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Unfortunately we've been very dissatisfied with BLOGGER and thus have moved our blog to WORDPRESS. Please update your links and bookmarks accordingly and find us here! (including Mary E's newest post!)

http://playingandeatingflautasinmexico.wordpress.com/

El hombre de gas (revisited)

The gas man sounds (sort of) like a very elongated version of the first word of this.

You Can't Always Get What You Want...

          As is customary is ANY new locale, not everything works immediately like clockwork . For example, we had plans to visit the City Auditorium to see Fritz Lang's classic, expressionist, sci-fi film Metropolis with the score performed live by the México City Phil., but on the morning of the concert we were chagrined to find out that the tickets promptly sold out. I can't think of any large arts venue in the US (showing something comparable) that would have sold out...maybe for John Williams and Star Wars, but not for an art film, at least not in a large venue. Well, now we know (early in our adventures) to get our tickets in advance where possible. Fortunately, there are plenty more recitals and orchestra concerts.
          We also planned to run in Chapultepec Forest (bosque), but the altitude here makes for thinner air, to which we are not accustomed. Thus, an approximately 1.5-2 mile run on a previous morning turned out to be grueling! (An aside: I suppose that we'll eventually switch over to the Metric system, but it's a slow process where we're only just starting to measure in grams at the grocery, butcher, tortilla maker, etc. When we go back to the US, people will think that we're drug dealers, yay! [read: more sarcasm.]) We are going to keep running to see if we can get used to it. It's a strange sensation to run and feel like you breathe deeply, but you only get a shallow-breath's-supply of air. To us, 3 breaths take the place of 1 good, deep breath.
          Also, two nights ago we ran out of water. No, "those wacky, spoiled gringos" did not overuse the water, ALL of our building was without. We weren't really worried because apparently this happens occasionally, but we hoped that this was the common scenario and not the rare situation where we would need a plumber. We therefore did not get up to run that morning because we didn't know if the shower would be available, but the water came back by the afternoon and we were able to shower away all of those worries along with dirt, oil, and dead skin cells.
           "No, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find [that] you get what you need!" ~ The Rolling Stones (fade out)...
          We're getting in shape (hopefully) to run on Calle Reforma, which is closed to automobile traffic on Sundays from 8-2 to become a bike and pedestrian pathway. Though we did not make it out there for a run (or bike ride...more on that in a later post) we did visit Reforma by way of the popular area Zona Rosa!
          I think that I speak for both of us when I say that neither of us were enchanted with Zona Rosa, which is upscale and touristy. We did like the specific area designated for antique shops, though we only felt safe to window shop. Zona Rosa is also home to a major GLBT community, particularly their nightclubs, but primarily we recognized all of the following familiar entities: Marriott, Sheridan, Best Western, Hertz, McDonald's, Chili's (really!!!!!???? A Chili's in México? WHY!?), Starbucks, KFC, a mall, and so forth. To quote Mary E., "¡Que horrible!"
          There are some decent shops and restaurants there too, to be sure. We probably won't go back without taking guests, but it's convenient to know what's there. We walked around a bit, bought an inexpensive DVD that will work on the Region 4 encoded Blu-ray player in our apartment (Our US & Canada Region 1 movies will not play here. The movie that we purchased is Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar's Hable con Ella because we really enjoyed his film Volver), visited El Ángel (the angel of México's independence), and capped off the day with some frozen yoghurt.
          The Angel is really cool and a symbol of pride for the whole city. There, Mary E mocked my camera skills, but (in my defense) it is really hard to get a full subject's body in the photo along with the full vista of the statue.
           As regards froyo, the flavors here are vastly different from the ones in the US. Some of the choices included lychee (lichi) (an asian fruit), Méxican cajeta (like caramel, sort of), cinnamon, plantains, toasted almonds, etc. The yoghurt was ok, but we prefer helado!
          There is also a market there, but we've learned that it's overpriced compared to the other mercados in the city, and the vendor's are pushy there too. We much prefer the mercado in Coyoacán. In fact, we recently went back there and purchased a few small things for the apartment, but we can write more about that another time.

More School??!!

