. after six months of turning up my nose at starbucks in mexico city. i stopped by for a brownie frappaccino (its like a extra charged coffee milkshake with bits of brownies in it!) i also wasn't carrying any cash & have been craving new york city lately, so a visit to the evil starbucks seemed in order.
i was walking home from work in the afternoon sun. that morning one my students said that here in d.f. we have all 4 seasons in one day & its true it was freezing in the morning & sweltering by 1pm.
starbucks angel is in the retail complex of the sheraton, next door to the american embassy. I could see a guy reading newspapers in english. i'm definitely going in. (total news junkie) i greet the plainclothes guard & walk in. looks & smells just like a regular starbucks. Smells like burnt coffee & caramel & muffins. the music is from one of those starbucks samplers, i think its david gray. big hugecomfy chairs. there's a bunch of pasty businessmen. a guy yapping on his cell phone in english with a heavy mexican accent. some ladies drinking lattes. a couple of backpackers with guidebooks, some german looking tourists. students (how can they afford this- my chai latte costs like an hourof teaching.) a bunch of people with clip on ideas mob the cash register. i wonder if they work at the embassy. i feel jealous of them. might be a good idea to hang around here.
yeah they have chai! one iced chai for me please! the medium size costs roughly an hour at my teaching job, but hey I'm a homesick american! I deserve a treat! the guy behind me orders "un-o espresso sol-o por fav-or" I bet he's from georgia.
i take over one of the comfy chairs next to the big guy reading the news in english- he graciously leaves his entire stack of newspapers to me. and i sit for an hour one eye on the newspaper one eye on my surroundings. its all very interesting.
Tuesday
day of the dead
i am so excited to be in mexico to witness the dia de los muertos festivities. ever since my 10th grade spanish teacher showed us the crazy skeleton fugures & tableaux, i have wanted to participate in theis pre-hispanic holiday. I have been buying sugar skulls like a mad woman and i soon as i get paid again i will be hitting la ciduela & my local mercado san cosme for paper maiche skeleton & tombs.
Its been interesting to watch the decorations of september mes de patriotismo fall to a mixture of jackolantern and ghosts and skeletons. Actually the pumpkins and halloween things seemed at first to outpopulate the traditional dia de los muertos thigs, but now even the street vendors have skulls made of amaranth &
below is a collection of links of articles & photos i have seen.
cemeteries in mexico city
toluca & metepec
and in spanish also from el universal
i am so excited to be in mexico to witness the dia de los muertos festivities. ever since my 10th grade spanish teacher showed us the crazy skeleton fugures & tableaux, i have wanted to participate in theis pre-hispanic holiday. I have been buying sugar skulls like a mad woman and i soon as i get paid again i will be hitting la ciduela & my local mercado san cosme for paper maiche skeleton & tombs.
Its been interesting to watch the decorations of september mes de patriotismo fall to a mixture of jackolantern and ghosts and skeletons. Actually the pumpkins and halloween things seemed at first to outpopulate the traditional dia de los muertos thigs, but now even the street vendors have skulls made of amaranth &
below is a collection of links of articles & photos i have seen.
cemeteries in mexico city
toluca & metepec
and in spanish also from el universal
wal mart buena vista - mexico, d.f. - 20 october 2003 - 10:45pm
score! a block of parmesean! its from uruguay & you have no idea how happy this made me! We bought barilla gnocci. the first time i had gnocci it was served with a rich 4 cheese sauce in a fancy italian restaurant on ocean drive. there were only like 6 gnoccis and i shared it with 2 other girlfriends, but i'll never forget it! i know that tonight's cena will not come close to that - especially with walmart cheeses, but i want j's first gnocci experience to rock. ((it did. i made a supercheesy pesto with walnuts & there was plenty. the cheap spanish red wasn't too shabby either))
i buy a couple more teeny chocolate skulls (the chocolate ones never make it home. they always break and have to be sacrificed) and find a sugar skull with my dead aunt camilla's name on it. i love dia de muertos. our dining table is covered with skulls & skeletons of candy & clay! I have been eating loads of death bread and little bones- pan de muerto y huesitos !
the other things that made me happy were the organic frozen vegetables- marca: la huerta, a new cheap red wine from spain, a 3 pack of cotton underwear for 15 pesos, a pretty red cabbage, gumdrops & the new issue of df por travesias magazine, and seeing the cost of the groceries in dollars on my bank statement.
