Finally, a rundown of my trip to Mexico - Pics included

Oops, I should clarify that when I say that I think it's a tad bit pathetic to write fan letters that I mean for full-blown adults. Writing to favorite actors/musicians/athletes is completely acceptable when a child or a teenager or even into college. The actor to whom I was referring yesterday is not really the type to appeal to anybody under the age of 30. So, I'm picturing pathetic women who think if they send him a holiday greeting that he'll want to meet them or whatever. Long letters to Wil Wheaton are perfectly acceptable! ;-) Especially when hand-written notes and autographed photographs are the end result.

I have the picture CDs from Mexico! Woohoo! Of course, now I've forgotten everything I did in Mexico. No, not really.

Monday, Oct. 31 – We got a late start (not in the least bit surprising and a regular theme), so it was 1:00 p.m. by the time we got to Artesanía to buy souvenirs. All I really wanted were these very cool TINY animals made from straw (?). I have one that I got when I was there in 1979 (or was 1983?) and it's just so tiny, it's hard to imagine someone able to make something that tiny that looks like the animal it's representing. No luck. Mom found herself an Aztec calendar ring. I wanted one, but they were all too big. It does not pay to have thin fingers in this world, if you want to buy off-the-rack silver rings. If I owned a digital camera, I could take pics of the fun stuff I bought and post them, but since I don't… When I was in Mexico back during the January cruise I had seen this very cool necklace of the Aztec calendar but since it was a highly traveled tourist area, they wanted a stupid amount of money for it. I left it there. I finally found one and although it was still more money than I thought I wanted to pay, I realised that I really did want it and I'm very glad I bought it (I'm wearing it today…ooh, I could use the work camera to take a picture of it – but I wouldn't bet money on it happening). I got myself a very cool Mexico t-shirt (red and green – colors of Mexico, not just Christmas). I also bought Ursamajor a very pretty pewter dish to thank her for taking me to and picking me up from the airport. It's so incredibly helpful that she moved in downstairs. Of course, I was unable to return the favor when she asked because I had family stuff happening, so who knows if she'll ever want to take me again. ;-)

Here is a pic of J and me outside Artesanías.



After we were done shopping we went for ice cream. J wanted to introduce us to elote ice cream which is corn on the cob ice cream. He was a little upset with me when I ordered a tamarindo nieve as this was the only place to get elote ice cream. I tried to explain to him that although tamarind is very popular in Mexico, I can't get it in the States (at least Michigan, as far as I know) and that I developed a taste for tamarind when I visited in 1979. He was still annoyed with me, but I was very happy with my tamarind nieve. I tried Mom's elote ice cream and although it was good, it didn't thrill me.

Tuesday was spent doing touristy stuff I hadn't done when I was there previously which was very cool. We went to the Museo Casa de Frida Kahlo which was incredibly fascinating. The main exhibit while we were there were the letters she wrote to a doctor she met when in San Francisco, Leo Eloesser. They corresponded for many years and in one letter from Detroit (when Diego Rivera was painting his murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts) expressed her deep dislike for the United States – paraphrased "Detroit is as ugly as the rest of the United States." I was pleased for my hometown.

I was amused by the letters (all written in Spanish) because for the first number of years she addressed him with the formal Usted (you) vs. the informal tu (also you). I was more amused by the letter (after about 12 years of letter writing – if I remember correctly) that began: Doctorcito muy lindo de mi Corazon. We giggled over that for the rest of our visit. Roughly translated it means: Dearest Doctor Most Beautiful of my heart. It's a little hard to translate as we Americans don't usually get quite so flowery in our letter salutations. The museum also contained a number of painful looking corsets which she wore after her bus accident.

From there we went on to the Plaza de Coyoacán and since it was a holiday (All Saints Day), there were lots of people and artesanos there. We saw indigenous dancers.



If someone knows how to re-orient my pictures so they show up correctly, I'd accept all help, thankfully.

Went into the San Juan Bautista (St. John the Baptist) Church.







Since it was a holiday there was more shopping set up huge tents. There were tables of artesanía from the rest of Latin America, each country having their own table, tables of food, clothes, etc. It was quite overwhelming really, but I finally found the little animals of straw that I wanted the day before. I got a burro (not as tiny as the one I got years ago), a cat (as teeny tiny as my old burro), and a lady carrying a basket on her head (which I seem to have lost). I kept the teeny tiny gatito for myself!

Mom and I also got our picture taken with the traditional Mexican Día de Muertos representatives: a skeleton and La Catrina.



After much wandering and another tamarindo nieve for me and real elote (corn on the cob) with mayo and cheese sprinkled on it (it was an interesting taste sensation) for Mom, we headed for the Museo Casa León Trotsky. Here are pictures of the house itself.

This is a picture of Trotsky's rabbit hutches:



Dia de Muertos altars at Trotsky's house which cracked me up as they were good Communists and totally not religious.



And a picture of his "tomb" – his ashes and his wife's Natalia's are in a little cache at the back. I made Mom take this picture.



Since I think the pictures are going to bog this down a touch, I'm splitting this up and will post Wednesday through Monday next.