I know I’m posting a second blog for today, so I hope our readers won’t mind! As Jeff already mentioned, I have now been to school a couple of times and think we might have finally found a good way to actually get there, which is good. For those of you who are reading and don’t know why we’re here, I was lucky enough to receive a Fulbright grant to do research and performance of contemporary Mexican music for flute this year with one of the forerunners of contemporary music here, flutist/composer Alejandro Escuer. ENM (Escuela Nacional de Música) started classes last week and Friday was my first day there. I’m not actually enrolled in classes but will be participating in Alejandro’s Seminario de Análisis, which meets on Fridays. It was a very interesting class but it’s very strange to sit in on a class in a foreign language. I was actually pretty happy because I was able to follow along relatively well, but there were definitely some things that went over my head! Overall, I think it will be very interesting and will definitely be helpful in learning Spanish.

Tuesdays are “flute days” at ENM, which I attended today. Alejandro does group lessons here, which means that on Tuesdays, there is a large block of time where he teaches everyone in the studio. Students can come and go as they please so lessons are open. It’s very different than what I’m used to but I found it very useful for getting to know the teaching style and I enjoyed getting to hear everyone in the studio play. The piece that I have been working first since being here is one that needs editing, so Alejandro and I will be working on editing it for the composer, which is pretty cool. I’m currently making a list of pieces to learn—it’s looking like it’s going to be a busy but hopefully productive year!

On a side note, remember a previous blog where Jeff mentioned that there are people that walk around the streets and have specific calls for selling their wares? Well there is one call that Jeff and I have laughed about since being here because it’s a guy that (and we have no idea what he is actually saying) calls out much like how Jeff likes to mimic Lois’ father in Family Guy on the episode where he says, “Weelllllll, guess it’s time to be saddlin’ on up!” We finally saw the man today and it turns out that he is the gas man. If you buy gas for your stove and hot water you have to listen for his call, which really does sound like “Weeeelllllllll!” For those of you who know Jeff, you know that he thinks this is awesome!

Vamos a la playa...or, er, la escuela

We’ve now taken almost every form of public transportation available in the city: the Metro (México’s subway [though we found out today that some lines go above ground like the “T” in Boston]), Metrobús (which is actually like a subway-bus-hybrid because they run on reserved lanes in the center of the street, and their terminals are like mini-subway stations in the middle of the street at various intersections along North-South or East-West lines), and Paseo (which are little busses that run more like traditional commuter busses, or “the short bus”, that we have in the U.S., except that each Paseo lists the direction that they travel and the stops that they make on the front side of the bus, but there isn’t really a system to it, so no Paseo driver knows anyone else’s route but their own!)

Good luck trying to find information on Paseos online!

I think that the only other forms of transportation are other kinds of busses than the Metrobús, but we haven’t been able to figure out their system yet. In some ways, they seem like large Paseos because many of them list their stops in the same way, but I know that they are not the same, and I’m not sure what the difference is or how to find out.

If it sounds confusing…it is! Well, it is if you’re a gringo like us.

Mary E’s school is “conveniently” (read: sarcasm) located a bit out of the way from all of these forms of transportation. Right now it seems like our best bet is to travel a bit longer (and technically out of the way) on the Metro, with one line-change, and then our Metro stop (General Anaya on Linea 2) is about a 15 minute walk to the school. The walk is along a park in what seems to be a nice enough area of Coyoacán. It’s possible that we can hitch a Paseo to go between the stop and the school, but we’re not going to travel in a fashion that is too complicated, too quickly. The past times that we’ve attempted to go back and forth, if we try to take a more direct route, we sometimes end up taking all 3 of the above modes of transportation with some considerable walking anyway. The method that I just mentioned seems like the simplest solution (i.e. taking the Metro a little out of the way and then walking back a bit, which doesn’t really cost us any more time than any other option that we’ve seen so far.)

Mary E’s school, Escuela Nacional de Música (of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), or ENM/UNAM (ENM), appears to consist of 2 large, stone buildings. The main building consists of classrooms, a library, a cafeteria, offices, a little bookstore, and other yet unexplored areas. Once inside, you can walk outside again from the direction of the office across a fenced-in courtyard to an annex building with rehearsal rooms, practice rooms, and again, other unexplored areas. The main building is interesting because, once inside, you’re still technically outside (there’s no roof!) There are areas that are under cover, like the library, and there are awnings that surround the classroom hallways (3 floors of rooms), but I must admit that it is strange to walk inside a building and see people smoking because, at that point, you’re still really outside (and it will be very weird when it rains INSIDE!)