The VW bug taxi that took us home has a small tv set rigged below the glove box! I swear mexico has been taken over by television! I saw a police car with the tell tale blue gray glow the other day & every type of sidewalk vendor has one! What were the streets like before cheap tvs?
score! a block of parmesean! its from uruguay & you have no idea how happy this made me! We bought barilla gnocci. the first time i had gnocci it was served with a rich 4 cheese sauce in a fancy italian restaurant on ocean drive. there were only like 6 gnoccis and i shared it with 2 other girlfriends, but i'll never forget it! i know that tonight's cena will not come close to that - especially with walmart cheeses, but i want j's first gnocci experience to rock. ((it did. i made a supercheesy pesto with walnuts & there was plenty. the cheap spanish red wasn't too shabby either))
i buy a couple more teeny chocolate skulls (the chocolate ones never make it home. they always break and have to be sacrificed) and find a sugar skull with my dead aunt camilla's name on it. i love dia de muertos. our dining table is covered with skulls & skeletons of candy & clay! I have been eating loads of death bread and little bones- pan de muerto y huesitos !
the other things that made me happy were the organic frozen vegetables- marca: la huerta, a new cheap red wine from spain, a 3 pack of cotton underwear for 15 pesos, a pretty red cabbage, gumdrops & the new issue of df por travesias magazine, and seeing the cost of the groceries in dollars on my bank statement.
The VW bug taxi that took us home has a small tv set rigged below the glove box! I swear mexico has been taken over by television! I saw a police car with the tell tale blue gray glow the other day & every type of sidewalk vendor has one! What were the streets like before cheap tvs?
Thursday
Have you ever had chiles en nogada?
We spulrged at a historic restaurant the hosteria santo domingo so my sister could sample chiles en nogada- a patriotic dish of stuffed pobalanos (green) with a creamy walnut & almond sauce (white) sprinkled with pomegranate seeds (red). The peppers are stuffed with ground pork/beef, pineapples, pears, peaches, apples, platanos, onion,pine nuts, cinnamon, raisins. Its a little odd & delicious. Though I am always disappointed with the expensive restaurants. I would much rather be blown away by a 25 peso lunch or those fantastic blue corn quesadillas that you can find on the street.- stuffed with prehispanic delicacies like, huitlacoche or nopales or tinga...
I think so many mexican foods are better the second time around. Like obleas, those wafers filled with goats milk caramel & HUITLACOCHE (corn smut) & tequila with squirt (that nytime article)
We spulrged at a historic restaurant the hosteria santo domingo so my sister could sample chiles en nogada- a patriotic dish of stuffed pobalanos (green) with a creamy walnut & almond sauce (white) sprinkled with pomegranate seeds (red). The peppers are stuffed with ground pork/beef, pineapples, pears, peaches, apples, platanos, onion,pine nuts, cinnamon, raisins. Its a little odd & delicious. Though I am always disappointed with the expensive restaurants. I would much rather be blown away by a 25 peso lunch or those fantastic blue corn quesadillas that you can find on the street.- stuffed with prehispanic delicacies like, huitlacoche or nopales or tinga...
I think so many mexican foods are better the second time around. Like obleas, those wafers filled with goats milk caramel & HUITLACOCHE (corn smut) & tequila with squirt (that nytime article)
Saturday
return from guatemala
Guatemala was beautiful. My sister and I rented a lovely little house in San
Pedro de la Laguna, on the shores of Lago Atitlan- this magical crater lake
surrounded by mountains & volcanoes and 13 little pueblos Jorge and my mom and our friend Ricardo from d.f. visited so it was fun and very relaxing. I
had a small kitchen (that was half indoors & half outdoors) so I did a lot
of cooking! and laying in a hammock under a jocote tree!and swimming in the
lake and walking through the corn fields that made up the paths through the
village. I learned a lot about getting by with a little.
I got back into the city last Saturday morning early - an overnight bus from
palenque and 3 nearly full days of rough traveling before that- so tiring!
We left san pedro in the afternoon tuesday b/c we had a lot of food to eat
and didn¥t want to leave. Ricardo was especially sad b/c he befriended about
15 local children. ( he said he felt like Michael Jackson! ) We stayed
tuesday night in panajachel (the most touristy & hip of the 13 villages) &
met some very friendly chinese-guatemalans & other travelers. When we left
Pana we had to take 4 insane chicken buses (at one point the road cutting
through the mountain was not paved)& a taxi to arrive at the border and then
another van to Comitan where we felt as we had arrived in the first world. A
beautiful clean mexican plaza, a pharmacy that made deliveries, public
phones, cable tv- MEXICAN tacos! very very nice. We said bye bye to ricardo
(he had to work Friday!) and made are way very slowly to Bonampak via the
frontier highway- which was wild! Our passports were checked at military
points 10 times in 10 hours! Bonampak was gorgeous. Its a fairly small
sight in the Lancandon jungle- discovered by outsiders only in 1946. There
are 3 small buildings covered with murals on the inside and all the other
temples.. Very impressive. In spots hard to read, but the colors are still
saturated and vibrant.
