Who Was Alexander Humboldt?

 At the far end of the Alameda Park in downtown Mexico City is a small monument which I had not noticed before.  It is a statue of Alexander Humboldt (1769-1859).

You may or may not know who Alexander Humboldt was, but he was a celebrated German geographer, naturalist and explorer of the late 18th century and early 19th centuries.  He led an expedition to the Americas between 1799 and 1804, and he was the first non-Spanish European to describe the region from a scientific point of view.  He took meticulous notes of everything he saw, and published numerous scientific volumes which laid the foundation for physical geography and the interrelation between the physical sciences... biology, meteorology and geology.  Other books based on his travel diaries became "bestsellers", and he was one of the most famous men in Europe.

During the course of his Latin American travels he spent a year in Mexico (then the Spanish colony of New Spain).  He arrived at the port of Acapulco and traveled by mule train over the mountains to Mexico City where he was welcomed by the Spanish viceroy.  Humboldt was greatly impressed by Mexico City, the largest in the Americas at that time.  It was he who supposedly gave it the nickname of "The City of Palaces", and he wrote that "no city of the new continent, without even exempting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico."

The topic of Humboldt's personal life remains controversial.  He never married, and he had a number of strong male friendships including companions on his travels.  Since Humboldt destroyed all his personal letters, we will never know for certain if those friendships were of a romantic nature.  I recently read the historical novel "México" by Pedro Angel Palou. Humboldt makes an appearance in the story and has an affair with one of the male characters! 

At the Mall

As you know, on the day that the cleaning lady comes, I get out of the apartment to let her do her work.  Last week, it was just too hot to take one of my long walks, so I took the Metrobus to one of the shopping malls to kill some time.  I went to Parque Delta, which was opened in 2005 on the site of an old baseball stadium.

It is a typical mall with three levels of shops and restaurants.  There are many stores that you would see north of the border... Old Navy, Gap, H&M... there is even a Radio Shack, which survives down here.  There are other chains that you see in all the Mexican malls such as Zara, Stradivarius, Pull&Bear, which are all clothing stores from Spain, and C&A, a clothing retailer that originated in the Netherlands.  I was surprised to see Prada.  The mall is upscale but not THAT ritzy.  There is "Cuidado con el Perro" (Beware of the Dog), a Mexican youth-oriented clothing store.  And of course, there is the ubiquitous Sanborns, the restaurant / pharmacy / gift shop chain owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and found throughout Mexico from Tijuana to Cancún.  

I walked the entire mall without buying anything, and it was time to have my afternoon dinner.  The reason I came to Parque Delta, rather than one of the other malls found throughout the city, is that I wanted to try the Cheesecake Factory.

Now, some of you may ask, why in the world would I go to a U.S. chain in Mexico City, one of the greatest culinary capitals of the world?  Well, I had only been to a Cheesecake Factory once in Ohio, and I liked it.  So, I wanted to try out this branch, one of only two here in Mexico City.

The menu is very large, and I found it interesting that, although the descriptions of all of the dishes are in Spanish, the names are all in English.

I ordered the Korean Fried Chicken which is served with sliced avocado and rice with mushrooms and cabbage.  It was tasty.

Of course, I had to indulge in cheesecake for dessert.  I ordered the "dulce de leche" cheesecake, and it was decadently deliciously.

The prices are a bit expensive by Mexican standards, but I would definitely come back.  I'm not sure if Alejandro has ever eaten at the Cheesecake Factory.  We will have to have dinner here sometime.

Let There Be Light

In my office there is a pair of bookshelves, one on either side of my desk.  Those shelves hold not only books, but a bunch of knickknacks... handicrafts from my travels and numerous mementos.  The only problem is that those knickknacks did not show up very well.  There was a lack of light.

When I was in Ohio in April, I saw some little battery-operated, under shelf lights in a store.  They were just what I needed, and I bought a couple of two-packs.  When I got back to Mexico put them on the shelves, and they looked good.  However, I had only purchased four, and I have six shelves with knickknacks on them.

Alejandro and I were at a nearby mall, and we went into a store called Sternen to buy some rechargeable batteries for the lights.  Sternen is a chain that is similar to our old Radio Shack. (And by the way, Radio Shack still exists in Mexico.)  I asked if they happened to have any lights similar to what I had bought in Ohio.  Not only did they have under shelf lights, but, except for the Sternen brand name, they were EXACTLY the same as what I already had.

So, now all of my trinkets are illuminated.