Like I said in my previous post, I’ll have to let Mary E tell you more about her experiences so far at ENM, which are more substantial than mine. In my first visit, I felt overwhelmed, like a fish out of water. I walked around and found some interesting areas and offices, but I felt my inability to communicate more than I have since we arrived here. It’s one thing to be able to buy food, other goods, or tell a waiter that the food tastes great or you’re full, but here, I find myself in a research institution of the field in which I specialize, and I just kind of choked up and felt very shy.

Since then, I have now met Mary E’s teacher, Dr. Alejandro Escuer, who was very kind in recommending that I get in touch with a trombonist friend of his, and who is interested in having me play some contemporary tuba music for his modern music class (and hopefully working with some composers, if they are intrigued by my choice in music). I also met the tuba teacher and player of the Mexico City Phil, Dwight Sullinger, who is a long-time friend of my former teacher, Don Harry, at Eastman. He took Mary E and me out to lunch, and we chatted for a while about music and México City. I will hopefully get to observe him teach and play, and maybe do some teaching myself, if I’m lucky. Today is my second time at ENM, and I was much more productive and comfortable, and I imagine Mary E had a better experience too.

So much food...so little time.

Tuesdays are rapidly becoming one of our favorite days because there is a wonderful outdoor market that occurs just about a block away from our apartment! We’ve included a photo of what we bought this time (and Schubert inspecting the goods as per usual), all of which cost us about $10 USD. Don’t let our shopping success fool you, we are still sticking out like a sore thumb, but we are doing our best to be inconspicuous by carrying lots of small change (even though cien pesos [$100 MEX] = only about $9 USD, it’s not always necessarily that any particular vendor will carry sufficient change for the bill) and learning the names of the vegetables en Español. Our not wanting to be seen as turistas is partially why we don’t have photos of the actual market (the other part is that I'm lazy.)

This time we even bought a few dulces (not only does México have tons of history and culture, but perhaps most importantly they have wonderfully decadent sweets.) So far we’ve been having a lot of fruit for breakfast (which is the norm): cantaloupe and papaya; and with the rest of our bounty, we made a homemade marinara sauce for spaghetti and we also made ranchero sauce that we’ve been putting on tacos, tostadas, enchiladas, and eggs (huevos rancheros!) [By the way, spell check in English is perplexed by the word tostada and wants it to be "dastard"!]

“We now interrupt your regularly scheduled reading to bring you your weekly gringo moment…the jalapeños that we bought at the market were so picante that after I boiled them, I think I went through almost an entire box of tissues!”

Even though Coyoacán was the title of our last post, we’ve actually been back twice since our first week. Recently, we met a new friend who lives there, Rebecca, and she kindly took us out to dinner at a Cantina and gave us some insider tips on the City. At the cantina, we tried some yummy appetizers with Cactus (nopales) and chicharrón, and then the bartender (or owner?) came over to chat with us and generously let us taste Mezcal, which is an indigenous alcoholic beverage. This particular Mezcal tasted smokier than tequila, but packed a punch. As is traditional, this Mezcal was from Oaxaca, and was also served traditionally with orange slices and a special mixture that includes chili powder, salt, and fried larvae! (This is not my favorite beverage, but still very interesting.) After the meal, we walked around a bit and got amazing churros. Apparently, Coyoacán is THE PLACE for churros, which were much better than the ones that are sold in our colonia. Mine contained a dulce de leche filling and Mary E’s had chocolate, but we might have to go back and try all of the fillings, in due time.

Today Mary E had her first class at the Escuela Nacional de Música, also in Coyoacán, but I think that I will let her tell you all about it…same Méxican time, same Méxican channel. Things slow down a bit this weekend for us, here is an impression of me doing my share of the cleaning:

Coyoacán

Today we made our first venture farther away from our place alone! Every weekend, there is a wonderful open-air market in a section of the city called Coyoacán, which is actually where the school I will be attending is located. It's a decent distance from our place. We successfully navigated the Metro system (!) and then had about a 20 min. walk from our stop to the market area. Actually, we got a little lost on our walk but it was good because we ended up stopping at a librería (bookstore) to buy a Guia Roji, which was recommended by the Fulbright organization. It is a book of maps of the city and the Metro--completely indispensable!