I am happy to be back in d.f. In my apartment, with a computer and nearly a
kitchen (rental apartments here don’t include stoves & refrigerators!),
parties to got & movies to see... I just get a new 180 day visa and I only
have enough money for another month or so...so I will be working on getting
a job. should I try to get a job with american airlines so I can come to nyc
on the weekends?& maybe they would sponsor my visa- but that would violate my rule of never working for corporations. For the immediate future, I think I will be teaching some english classes. How hard can that be, right?
Pedro de la Laguna, on the shores of Lago Atitlan- this magical crater lake
surrounded by mountains & volcanoes and 13 little pueblos Jorge and my mom and our friend Ricardo from d.f. visited so it was fun and very relaxing. I
had a small kitchen (that was half indoors & half outdoors) so I did a lot
of cooking! and laying in a hammock under a jocote tree!and swimming in the
lake and walking through the corn fields that made up the paths through the
village. I learned a lot about getting by with a little.
I got back into the city last Saturday morning early - an overnight bus from
palenque and 3 nearly full days of rough traveling before that- so tiring!
We left san pedro in the afternoon tuesday b/c we had a lot of food to eat
and didn¥t want to leave. Ricardo was especially sad b/c he befriended about
15 local children. ( he said he felt like Michael Jackson! ) We stayed
tuesday night in panajachel (the most touristy & hip of the 13 villages) &
met some very friendly chinese-guatemalans & other travelers. When we left
Pana we had to take 4 insane chicken buses (at one point the road cutting
through the mountain was not paved)& a taxi to arrive at the border and then
another van to Comitan where we felt as we had arrived in the first world. A
beautiful clean mexican plaza, a pharmacy that made deliveries, public
phones, cable tv- MEXICAN tacos! very very nice. We said bye bye to ricardo
(he had to work Friday!) and made are way very slowly to Bonampak via the
frontier highway- which was wild! Our passports were checked at military
points 10 times in 10 hours! Bonampak was gorgeous. Its a fairly small
sight in the Lancandon jungle- discovered by outsiders only in 1946. There
are 3 small buildings covered with murals on the inside and all the other
temples.. Very impressive. In spots hard to read, but the colors are still
saturated and vibrant.
I am happy to be back in d.f. In my apartment, with a computer and nearly a
kitchen (rental apartments here don’t include stoves & refrigerators!),
parties to got & movies to see... I just get a new 180 day visa and I only
have enough money for another month or so...so I will be working on getting
a job. should I try to get a job with american airlines so I can come to nyc
on the weekends?& maybe they would sponsor my visa- but that would violate my rule of never working for corporations. For the immediate future, I think I will be teaching some english classes. How hard can that be, right?
Friday
Have you ever had chiles en nogada?
We spulrged at a historic restaurant the hosteria santo domingo so my sister could sample chiles en nogada- a patriotic dish of stuffed pobalanos (green) with a creamy walnut & almond sauce (white) sprinkled with pomegranate seeds (red). The peppers are stuffed with ground pork/beef, pineapples, pears, peaches, apples, platanos, onion,pine nuts, cinnamon, raisins. Its a little odd & delicious. Though I am always disappointed with the expensive restaurants. I would much rather be blown away by a 25 peso lunch or those fantastic blue corn quesadillas that you can find on the street.- stuffed with prehispanic delicacies like, huitlacoche or nopales or tinga...
I think so many mexican foods are better the second time around. Like obleas, those wafers filled with goats milk caramel & HUITLACOCHE (corn smut) & tequila with squirt (that nytime article)
We spulrged at a historic restaurant the hosteria santo domingo so my sister could sample chiles en nogada- a patriotic dish of stuffed pobalanos (green) with a creamy walnut & almond sauce (white) sprinkled with pomegranate seeds (red). The peppers are stuffed with ground pork/beef, pineapples, pears, peaches, apples, platanos, onion,pine nuts, cinnamon, raisins. Its a little odd & delicious. Though I am always disappointed with the expensive restaurants. I would much rather be blown away by a 25 peso lunch or those fantastic blue corn quesadillas that you can find on the street.- stuffed with prehispanic delicacies like, huitlacoche or nopales or tinga...