 

More International Cuisine

Mexico City is a cosmopolitan city, and the restaurant scene confirms that with an enormous variety of international cuisines represented.  Alejandro and I have eaten Italian, Korean, Spanish, Polish, German, Lebanese, Uruguayan and Indian food here, and recently we added the cuisine of another nation to the list.  Not far from the apartment, there is a Japanese restaurant called El Samurai.  It looked as if it would be a very expensive restaurant.  However, we checked out the menu.  While it is not cheap, the prices are not outrageous either.  So, we decided to try it out.

I pose in the bamboo garden in front of the restaurant.

Alejandro poses by a case with a samurai outfit by the entrance.

Since we were not very familiar Japanese cuisine, and I don't care much for sushi, we ordered two of the very few dishes that I had heard of... sukiyaki, and vegetable tempura.  

Sukiyaki is a hot-pot of sliced beef, udon noodles, tofu and vegetables.  There was plenty for us to share, and it was very tasty.

The tempura was also good, although the battered parsley wasn't my favorite.

The service was excellent, and the food was very good.  It seemed authentic, although I don't know enough about Japanese food to judge.  Although it is not the type of restaurant that we would frequent on a regular basis, we would certainly return.

 

A Lego Creature

I have written previously about the axolotl, an aquatic, salamander-like animal which is an endangered species living in the canals of Xochimilco, in the south of the city.  

This past weekend, Alejandro and I were at Parque Tepeyac, the mall near his house.  There is a Lego store at the mall.  In the store window there was a large axolotl made of Legos.  I didn't have my camera, but Alejandro snapped a photo of it with his phone.

Cutting Back

Well before Christmas I bought a poinsettia for my apartment.  It was not until well after Easter that it had lost all its red bracts.  (The red "flower" of the poinsettia consists not of petals, but of modified leaves called bracts.)  The green leaves of the plant looked healthy, and I decided that I would keep the plant and see if I could get it to bloom again next Christmas.

The plant came in a tiny plastic pot, and it needed to be transplanted.  The weekend before last I went to the neighborhood "tianguis" (weekly outdoor market) and went to a stall that sells houseplants.  I bought a pretty "Talavera" style pot, and a bag of soil.  I took the plant to the laundry room and transplanted it into the larger pot there.

I then cut the plant down to the bare stems to encourage bushy new growth.

Just a week later, the stems now have tiny leaves sprouting at each nodule.  I suspect that in another week or two I will have a nice green houseplant.   Only time will tell how successful I am in getting it to bloom again.

Viva, Jalisco!

At the end of our day downtown last weekend, we were walking down Madero Street heading to the Metrobus to return to the apartment.

As we passed by the Church of Francisco, next door to the Latin American Tower (pictured above), there were costumed performers handing out flyers advertising a show that was to be held in the church atrium.  The show was to feature the dances and music of the state of Jalisco.  Jalisco is the origin of mariachi music, which is what most foreigners think of when they think of Mexican music.

The show was going to begin momentarily, and the tickets only cost fifty pesos (about 3 dollars), so we decided to attend.

The dancers could not compare to the Ballet Folkórico de México, but they weren't bad.

Here they are performing the "jarabe tapatío", the dance which is better known to "gringos" as the Mexican Hat Dance.

There were several singers performing traditional songs, and they were quite terrible.  One lady, the worst of them all, had the audacity to sell compact discs of her music after the show.  I wonder if anyone purchased any?  

Believe it or not, this fellow was the best of the lot...

He is singing "El Rey", a very popular song which is a satirical anthem to Mexican "machismo".

No tengo trono ni reina

Ni nadie que me comprenda

Pero sigo siendo el rey.

I have no throne or queen

Nor anyone who understands me,

but I continue being the king!

Coffee and Chocolate

I am falling behind on my posts.  I still have more to write about from our trip downtown LAST Saturday.

After we finished our dinner at the Gran Hotel, we walked a short distance to the old colonial building which used to serve as the headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition and then later as the School of Medicine of the University of Mexico.  (The building now houses the Museum of Medicine.)

That weekend a festival of coffee and chocolate was being held in the courtyard of former school.

The courtyard was full of vendors who were selling, for the most part, products made from chocolate and coffee.

¡Que los Dioses te acompañen!

May the Gods be with You!

In pre-Hispanic times, chocolate was considered the beverage of the gods.  So this vendor has created bars of chocolate that are molded to represent the ancient gods.  He even had large discs of chocolate sculpted in the form of the Aztec "calendar stone".

The wooden tools known as "molinillos" are used to froth your hot chocolate before drinking.

The fellow was selling powders and pastes for making "mole".  Most "moles" have chocolate as an ingredient.

I purchased a jar of salsa made from eight different kinds of peppers along with carmelized cacao.  It was quite spicy but very tasty.