Coyoacán is a beautiful, very quiet neighborhood, so it was a scenic walk (once we were going in the right direction!). There were tons of people walking around the market area enjoying the day. We made a couple of purchases and then had lunch at Sanborns so that I could have my long-desired favorite dish, chilaquiles. Sanborns is a chain here so I'm sure that I can find better chilaquiles elsewhere but since it's the first place where I ate them, I have a soft spot for their particular recipe :) Afterwards, we walked around some more and made a stop at the famous Café El Jarocho, a very popular coffee shop in the area. Jeff gave the coffee two thumbs up :) I've posted some pictures of the square below:

We walked through this two-story area for awhile. They were playing music over the loudspeakers and lo and behold, Careless Whisper came on! For those of you who haven't seen the amazing Sexy Sax Man parody video of this George Michael song, you must watch: 

More pictures--it's so lovely here!

Jeff with his café from Café El Jarocho.

¡La fiesta en la casa de los nuevos!

Last night was very long, but so much fun! We left our apartment at about 7:30 P.M. and walked across the colonia to a cantina specializing in cuisine from the Yucatan Peninsula. There was some debate as to whether or not this particular cantina has the best and most authentic food from that region in the city (next to actually going to Mérida), but there was no question that the food was splendid. Here in D.F., they eat a lot of meat, which makes sense given the location in the country, but interestingly enough in Mérida, despite their proximity to the ocean, in addition to seafood they also eat a lot of meat...A LOT!

Mary-Elizabeth ordered some food with which we were familiar and have become some of our favorites: sopa di lima and panuchos de cochinita. I don't remember the particular details, but there are very specific differences between lemons, limes, and green lemons. I ordered some other traditional food that we had yet to try: sopa de maderna (bone marrow soup) and los papadzules, which are enchilada-like, stuffed with hard boiled egg, and topped with an interesting sauce that I believe contained processed nuts.

We had long conversations with many new friends on so many topics that my brain reached its capacity early in the evening. As for what I remember, apparently it is common for everyone to have a one-or-two-word nickname. For us, we were of course "los nuevos", and we got teased with the following chant: "¡La fiesta en la casa de los nuevos!" or simply "¡Los nuevos! ¡Los nuevos!" Everyone was joking in a fun way, however, as regards the word "casa", we also learned another interesting factoid. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the expression "Mi casa es su casa" ("My house is your house."), as are we, and I have always interpreted that saying to mean something like "Anything that I have is also yours if you want or need it." Here that expression can actually be taken literally, and apparently if one says that the party is at "su casa", it can actually be quite confusing as to the actual location of the party, since my house IS your house, and vice versa!

We stayed up talking until close to 5:00 A.M., which is a first for me, but apparently not uncommon in México City. At that point, we called a Taxi Mex radio cab, which came quickly and took us right home for a very reasonable price. Today we've been laying low and trying to recuperate from a fun, but exhausting night.

Pictures from inside the apt.:

Kitchen/dining area

Hallway from the kitchen/dining area to the rest of the apt. The door on the right is to the office/guest room and the door on the left is a bathroom. The green tiles that you see on the floor are one of my favorites features of the apt.! We have a skylight right above those, and those tiles filter the outdoor light from our skylight to the apt. below us. And Schubert likes to lay on them, so I'm sure that must create an interesting effect for our neighbor!

 Master bedroom

 Living room

This is the view I mentioned in my first blog post (2 days ago). You can see the church and part of the Palacio Nacional is on the right. The tents in the square are part of an ongoing protest.

Other side of the square.

