WomanOnHerBike: May 2018

Saturday, May 19, 2018

It was fun to watch the church being decorated with a door arch wreath of ferns, leaves, and tropical creepers. Then watching all the women guests in silk flounces, lots of lace overlays and trims, and stilettos or platform shoes. The men in business dress, everyone shaking hands, back slapping and giving a one cheek kiss.

1pm-ish wedding at El Carmel

In a side chapel

Lovely hand drawn frescoes

C16th Carmelite monastery in San Angel

Roller blades lessons at La Bombilla

Desayuno (breakfast) at Bakers in Roma Norte

Mexico City’s bike hire

The day rate is 99 pesos with time from 41-60 minutes at 12 pesos. There are dedicated bike lanes around town, and an experienced street smart rider should have few problems. Avoiding rush hour is a no brainer. Air pollution is an issue. People, in general, don't wear face masks. I would.

Friday, May 18, 2018

Girasoles for my kind hosts

200 pesos, $US 10 and change bought me five monster sunflowers from the flower seller off Avenida Insurgentes. He wanted 40 pesos per stem, and I gave him the asking price because I'm not sure if you bargain for flowers here. Probably, as he gave me a big smile and happily ran off to change my last 500 pesos note. Had I been able to communicate in Spanish maybe I could have gotten him to customize a bouquet of roses, gerberas, lilies and chrysanthemums, but I don't think my hosts will care. In Brooklyn, NY, their old home, likely they'd have to pay 50 bucks for these flores!

Ensalada for dinner

So hot this afternoon and I'm footsore from exploring. I never did make it to Chapultepec Park but I've seen more of Mexico City by getting lost. So it's a treat to eat outside once more as the evening progresses.

Dog walkers in Mexico City

Today's a transition day, as I'm quitting an unsatisfactory AirBnB a day early.

El 123

Vietnamese food for dinner.

Decaying former Irrigation commission office

Still grand.

Templo de San Francisco

This monastery was built on the site of Moctezuma's private zoo in the C16th.

Former Monastery of San Francisco

Casa de Los Azulejos (1596)

A tile covered house owned once by a count and now a Sanborn department store and restaurant. The man dressed in a brown uniform is an organ grinder playing for tips.

Gazpacho and limonada at the museum restaurant

Chucho Reyes’ restored cardboard and gouacmural, ca. 1951

Appealing folk art inspired: Chickens, horses, harlequins, devils with beating hearts. A commission from the 1950s

After Rouault

Chucho Reyes' religious themes inspired by others.

Chucho Reyes crepe paper man

Painted on Crepe Paper

From a temporary retrospective of a Guadalajaran muralist and papier-mâché artist Chucho Reyes, called La Fiesta del Color.

Rivera’s Carnaval de la Vida Mexicans

The panel on the left is Dictatorship, on the right is Mexico in Folklore and Tourism, and in the middle is Dance of the Huichilobo, a commentary on the violent meeting of the conquering Spanish and the prehispanic indigenous people.

Mexico for Independence and Democracy

One of the 3 parts of David Alfaro Siqueiros' murals on the north side of the Palacio.

Murals by Tamayo, Orizcos and Siqueiros

A very different world in the 1930s

Evil jazz age capitalists sucking down martinis while the huddled masses look on.

Four legs good, two legs bad

Diego Rivera at Palacio Bellas Artes

It's not exactly difficult to see why the original commissioned mural at Rockefeller Center in New York, El hombre en el cruce de caminos (Man at the Crossroads) was destroyed by the Rockefellers. There's a lot of political commentary going on.