Happy Mother's Day

 

"You are my star, mom"

An advertisement from Sears at the Mexico City World Trade Center

Today is "Día de las Madres"... Mother's Day... in Mexico.  Unlike the United States, where the day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May, here Mother's Day is always on May 10th.  The holiday was introduced from the United States in 1922

Later this afternoon, I will take the Metrobus to Alejandro's family's house.  We will have dinner together and Alejandro and I will give his sister the present that we bought for her.

The Three Virtues

Atop the clock tower of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City there were three sculptures representing the three virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity.  These were created by Manuel Tolsá, the Spanish-born architect and sculptor who introduced the Neoclassical style to Mexico at the end of the colonial period.

On September 19, 2017, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck central Mexico, and there was significant loss of life and damage in Mexico City.  One of the statues, the one representing Hope, fell to the ground.  Later, the other two statues, were removed from the clock tower.  One story which I heard was that those two statues would be put in a museum where they would be safe in case of future earthquakes.

Last Saturday, when Alejandro and I were downtown, as we passed the Cathedral, we noticed that the three statues were on the clocktower once again.

I have not been able to find any information about the sculptures on the internet.  I thought that Hope, the statue to the left, had been smashed beyond repair.  Zooming in on the three, you can see that the anchor held by Hope, the cross held by Faith, and the flame on the head of Charity are yellow.  Gold gilt?  Were those features of the statues originally gilded?

I have no idea what the story is, other than the fact that the three virtues are once again on the Cathedral.

Lowering the Flag

When we had dinner at the restaurant at the Gran Hotel on Saturday, I was able to observe a ceremony which occurs every day in the late afternoon on the Zócalo.  The enormous Mexican flag which flies over the plaza is lowered.

Because the flag is so large, it is rolled up rather than folded.

Once it is removed from the flagpole, the soldiers carry it back into the National Palace.

At the "Gran Hotel"

On Saturday, when Alejandro and I were downtown, we decided to splurge and have our afternoon dinner at what is arguably the most beautiful hotel in Mexico City... the "Gran Hotel".

The structure dates back to the late 19th century when the city center was graced by elegant department stores which copied the sumptuous architecture of Parisian emporiums such as Galerie Lafayette.  Two department stores, Palacio de Hierro and Liverpool, still stand just a block from the main plaza, the Zócalo.  In 1899 the building that is now the Gran Hotel was inaugurated as the "Centro Mercantil".  It was a grand ceremony with Mexico's President Porfirio Díaz in attendance. The owner was a Frenchman by the name of Sebastian Robert.  His store, overlooking the Zócalo, offered the city's elite the latest in fashions and merchandise from Europe in an Art Nouveau setting.  It was the second building in the city to boast an elevator.

The "Centro Mercantil" closed its doors in 1958, and ten years later, in time for the 1968 Summer Olympics, the building reopened as "el Gran Hotel Ciudad de México".  The hotel retained the opulence of the old department store.

 

The most spectacular feature is the stained-glass dome designed by a French artist in the style of Tiffany.

The initials "CM" for "Centro Mercantil" recall the building's earlier life as a department store.

The rooftop restaurant, "La Terraza" offers the best views of the Zócalo.  We ate there some years ago.  The food was good, and although it was expensive, the prices were not astronomical.  Unfortunately, "La Terraza" was booked, but there was a second restaurant on the floor below where we could be seated.  Unfortunately, that restaurant served a limited menu of lighter meals.  The prices were expensive, and we were not impressed with the food.

 Notice that Alejandro wore his "Star Wars" shirt in honor of "Let the Fourth Be with You" Day.

The restaurant did not have the fantastic rooftop view of "La Terraza", but you could go out onto the balcony for a view of the Zócalo.

The Metropolitan Cathedral to the left and the National Palace to the right

On the south side of the Zócalo, the twin buildings which serve as the city hall

The Heat Continues

 

(image taken from the internet)

Here in Mexico City, the high temperature this afternoon will reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit (31 degrees Celsius).  The next three days will also be at 90.  April and May are always the hottest months here, but we are about ten degrees above normal.  The heat wave, which has been going on since February, is a constant topic of conversation here.

At least I am not in Mérida, Yucatán, one of my favorite cities in Mexico. Today's high will be 106 degrees.  The forecast says that tomorrow it will be 108, Thursday will be 109, and temperatures of over 100 are predicted all the way through next week.

And thank goodness I am not living in southern Asia where people have died from heatstroke.

And yet there are people out there who persist in saying that global warming is nothing but a hoax.  