I think so many mexican foods are better the second time around. Like obleas, those wafers filled with goats milk caramel & HUITLACOCHE (corn smut) & tequila with squirt (that nytime article)
Monday
cinco de mayo report
5.12.o3
cuautitlan izcalli
okay, so every time i try to type up the stories of my recent adventures in a hotmail message, i type for 20 minutes and then the message vanishes. this combined with weird mexican keyboards & mice and slow internet connections has caused me to storm out of several cyber cafes. i was so spoiled by my imac and dsl line at fluid. i know!
so i am so sorry i have not written to. here i go again...with yahoo mail and a bit of cut and paste...
the tv just said that it is the hottest spring in mexico in 50 years. i am at jorge's moms house. we just ate mole...soon we will take the 2 hour bus ride back to mexico city...we finally found an agreeable hotel, after staying at 4 different ones in the last 10 days. its perfect: old, a bit rundown with big rooms, walk-in closets & windows overlooking a tranqul park that's behind a 16th century museum.
mexico city is wild! i'll have been here 2 weeks on tuesday and already my new shoes are destroyed! i am constantly tumbling while looking at some beautiful old balcony or trying to identify the aroma of some tropical fruit and not paying attention to the 14 inch drop in the sidewalk...other that that and the never forgiving sun, mexico city is treating me very well.
there were holidays last weekend, so friday afternoon we traveled by bus to Veracruz, this old port city on the gulf known for dirty beaches and amazing seafood.
we arrived close to midnight and it was steamy! like walking into a sauna- and it being a holiday there were no hotel rooms. after an hour in a taxi another driver directed us to a "motel" - like pay by the hour style- it was actually fine, a little expensive but very classy with a mirror above the bed, a/c that sounded like a volkswagen, a place to hide your car, a neon paint job, and black lights (very cool cause I was wearing Day-Glo underwear & that psychedelic pink dress- always dressed for the occasion you know!). we sweated our way through the night and morning (the food: amazing ceviche style seafood salad with tons of chile & avocado, weird fried fish eggs, shrimp in chipotle & lots of cold beer!!)
...and hopped another bus for catemaco- 3 hours south through some mountains to this gorgeous lake. Again no reservations, no hotel room. While calling every hotel in the guide book, this cutie young taxi driver gave us puppy dog eyes and we ignored him...after hanging up the last time, we met Polo -who rented us a room in his house (after confirming that we were married?) and guided us all around in his taxi. Polo was very cool- had lived in texas & d.f. & was related to the whole town. Its so special being able to stay with a local family. You would think it would be awkward- i was a little worried...Polo & his wife had 3 children under the age of 4 and shared the house with their mother and its like 100 degrees with humidity. but no everyone is cool with lots of people under one roof. We were awoken to children playing. Then Polo's mother ran across the street to buy Nescafe for my coffee habit and gave me nata- the cream from the top of the milk on toasted white bread. mmmm.
On cinco de mayo Polo borrowed a cool custom van and got out his cd collection (mostly bass rattling stuff he had picked up in texas) took us to some waterfalls and the whole family to another little town that had a rural spa called a balenario- spring fed swimming pools in the shade of bamboo & mango trees. After seeing the falls, we picnicked with the whole family at the balenario . I felt like the only gringa to have passed through there in a while! Polo's mom made the local specialties: monkey meat (really a bbq pork) & freshwater snails in salsa & drank a giant beer called a caguama- literally a giant turtle, actually a liter of beer. it was so great! they were so generous!
we also stayed a day at a beautiful lakeside ecological reserve called Naciyaga. Home to the most northern tropical rainforest. i highly recommend this place to anyone who wants to chill out in nature. they have 8 or 10 little bungalows with hammocks & screen porches in the jungle on the lake. at night there was hardly anyone around. the only sounds were the singing of 20 million birds and other animals. Swimming in mineral water, a massage, a mud bath & the use of a canoe were included in the price $500 pesos (U$50) ...so far from nyc!!!
cuautitlan izcalli
okay, so every time i try to type up the stories of my recent adventures in a hotmail message, i type for 20 minutes and then the message vanishes. this combined with weird mexican keyboards & mice and slow internet connections has caused me to storm out of several cyber cafes. i was so spoiled by my imac and dsl line at fluid. i know!
so i am so sorry i have not written to. here i go again...with yahoo mail and a bit of cut and paste...
