Monday, October 20, 2008

Museo de Dolores Olmedo

The weekend of the 25th October, in between slagging off our landlord/satan and marking exam papers we took a trip to Xochimilco to visit the casa de Dolores Olmedo and go for lunch on the trajineras.
Having visited the Casa estudio the week before it is easy to see why Frida had so many problems with Diego as the house he purchased for his mistress (Dolores) is over twice the size of her blue studio. It is beautiful with huge gardens which have peacocks and Spanish, short haired dogs roaming freely (unfortuantely the dogs were not around the day of our visit as it had been raining - very Lindy/Blitzi of them).
In the gardens we saw some tradditional Mexican dances from all the different regions of Mexico.

Inside the house there was an exhibition based on Dia de los Muertos - the pictures below are blurred as taking photos is technically banned and so Zoe had to act fast.












The house also has a lot of Diego Rivera's work. He was a great artist, who uses big, simple shapes and brushstrokes with beautiful colours. Most of his work is still in Mexico City and so I am defintely looking forward to seeing more of it. There are also lots of photos in the house of Olmedo touring the world and mooching with different celebrities. It seems that being a bit of a tart worked very well for her. Below is a painting of her by Diego Rivera (like the postcard I bought):
After the musuem we went to the market to buy blue corn quesadillas and mamey (my new favourite fruit) to eat on the boats.


We floated about stopping at some of the markets and enjoying the views from the boats, searching for our names on them. Fortunately my name is Spanish enough and so the VIVA LAURITA boat does exist, oh yes! Although Zoe had no such luck.

As for Edgar, I have now moved out and live with another teacher from the school. However there will be no photos up here untill I have found a vacum.

That's all for now as I am off to the centre to celebrate Dia de los Muertos (today).

Sunday, October 12, 2008

San Angel & Coyoacan





















After a hectic week of organizing, changing, attending and (at times actually) teaching classes it was great to finally have a weekend free to visit some of the places I have been told so much about.

Yesterday morning in true tourist style we grabbed our Guidebooks and headed off to San Angel in the South of Mexico City. It's a beautiful place filled with cobbled streets, stunning Mexican architecture and markets selling Mexican jewellery, crafts and paintings.
For a while we walked around staring longingly and attempting to resist the urge to buy. Unfortunately I caved a teeny tiny bit and spent 35 pesos on things which, I confess I may have been able to live with out (note my shiny new hat way below :D ).

We then walked over to the Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, where the two artists used to live together in seperated buildings united by a connecting bridge from 1934 untill he slept with her sister and they got divorced in 1940 (yes, I too am stumped as to why that one didn't work out). They did later get back together.
The houses themselves were designed by Juan O'Gorman (nope, I hadn't heard of him) as a rejection of tradditional conservative architecture and "buen gusto" - good taste. I personally really liked them, with their bold colours and clear shapes and lines. They also take full advantage of the bright Mexican sun as the light streamed in through the windows making the rooms really bright - a great way to display the collection of artwork inside the house. Apparently people now claim that O'Gorman "se proponía hacer edificios feos, pero no lo lograba" -attempted to make ugly buildings, but failed (although I'm sure some sarcy people might believe he succeeded).



Being my mother's daughter, what made this trip even better is that now I am a legal teacher in Mexico I pay nada (always the best price) to visit museums and cultural sites and so this part of the day was totally free!

After we visited the museum we walked the 3-4kms from San Angel to Coyoacan for dinner, stopping by the churchyard in San Angel where there had just been a Quinceañera (Latin American 15th birthday celebration). The girl in question was dressed like a bride (although not in white) with her hair and make-up professionally done and all her family and friends gathered round her taking pictures and stuffing themselves on tradditional Mexican sweets. Unfortunately I didn't want to take any photos (although I would have probably just merged into the mass of Grandparents) of the Quinceañera, only the park:






Coyoacan is another beautiful part of Mexico City. It also has another of Frida Kahlo's homes, which I tried to visit last Monday. This is the day when Pat and I discovered that on Mondays everything in Mexico City is shut. However we managed to take some photos before we gave up and went to a bar and below is one taken that day:


On Saturday nights, Coyoacan is full of people and has a real atmosphere and so it was great to come back. Fortunately, my Spanish teacher had told me this week all about a coffee shop, El Jarocho famous for selling the best coffee in Mexico City (my Spanish teacher has the most amazing ability to go completely off topic at the mention of either food or British music - it really couldn't be easier for me). The coffee comes from Veracruz and the queue for the coffee goes all the way down the street. The coffee is pretty strong stuff, comes with a loads of foam and sprinkled with cinnamon - it's also half the price of Starbucks and twice as nice.



Anyways all in all it was a great day. I wish I could say today will be as interesting but unfortunately my class has an exam next week and the only thing more boring than revising for an exam is teaching people how to revise for an exam that I'M NOT EVEN TAKING!

Saturday, October 4, 2008

End of CELTA

After 4 weeks of observed teaching practices, assignments and evaluations the CELTA course is now finally over and I am starting work at International House next week. To celebrate the end of the course IH provided beer etc on the terrece for the CELTA students (most of whom are in the front of the photo) and our voluntary students. It was a good end to the course and a good chance to get those last email addresses from the students who for some reason still like us after some of the chaotic lessons we have given them.
Sadly not all the people on the CELTA course are staying on in Mexico City but I'm really happy to be one ofthe people who are so I can hopefully fill this blog up with all the stuff I plan to do.