RGVP Trip Day 3 - Mexico City

Today, we decided NOT to do the group tour thing so we ignored our 6 am wakeup call (we had tried unsuccessfully to cancel it I guess) and woke up instead about 9. We hopped the subway and went to Parque Chapultepec and went to see the Catillo de Chapultepec and the monument there to the Niños Héroes. The monument is in memory of the cadets - espeically 6 key ones - during the Mexican American War on 13 September 1847 in the Battle of Chapultepec. As the battle appeared to be going to the US, one of the cadets went to the top of the castle, took down the Mexican flag, wrapped it around himself and jumped to his death to keep the Americans (ok Norte Americanos) from taking the flag. Most of the furnishings in the castle today are from the period when Maximillian was in residence there in 1864. A number of stained glass windows run throughout the castle and there is a beautiful garden on TOP of the castle.


From there we took the subway to the south of Mexico City - Coyoacán where we ate sushi. We then walked another 10 or so blocks to the Blue House (La Casa Azul) of Frida Kahlo. Frida, while a well recognized artist today, was not nearly as famous during her life as her husband, artist Diego Rivera. There is a very good and apparently at least somewhat factual movie about her called Frida (starring Salma Hayek). It is a very moving movie about her life - her early years including a very serious bus accident which nearly robbed her of her life and almost that of her ability to walk, her original meeting and subsequent marriage to Diego Rivera, and their own on again off again relationship that lasted the rest of her life. Some of her work, some of his work and some of his pottery collection are on display there.


From there we again took the subway (now VERY full although still not packed) to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the premier opera house of Mexico City (and probably all of Mexico). Next to it is the Torre Latinoamericana which was the tallest building in Mexico City when it was built in 1956 until it was eclipsed in 1984. We knew the weather was changing and the ran was coming as we watched the rats in the park in front of both buildings digging into the soil and trying to get out of its way.


From there, we walked about 10 blocks to the Zocalo where the Mexican equivalent to the whitehouse - Palacio Nacional is. There was a really cool church there as well (Catedral Metropolitana). While on the way there it had begun to rain - not hard - but enough - and COLD ... Crossing the Zocalo to go back to the subway, we noticed a group of young boys (teens to twenties) dressed similarly with their arm bands, Mexican and swastika flags, posing for a picture doing their Heil Hitler. No matter how much the world changes, I guess some things just stay the same. They had folded up their flags before I could get a picture ... I guess they didn't want the flag to get wet.


We caught the subway and came back to the hotel. We had a group dinner this evening - that was part of our package ... We went to a nice Italian restaurant just a few blocks from the hotel and the fool was exceptional. Back to the room ... Mario headed out to the bars, and I'm typing up this blog and headed to bed very very soon. (Another 6 o'clock day tomorrow.)