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.