the tv just said that it is the hottest spring in mexico in 50 years. i am at jorge's moms house. we just ate mole...soon we will take the 2 hour bus ride back to mexico city...we finally found an agreeable hotel, after staying at 4 different ones in the last 10 days. its perfect: old, a bit rundown with big rooms, walk-in closets & windows overlooking a tranqul park that's behind a 16th century museum.
mexico city is wild! i'll have been here 2 weeks on tuesday and already my new shoes are destroyed! i am constantly tumbling while looking at some beautiful old balcony or trying to identify the aroma of some tropical fruit and not paying attention to the 14 inch drop in the sidewalk...other that that and the never forgiving sun, mexico city is treating me very well.
there were holidays last weekend, so friday afternoon we traveled by bus to Veracruz, this old port city on the gulf known for dirty beaches and amazing seafood.
we arrived close to midnight and it was steamy! like walking into a sauna- and it being a holiday there were no hotel rooms. after an hour in a taxi another driver directed us to a "motel" - like pay by the hour style- it was actually fine, a little expensive but very classy with a mirror above the bed, a/c that sounded like a volkswagen, a place to hide your car, a neon paint job, and black lights (very cool cause I was wearing Day-Glo underwear & that psychedelic pink dress- always dressed for the occasion you know!). we sweated our way through the night and morning (the food: amazing ceviche style seafood salad with tons of chile & avocado, weird fried fish eggs, shrimp in chipotle & lots of cold beer!!)
...and hopped another bus for catemaco- 3 hours south through some mountains to this gorgeous lake. Again no reservations, no hotel room. While calling every hotel in the guide book, this cutie young taxi driver gave us puppy dog eyes and we ignored him...after hanging up the last time, we met Polo -who rented us a room in his house (after confirming that we were married?) and guided us all around in his taxi. Polo was very cool- had lived in texas & d.f. & was related to the whole town. Its so special being able to stay with a local family. You would think it would be awkward- i was a little worried...Polo & his wife had 3 children under the age of 4 and shared the house with their mother and its like 100 degrees with humidity. but no everyone is cool with lots of people under one roof. We were awoken to children playing. Then Polo's mother ran across the street to buy Nescafe for my coffee habit and gave me nata- the cream from the top of the milk on toasted white bread. mmmm.
On cinco de mayo Polo borrowed a cool custom van and got out his cd collection (mostly bass rattling stuff he had picked up in texas) took us to some waterfalls and the whole family to another little town that had a rural spa called a balenario- spring fed swimming pools in the shade of bamboo & mango trees. After seeing the falls, we picnicked with the whole family at the balenario . I felt like the only gringa to have passed through there in a while! Polo's mom made the local specialties: monkey meat (really a bbq pork) & freshwater snails in salsa & drank a giant beer called a caguama- literally a giant turtle, actually a liter of beer. it was so great! they were so generous!
we also stayed a day at a beautiful lakeside ecological reserve called Naciyaga. Home to the most northern tropical rainforest. i highly recommend this place to anyone who wants to chill out in nature. they have 8 or 10 little bungalows with hammocks & screen porches in the jungle on the lake. at night there was hardly anyone around. the only sounds were the singing of 20 million birds and other animals. Swimming in mineral water, a massage, a mud bath & the use of a canoe were included in the price $500 pesos (U$50) ...so far from nyc!!!
Hello friends,
As you may know I am seizing this opportunity after 2 years of working for the man in nyc to take myself traveling!
After two wonderful vacations this year in mexico & central america, I want to spend some time poking around & maybe understanding these places a little better. Some of the projects that I will be working on over the next 6 months are:
* learn how to make a proper mole pobalano
* brush up on my dancing skills
* eliminating tan lines
* soften the tough skin I have grown over 3 years in nyc
* use my new video camera to make some little movies
* read those books that have been piling up on my nightstand
For more information please contact me at misslindsaydunn@hotmail.com
Love, Lindsay
As you may know I am seizing this opportunity after 2 years of working for the man in nyc to take myself traveling!
After two wonderful vacations this year in mexico & central america, I want to spend some time poking around & maybe understanding these places a little better. Some of the projects that I will be working on over the next 6 months are:
* learn how to make a proper mole pobalano
* brush up on my dancing skills
* eliminating tan lines
* soften the tough skin I have grown over 3 years in nyc
* use my new video camera to make some little movies
* read those books that have been piling up on my nightstand
For more information please contact me at misslindsaydunn@hotmail.com
Love, Lindsay
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