Mixed Mexican Bag (Fin de semanas)

Sunday two weeks ago, I agonized, anticipated and then celebrated the Spanish EUFA win in a restaurant, majority-occcupied by Spanish supporters, on Plaza de Madrid, in Mexico City (naturally, I was on the Italian side; they did a shitty job!). It wasn't a huge crowd, given how many Spaniards live in this city, though a joyous one!

That same weekend, my German neighbour Alexandra brought me to the Mercado San Juan, close to the Centro Historico. After enjoying an excellent cappuccino, we strolled the stalls, whose owners are highly adept at the traditional "try this, so fabulous; try that" routine, slicing and cutting up fruit etc. etc., so that, fool that I am, I bought! You can also enjoy a freshly made baguette sandwich with a plastic cup of wine there (we did, of course).

Last weekend, I finally made it to the Franz Mayer. The Franz Mayer? you'd ask. It is the museal legacy of a German immigrant from Mannheim, who settled in Mexico City in the mid-19th century, obviously had a fable for the arts decoratifs, made quite some money (finance) and spent it on building a collection, to be revered to this day. The museum space is lovely, a bit of a mixed bag collection, though with extraordinary exhibits, which you can then digest, sitting in a gorgeous courtyard, with your cup of tea of coffee. The current special exhibit focuses on the depiction of theVirtues and Vices/Sins, in the New World. Somehow so topical .... . Contemporary ceramics were exhibited on the first floor of the inner courtyard, which some striking pieces to enjoy! (The ceramic TV sets did it for me!).

Thanks to some friends from work I also enjoyed the first pop (as opposed to classical) concert in D.F.! The women (mostly) singing along with Carla Morrison, the folksy tunes so well arranged, t'was most touching to see. She's a passionate and a little chubby young woman, who moves and dances in a most wonderfully natural and engaging manner on the stage. No chi chi, no bla bla, just lot's of 'the man I love', 'the pain of having boyfriends'-type songs (or so I thought, my Spanish being what it is - I missed a lot - she's also passionate about changing her country!).

You may note I write ofweekends. As I have joined the 9-5 crowd, add an hour or two and having become a commuter, during the week there's nothing I'd rather do than 'chill'; Jan will appreciate that, being in the same boat in Hamburg, when I wasn't ... . 

This weekend, I had an errand to perform: Buy perfumes from a small stall in the city's main cathedral for Judith in Marseille. So I took the Metrobus 1, got off at Revolucion, stumbled on an open-air concert in a pretty square, hopped on Metrobus 4 to somewhere near the Main Square, finally got there, did my stuff and walked around the centro historico a little more. The Farmacia de Paris I'd seen before. This time I walked in. I was NOT alone! This is surely the most amazing pharmacy-cosmetics-household cleaning needs shopping experience to be had! I took the one photo of the cash register lights, but no more, as it is company policy not to allow photos being taken. Moving on, the Calle Regina is a very handsome pedestrian zone, along which stands a church, which, by its exterior walls, truly hides what it holds in store inside. In fact, this is very much a Mexican, and probably Spanish thing, this rather bland-facade-not-giving-you-a-clue-what's-behind type of architecture. Italians have balanced it a little better, the outside-inside relationship and were much better city planners besides. Be that as it may, as the only visitor to the church I was left alone with my flabbergastedness.

Last but certainly (1) not least, I came across a facade - a completely grotesque facade - full of grotesques! The Auricular kind (shell- or metallic-type forms), which was surely passed on from Holland, then Habsburg-Spanish, to the Spanish New World! What a feast this facade is, over-saturated with arty fats. Let's see what the next weekends will have in store?