My fave so far:
It’s on the north end of Condesa. Still looking at a few more places today, so we’ll see.
In case you wanted to see the reject pile….
…
Things I love about Mexico City today
1. The arcade inside the Chapultepec Metro station.
2. Finding pineapple preserves at a deli in La Roma.
3. That, if I’m feeling hungry on my apartment search, I can stop at a taco stand and get a taco de alambre, covered in spicy green salsa, for 35 cents. And then stand there and eat it on a plastic plate with everyone else, including two middle-aged women in slacks.
4. The fact that this salad only cost me $3:
5. The view from this apartment building’s rooftop deck:
6. That a man washing his car on the sidewalk, using a bowl to rinse it with water, will stop when I get close and turn and smile at me, and say “Pase.”
7. The purples and yellows and oranges of the buildings on Calle Tabasco, and their old-fashioned wrought-iron balconies.
…
A visit to Interlomas, aka The OC of Mexico City
Crayton woke up sick yesterday, so we took a taxi to see a doctor out in Interlomas, a suburb about 30 minutes west of here.
I’d heard that any DF neighborhood with “Lomas” in its name tends to be really nice, but I wasn’t expecting to find the place so Americanized. Concrete and steel office buildings mingled with high-rise apartment towers, Volkswagen car dealerships, strip malls with faux-Irish pubs, and the hugest Burger King I’ve ever seen. (I think the kiddie playground itself was two stories tall.)
The pic above was taken from the front steps of the Angeles Lomas hospital. It had valet parking, marble floors, flat-screen monitors in the elevator and very roomy bathroom stalls.
In the cab, I made the connection that “lomas” means hills, and that this place could very well be The Hills of Mexico City. (Couldn’t you see the Latina Lauren Conrad living in one of those towers?) Anyway, I thought that was clever and told Crayton. He said, “Nah, it’s more like Frisco.”
A water crisis in Mexico City, if you don’t have money
Last weekend, the city’s water crisis was all over the news. From what I gathered — and I’m still figuring out how to read newspapers in Spanish — the government planned to shut off water to certain neighborhoods during the last three days of the month, in order to conserve and fix problems with the water system.
I couldn’t ever figure out which neighborhoods would be affected, so I assumed we’d wake up Saturday morning without water. Which, for us, isn’t that huge of a deal — we have purified water to drink and cook with. (And showers, eh, they can wait on the weekend.)
So on Saturday, I turned on the faucets. They worked normally. Then I looked at the paper online. Some of DF’s outlying neighborhoods — where people can’t afford to buy water — didn’t have any.
The fact that these people had no water and we did made no sense to me. If you’re going to shut off water for conservation purposes, why not do it city-wide? I told this to a friend of mine, and she said the city would never shut off water in our neighborhood. Too many embassy employees live here.
Suddenly I felt bad for being so blase about the lack of water in the first place. Of course we can buy our own. We just walk down the street to the supermarket, or tell our doorman we’re out, and boom. It’s there. It’s so easy to forget that there are thousands of people who can’t do this.
Of course, this raises the eternal question about Mexico, which is why so many people here still live in poverty, while the rich — or even solidly middle-class — lead normal first-world lives. It’s part of what makes the city so chaotic and fascinating, with entrepreneurs crowding the subways and the neighborhood knife-sharpener whistling down the street. But the concept of having so much more than so many other people is a hard thing to get used to. I don’t know that I ever will, to be honest.
I was chatting with Lola, our housekeeper, the other day and she mentioned she had a 12-year-old daughter. “But only one,” she said. “I didn’t want another because it’s too tough in this world.”
Super Mario Bros., cumbia style
Too fantastic for words.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK3DZAJ-ZPs&hl=en&fs=1]
Via: The City Loves You
You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub, mamma I got whatcha need, if you need to clean your dentures
Spotted in our local supermarket:
An ode to conchas at Bondy in Mexico City
Oh soft concha pillow
Quilted with cocoa and sugar
One crackling bite
She swoons
Dreams of lolling around on its gauzy mounds
Is there such a word as “Yummerifico?”
I just invented it
Seriously: Bondy inspires poetry. We went there for breakfast this morning and the waiter immediately set down one of these huge trays of bread. After using my knife to cut a small piece of everything, including a honeyed donut, a cinnamon roll, a cheese-stuffed pastry and said poetic conchas (they’re the dark brown rolls above), I ordered my real breakfast: Scrambled eggs with ham and rajas, or strips of grilled poblano pepper.
Oh god. The tangy, charred peppers, the smoky ham… where had this combination been all my life? It’s hangover food Numero Uno. (We stayed out a little late last night.) I am so making this at home when we get a kitchen. Crayton had huevos divorciados — poached eggs on soft corn tortillas, one doused in green sauce, the other in red sauce.
I did actually say “yummerifico” when we finished eating. I know you’re not surprised.
My first Mexico City tacos
The start of a beautiful relationship.
These came from a place in el Centro around 9:30 last night. They’re tacos de cachete, or beef cheek. I’m on a mission to try every part of the cow. Next stop: “tacos de nana,” or uterus.
Crossing the street and trying not to get killed
One of the most time-consuming decisions I make every day is deciding when to cross the street. No one really follows the traffic laws around here, so even if you’re crossing legally, with the light, someone might still bear down on you like you don’t exist.
So when can you actually go?
Obviously, when there’s a break in traffic. But that’s not the case 90 percent of the time. My second day here I misjudged the distance of an oncoming car and got so scared, I froze in the middle of the street, like a deer in headlights. Luckily the guy let me go.
Lately I’ve done this weird half-hesitation, half-step-into-the-street thing, and I think it just makes people nervous. Drivers slow down and look at me like, “What the hell are you doing?” I’ve also tried following other people, but sometimes they’re maniacs who step in front of moving cars. (Sorry, can’t do that yet.) Crayton says you just have to cross at the slightest gap in traffic, and that you can’t hesitate or they’ll run you over. I say: You do your thing, I’ll do mine.
Funnily enough, on my apartment search today, I was chatting with the broker about how I’m too scared to drive in Mexico City. She said, half-joking: “Oh no, walking is much more dangerous.”
Added to the list of torta places to check out…
Sorry part of the sign is cut off — I was standing in the median while I took this. Saw this place this morning on Calle Homero, on my way back from my very first Gold’s Gym “Body Pump” class. (As a totally unrelated sidenote, I had a VERY animated instructor named Wendy who kept yelling “Pompa, pompa” — as in English-ized “pump, pump”? — or “bomba, bomba,” as in, this stuff is hard, it’s like a bomb dropped on your head. In either case, I will be back. Preferably not the same day I eat a torta.)