Sometimes you wanna go where nobody knows your name

It's day 3 and we are basically unpacked and getting somewhat regimented with meals, cooking, cleaning, cat maintenance, etc. Last night, we went out with some friends (old and new) to the jazz club ZINCO for some drinks, conversation (primarily in Español) and some very cool (chido) music provided by the tango/klezmer-fusion trio TRES TRISTES TANGOS (consisting of a clarinet, accordion, and double bass, slapped so as to be the percussion as well). The club is actually located below the former BANCO DE MÉXICO, and we checked out the old vault that is located right by the dressing rooms! I thought that is was somewhat disorienting because we walked down to the club from an old, pedestrian Mexican road into a club that looks like a jazz club that could be located anywhere in the world (except that the stagehand, who otherwise looked very Mexican, had crazy, coiffed jet-black Snape-like hair that looked like a wig!).

I really love our apartment and find it comfortable and charming. I am attaching some photos of the orange exterior, and Mary E. will post some more pictures of the interior later. The hot water heater is located outside of our kitchen window. We turn it to CALIENTE about 15 minutes before showering, and then turn it back to FRIO for the rest of the day to save gas. We have a large bottle of water (like a water cooler) with a hand-pump in the kitchen that we take to local tienditas for refilling. That much water is actually quite inexpensive considering how much water you get. (In the U.S., we must be paying so much for all of the plastic used in the little bottles. Thus, the Mexican system is seemingly better in many ways.)

Today I also took out the trash, which is very fun. Los basureros come down the street once or twice a day at completely random times ringing a bell so loudly that you really can't miss it, and if you have trash that needs to be taken out, you stop what you are doing immediately and run down with the trash and about $20 (pesos). You don't need to separate out the recycling because los basureros do it for you! There are in fact a lot of traditional tradespeople in the city that come around randomly with different "calls" (e.g. The knife sharpener strolls down the street whistling at a very high pitch. In the same way, you run out with your knives and some pesos, and then he sharpens them for you. It's a pretty neat system.)

The mail is also funny here...it's nothing like in the U.S. The mail person comes occasionally and just drops the mail on a nearby windowsill. Residents periodically rifle through the papers and take their bills, but there isn't nearly as much mail as in the U.S. (no junk mail either!), and it is apparently a common occurrence not to even get a bill every month from certain utilities if they forget to send one out (it's very relaxed.)

More photos from Zamora, Col. Condesa to follow!

¡Bienvenido a México!

We made it! Despite all odds, our trip was surprisingly easy. The thing that took the longest was to get the cats approved for customs once we reached Mexico, but the only reason that took awhile was because their printer was acting up! Our friend Jorge (www.jorgesosa.com) met us at our new apartment (which is owned by his family) and helped us get settled. Our neighborhood is really nice and you can pretty much find anything that you need within walking distance. Just within two blocks of our apartment we have a laundromat, dry cleaners, ice cream shop, bakery, barber, gym, pharmacy, supermarket, tortilla stand, etc. And that's all just in one direction! There are numerous little places to eat as well, including a Chinese place that Jeff is particularly excited to try. Also on Tuesdays, we discovered that there is an open-air market just down the street where you can buy just about anything that you could want. The produce is amazing! Vendors were practically shoving samples at us and I have to say that I've never tasted such fantastic fruit before! We did have a great "gringo" moment when we were trying to buy plums (while having someone else attacking us with honeydew and cantaloupe) and apparently gave the vendor a peso note that is no longer in circulation. Many years ago, Jeff's grandparents visited Mexico and brought him pesos, so we just added them to our peso stash, not knowing that they wouldn't be in circulation now. So yeah, we have now established ourselves as the new village idiots :)

Yesterday after our trip to the market, Jorge took us out to see part of the city. It was so much fun! We went to a massive arts and crafts market where you can buy all sorts of beautiful things from blankets to jewelry to pottery, etc. Then, we headed to el centro (the center) of the city and had a couple of drinks on the roof of a hotel that overlooks the main square. The view includes the Palacio Nacional (National Palace), the Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción de María (Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary), and the Aztec ruins of Templo Mayor. We walked around the area and went through the cathedral, which is the oldest church in the Americas, dating back to 1570. We tried to go into the Palacio Nacional but it had already closed for the day. So, we went to a different restaurant also overlooking the square and had a truly awesome dinner.

Although everything is very different and we are still learning our way around, we are enjoying ourselves and think that we will be OK here. Our goal is to understand one more sentence every day that someone says to us without us having to stare blankly at them!