Where am I in the photo below?
Author: gringopotpourri
Gringo - aka Scott - was born outside of Chicago and has lived most of his life in or around big cities. He spent two years of his adult life in Mexico City (talk about big cities!) and fell in love with Mexican food and culture all while weathering the challenges of life in a city with over 20 million people. Life's unpredictable journey has since brought him to Tennessee, where he is close to family and to the natural beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains. Scott also enjoys movies, hiking, top ten lists, and travel in general.
Where am I #12
I *think* this one will be fairly easy to guess. Likewise, I *think* the leggy sculpture in the pic (no, not me, but thanks for the compliment) is no longer at this location.
Where am I?
¡Viva México!
This weekend Mexico celebrates its Independence from Spain. September 16, 1810 to be exact. Every delegación in Mexico City throws quite a party, with the requisite fireworks. This is the day when Mexico’s president peers out of a top-floor window at the Palacio Nacional and shouts “¡Viva México!” to a crowd of millions.
Photo Essay: Syria 2007
I am following up my recent A Syrious Problem – Thoughts on Syria post with a collection of pics I took on my 2007 trip to the region. I hadn’t looked at these photos in awhile, and am a bit disappointed with the picture quality, though not with the content. The photos are in chronological order. I hope you’ll comment on your favorite ones and share with friends – it’ll be a long time before Syria once again appears as it did through the eye of my camera lens.
Above pic: Syria believes in you! A cheesy/scary billboard of Bashar al-Assad greets visitors with a wave outside the main entrance to the Old City/Souq of Damascus. Stepping inside those walls is like journeying back in time. Once again, apologies for that hoary travel writing cliché which I love so much.
A Syrious Problem – Thoughts on Syria
So at the time of writing it’s been over two-and-a-half years since the Arab Spring – supposedly started via Facebook and supposedly ignited to change the region for the better – went viral and spread across North Africa and the Middle East like wildfire. A Tunisian man by the name of Mohamad Bouazizi set himself on fire out of frustration. Libyan colonel Muammar Gaddafi was killed (no loss there), and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was ousted. Oh, and Syria went to hell in a handbasket.
Ah, revolution in the Middle East. A real clusterfuck.
Flashback to 2007
I had the opportunity to visit Syria in 2007. That year was a good one for yours truly, Loyal Reader. I “celebrated” seven years as an Angeleno and seven years in my job as a media researcher. The job had begun to wear on me, but I was making a good wage and had somehow turned three weeks of paid vacation into double that. (It was the only benefit that was worth a toss, and it would be taken from me the following year.) Travel for the year had already taken me to Cancun; Barrow, Alaska (!); China, Norway, Iceland, and Seattle. Thanksgiving was coming up and I knew I had to outdo myself. A college friend and long-time travel buddy mentioned that he had a friend from Germany who had recently been posted to the German Embassy in Damascus of all places.
Mexican Markets
If you’ve done any city walking in Latin America you have no doubt come upon a teeming mass of humanity that is the local market. Not commonplace in the U.S., Latin American-style markets are often an all-out assault on the senses. They can be loud – with fish and produce vendors shouting out the day’s fresh catch to passersby. They can be smelly – I don’t think they’re necessarily unhygienic, but all those spices mixed with all that meat and fish creates quite an aroma. They can be crowded – in fact, you can count on it. Especially on Sundays.
The closest we get in the U.S. is, perhaps, Pike Place Market in Seattle, or maybe Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. I have never experienced NYC’s Chinatown market, but I’m told that it’s a must-see for market lovers. Europe has more: Covent Garden in London for flowers and produce; any random flea market in Paris; I found a lovely covered market in Kiev and have seen several summer markets in Scandinavia.
But the ones in Latin America – particularly those in Mexico – deserve special mention. They deserve their own blog entry, in fact. Allow me to do the honors!
Sidebar: Summer Movies 2013
One of my friends told me recently that my whole life is about travel, referring to the fact that I willingly chose to move to Mexico City, a place so very different from my hometown of Chicago. I never thought of things that way, but I can certainly respect her view.
This exchange was one snippet of a larger conversation in which we lamented the lack of vacation time (in her case) or money (in mine). Most people would say that I have little grounds for complaining, considering that my post-college travels have taken me to 70 countries on six continents. And if I’m content in my new life, it is because I have finally accepted (well, mostly accepted) that I just don’t have the pecuniary wherewithal to travel anymore. My unforgettable spring trip to Colombia nearly broke the bank – and that’s considered to be a cheap country! These days, a day trip to Teotihuacán is about all I can manage.
What does this mean? It means I have to content myself with other hobbies and interests. The most obvious, it would seem, are movies. With two multiplexes no more than a 30 minute walk from my apartment, I have countless options for weekend entertainment lest I not feel like navigating the metro or absorbing the latest museum’s offerings. Ticket prices are in the $6 to $10 range, making them about 40% cheaper than in LA or Chicago. Concession prices are similarly scaled back, and you get much for your money on both counts.
A Friday at Teotihuacán
I am way behind on this blog. I have so many ideas for topics to write about and so little time to actually put them all down on paper. This entry – about an early summer daytrip to the archaeological zone of Teotihuacán – is a long time coming. Said daytrip took place two months ago (!), and I’m only just now reporting on it to you, Loyal Reader. (I will often wait a bit after visiting somewhere before commenting on a place to let its impressions fully soak in, but this is just ridiculous.)
As you probably know, Teotihuacán is a large complex of ruins near Mexico City that is most famous for its pyramids, the Pyramid of the Moon and the larger Pyramid of the Sun. You may even recall that I ranked it as #5 in my Top Ten Mexico – The Country blog entry of January 2013. At the time that list was compiled, it had actually been ten years since my last visit to Teotihuacán. My photographic memory for travel details is like, say, my dad’s memory for baseball statistics. That is to say, I remembered my original visit like it was yesterday, and remain confident that my #5 ranking is just about right. Still, ten years is far too long to go between visits to a place as magnificent as Teotihuacán, so it was on a Friday in early June, with previous plans having fallen through, that I decided to make up for lost time.
Where am I #11
Another oldie from my travel photo archives. I consider this easy-to-moderate in guess-a-bility. 🙂
Where was I when this pic was taken?
Metro Daily
Holy guacamole, Mexico City’s metro is a behemoth. Twelve lines, 201 kilometers (almost 125 miles) of track, roughly 1.5 million daily riders. On a normal day I ride the metro anywhere from two to eight times. I should rephrase that to say, I ride it at least twice daily, but seldom have less than one transfer in each direction.
The metro first opened in 1969, with Linea 1 running from Observatorio station in the west to Pantitlán station in the east. The newest line, Linea 12, opened last November (as if to welcome me to my new home). I don’t know if plans exist to lay new track or expand existing routes (expansion is greatly needed) but I know this much: the metro is cheap, efficient, crowded, hot, smelly, safe, and – every once in a great while – fun.
Each line has its own personality. I have ridden every line except for Lines A and B, neither of which serve any points of interest for yours truly, and both of which pass through some rather dodgy places. Below is my attempt at capturing what a typical ride is like, using Metro Line 2 as my point of origin. This blog is also an attempt at comedy writing, so if it all sounds a bit too negative I’d remind you that the best comedians are often the most cynical ones. Here goes:
GringoPotpourri 