Birthday Weekend in Mexico City

For my birthday weekend, I met up with some other volunteers in Mexico City. On Saturday morning, we re-visited Casa Azul, the house where Frida Kahlo was born and spent many years. Day of the Dead is over, but many of the museums still have their alters up (which is why you are going to see some more day of the dead things in this post).

We then went down to Xochimilco, a delegation in the Southern part of the city. Our 1st stop was at the Dolores Olmedo Museum. In short, she was a very, very rich woman that collected art from around the world and financed a lot of Diego Riveras work. Her house, the museum, is filled with art from around the world, as well as several rooms dedicated to Riveras art and 1 room of Frida’s paintings. Peacocks freely roam the grounds of the estate. There is also a fenced in area with a lot of Xoloescuintle, a hairless (and I my eyes, ugly) Aztec dog. It was amazing how much they looked like their statue.

We then went to what is probably the most famous attraction in Xochimilco, the canals. Back when the Aztecs were still living in Mexico City, the canals contained a series of floating gardens, used to cultivate crops. Now it features lots and lots of boats filled with people, beer, mariachis, food, and vendors of all kinds. None of the boats have motors and all are pushed by hand, kinda like a Mexican gondola.

On Sunday, we all headed our own ways and I finally made it up to the Basilica de Guadalupe, the most visited Catholic site in all of Mexico and 2nd most visited in the world. The Virgin Guadalupe is one of the most important religious icons in all of Mexico and her image appears on everything around the country. At the site, you can visit the new basilica, the old basilica, and climb Tepeyac Hill to another church and see the site where the Virgin appeared in front of Juan Diego on December 12, 1531. Pilgrimages are made every year around the 12th of December, and even though I visited in November, they had already started to arrive.

Inside the new Basilica

The old and the new

My last stop was Tlatelolco and the Plaza de las tres cultras (Plaza of the 3 Cultures). In the plaza, you have Aztec ruins, a Spanish church, and a modern Mexican building. The plaza was also the site of the student demonstrations in 1968 that ended in bloodshed, just before Mexico hosted the Olympic Games.

Sunday in Coyoacan

Sunday, I went to Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City,that is probably familiar to anyone that has seen the movie Frida. This is where Friday was born and later returned to live. Her old house is now a museum, although few of her paintings are actually housed there. So after getting off the metro, you can walk through a huge lovely park/tree nursery (these are lacking in Puebla, so you come to appreciate them them you see them).

From there I headed to the old house of Leon Trotsky, where he lived after being exiled from the USSR. Stalin eventually caught up to him and he was murdered with an ice pick in the office of the house. His ashes are also in a monument on site.

Then it is just a short walk to Frida’s house, known as Casa Azul (or the blue house).

The rest of the time I just kinda wandered around Coyoacan. It is a really cute little area and it made me realize how much I miss seeing tree-lined streets, something I think we take for granted in the states. Unfortunately almost the entire main plaza and surrounding streets were torn up.