CCU UNAM – GringoPotpourri

Last weekend I visited, for the first time, the Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum. The nursery-turned-gardens, sloping up a hillside southeast of downtown Knoxville, span 47 acres and offer views of the distant Great Smoky Mountains.

As botanical gardens go, these are by no means best-in-class, or even best-in-state. They have plenty of trees, but few flowers. The lone drinking fountain on the grounds was still not turned on for the season, even though temperatures were in the mid-80’s. The site’s much-photographed Big Red Adirondack Chair, pictured below, needed a coat of paint.

Still, it was free, the view was lovely, and I had the place more or less to myself. I would like to return in the spring, when the neighborhood’s pink dogwood trees are in flowery bloom. In the meantime, here, in alphabetical order, are a few of my favorite botanical gardens from around the world:

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I recently re-read my September post entitled “Barrios Bravos: Iztapalapa,” about the largest delegación (borough) in Mexico City and the dangerous reputations held by its various barrios (neighborhoods). I am especially proud of that entry, as I think it contains some of the best writing I’ve yet done for this blog. More than that, though, it reminded me that I still have more to say about Mexico City and its “tough neighborhoods.”

Tlatelolco (try saying that three times fast) is a hard word to pronounce and a hard barrio in which to live. Roughly speaking, it sits northwest of the Centro Histórico, between Tepito and Buenavista Train Station. During the heyday of the Aztec empire, Tlatelolco was a separate community from nearby Tenochtitlan, and it is said that Tlatelolco’s residents looked down on those from the larger Tenochtitlan. Vendors from Tepito, the market serving Tenochtitlan, were not allowed to trade with those from Tlatelolco. This segregation exists several centuries later, despite the fact that both “barrios bravos” are part of the same administrative district. The main street separating Tlatelolco from Greater Tepito, Paseo de la Reforma, can be like an invisible wall between two countries, although this divide isn’t necessarily visible to casual wanderers. (More on this rivalry later.)

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