Similandia

I have written previously about the drug store chain "Farmacias Similares", and its mascot, the loveable Dr. Simi.  Some years ago, pharmacy began producing Dr. Simi dolls which became enormously popular.  Last year the company opened a store on the far south side of the city called "Similandia.  Besides being a pharmacy, it sold a wide variety of Dr. Simi products.  Then about a month ago, they opened a second store, conveniently located in the historic center of Mexico City.

Last Saturday, Alejandro and I took a trip downtown, and we made a point of visiting the new "Similandia"

We were greeted at the door by a fellow dressed as Dr. Simi.  Dr. Simi's wardrobe has expanded far beyond his original doctor's outfit, and he now has a wide variety of costumes.  Here he is dressed as "El Chavo del Ocho", the lead character of a very popular children's show.

I feel sorry for the guys in the costumes.  In this heat it must be very uncomfortable to be dressed in the heavy outfit dancing all day on the sidewalk.

Inside the store there is all sorts of Dr. Simi merchandise.  There is a wide selection of different dolls.

I have mentioned before that I frequently send dolls as gifts to the daughters of a friend of mine back in the U.S.  I have already sent a couple of Dr. Simi dolls (the original doctor outfit and a Simi Santa), and the younger daughter has fallen in love with them.  So, of course I had to buy some new ones in different costumes.

In addition to the dolls, the store also sells Dr. Simi socks, towels, blankets, pillows, etc., etc.  It is much more than a commercial enterprise.  The factory which produces these items hires people with disabilities.

As we left the store, I was glad to see that same guy did not have to greet customers for hours on end in this heat.  He had been relieved by another person in a different outfit... this one is of "El Chapulín Colorado" (The Red Grasshopper), the hero of another children's show.

Ready to Paint

When I made the move to Mexico City, one of the things I had shipped down was my artist's easel.  I set it up in the office.  The previous owner used the office as an exercise room, and there were plastic mats on the floor.  So, I don't have to worry about dripping paint on the carpet.  I had also brought tubes of acrylic paint, and I bought some more at the Sunday artists' market.  I cleared out the stuff left by the former owner from a cabinet in the office.  I am using that to store my painting supplies.  I bought a plastic tablecloth to cover the cabinet when I am painting.  On my recent trip to Ohio, I bought some canvas boards.  I forgot to buy a palette, but I am using a shallow Tupperware container.  I have a couple of yogurt containers for my brushes and water.  Everything is now set up to get back to painting again.

Since I took that photo, I actually began a painting that I will use for my Christmas card this year.  The picture is already half completed.  When I have finished, I will take it to a printer and have cards made.  I will make the cards out, and on my next trip to Ohio I will buy stamps and give the cards to a friend to mail after Thanksgiving.

A Taste of Veracruz

On Thursday afternoons, the cleaning lady comes to the apartment.  I get out of her way, leave the apartment, and, rather than cook, I go out for my afternoon dinner.  Last Thursday, I was looking at Google maps, searching for someplace different to eat.  I found a place that had very good reviews.  It's called "Fonda del Recuerdo", which translates loosely as "Inn of the Reminiscence".   It is located north of the Paseo de la Reforma, just a short walk from the Monument to Independence, on Río Lerma Street.  Although the menu includes a variety of Mexican dishes, the emphasis is on the cuisine of the state of Veracruz.

So, that was my destination on Thursday.  The sign says "Comida mexicana jarocha"... jarocha Mexican food.  "Jarocha" is a word referring to anyone or anything from the state of Veracruz.

I started off with a "gorda veracruzana".  I was expecting it to be something like a "gordita", which is rather small.  So, I was surprised when the waiter served me something that filled the dinner plate.

However, the "gorda" is inflated.  When I cut into it, it was hollow inside.  It's not as enormous as it first appears.  It is made of corn dough mixed with ground beans, and you are served tomato sauce and "crema" to spoon over it.  It was a very tasty appetizer.

I then had the Tarascan soup, which is similar to tortilla soup.  It's not a specialty of Veracruz since the Tarascan tribe comes from the west-central state of Michoacán.  It was, however, very good also.

For my main dish I had the "chile huasteco" which is a specialty of the Huasteca region of northern Veracruz.  The poblano pepper was stuffed with beans, cheese and plantain, and covered with a tomato sauce.  The contrast between sweet and savory flavors was very interesting and delicious.

After all that food, I really should not have ordered dessert, but I was tempted by something called "Delicia de guayaba"... guava delight.  It was similar to a cheesecake but made with a guava mousse.  With it I had "café de olla", coffee brewed with cinnamon and brown sugar and traditionally served in a clay mug.

Everything was delicious, and the service was also very friendly and attentive.  Sometime when Alejandro and I are along the Paseo de la Reforma, I will definitely have to take him there.