city at night

city at night

Thursday, January 18, 2018

A Change of Scenery




Yesterday a prepared meal was going to be delivered to the house, and I had also made a big kettle of soup.  I didn't have to worry about cooking for Alejandro's family, so I took off to spend the day and night at the condo that I am renting.  There were a couple of errands that the owner of the condo had asked me to do, and I needed to pick up some clean clothes.  (I had almost used up the clothes that I had packed, but I have plenty of clothes at the condo.)

Even though I didn't leave until 10:00 A.M. after the height of the morning rush hour, the Metrobus was very crowded... so crowded that I had to push my way off when I had to transfer from one line to another.  It took over an hour to arrive at my neighborhood of Nápoles.  The problem of getting a key for the new lock on the front door of the building still had not been resolved in spite of numerous emails written by the owner in Chicago to the building administrator.  However with the garage door opener that I had with me I was able to enter the building.  Inside the apartment, the temperature was cool but not nearly as cold as Alejandro's house.  The condo has a lot of windows that allow the morning sun shine in.

After doing the errands that I had to run, I went to one of the numerous restaurants that serve a "meal of the day" for the afternoon dinner.  I then did an after-dinner walk around the neighborhood.



Even though Nápoles is a modern, quite Americanized area, there are constant reminders that you are in Mexico...


...a vendor on the street selling cups of freshly sliced mangos...




...a lady along busy Insurgentes Avenue selling balloons...




...or the many stands along the street where you can get a shoe shine for the equivalent of about one dollar.

This advertisement for Guillermo del Toro's latest movie, "The Shape of Water" ("La Forma del Agua") is very unique.  There is actually bubbling water within the glass panels of the sign.



In many of the plazas and parks of Mexico City there are metal, sculptural pieces with the letters CDMX... the new official abbreviation for Mexico City (Ciudad de México).  However in a couple of the green spaces of the Nápoles neighborhood I saw similar displays but with the letters BJ.  I took me a minute to realize that the letters stood for "Benito Juárez", the "delegación", or city borough in which Nápoles is located.



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