From Mexico City to Mexico City

So Saturday, Universal took us to Mexico City to see a giant museum that houses many pieces of original art from Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, as well as some other modern-day Mexican artists, one of which specialized in gigantic wax heads of women with clumped wax eyelashes and dripping wax "flesh."

This museum (The “Museo Dolores Olmedo”) was donated to the City of Mexico by a woman named Dolores Olmedo who was an avid collector of Diego Riveras paintings. She and her daughter have been featured in a few of his works, as well. But she didn’t just collect from Rivera, she had a whole room full of ancient Asian works of art, including TONS of carved ivory, some of them complete tusks that had been intimately carved, and a bunch of wood stamps (which are finely carved pieces of wood, dipped in ink, and stamped onto a paper. Its extremely tedious work to make such delicate carvings into a piece of wood that’s about the size of a postage stamp.)

The works of Frida Kahlo were, of course, my favorite part. It was very moving to be up close, RIGHT IN FRONT of a piece of art that I’d only seen in books (and seen MANY TIMES since being in Mexico). You just look at it and think, ‘Wow, this is the real deal.’…and then you think about how small it is compared to how you imagined it. Anyways, there were a few of her paintings displayed that I hadn't ever seen before and that was very exciting.

Diego’s room was cool too. I didn’t know he had experimented with so many different styles of art. He did surreal art, portraits, even some pieces that looked like Picasso works.

The whole thing was very exciting to me, especially walking from exhibit to exhibit and running into swarms of peacocks which were ALL OVER the grounds.

After the museum, we traveled to Xochimilco (ho-chee-mil-co) to ride on some Venician-like boats on a canal. We all got onto this long, thin boat that had a table down the middle of it and the “driver” pushed us along the canal with a long pole. There were tons of boats on the canal, and as we saw, many of them were rented out for weddings and anniversaries. There were people who would paddle up next to you and try to sell you flowers, hats, and other wares. Other boats were full of mariachi bands that you could hire to follow you along the water and serenade you. The Che was kind enough to rent two bands to follow us. They were full bands too: Guitars, bass, horns, drums, and one even had a hammer dulcimer. We drank drinks and enjoyed the scenery and had an overall relaxing time.

After this, we drove further into Mexico city to Coyoacán, the neighborhood where Frida Kahlo’s house was. Her house is easy to spot on the street simply because it’s the most intense, brilliant, color blue. The house has been turned into a museum with more of Frida and Diego’s original paintings as well as their furniture and displayed letters between Diego Rivera and Albert Einstein and other famous people. In the house you can see the bed where Frida died as well as an urn with her ashes in it.


Pictures of today can be seen here.

That was all Saturday. Sunday, my mom flew home and my friends and I decided to venture back into Mexico City on our own to watch the biggest fútbol game of the season: The Guadalajara Chivas vs America Aguilas. This was quite a sporting event because the Chivas are the only Mexican soccer team to have all Mexican players, while the Aguilas are Mexico City's team. Both teams are classic and have very loyal fan bases (especially the Chivas!) so the Azteca Stadium (which is 3rd largest in the WORLD) was PACKED! At first I decided to wear neutral colors to prevent myself from getting stabbed outside the stadium by an opposing team loyalist, but when James, Emilee, Erin, Ashley and I arrived early, I decided to take the opportunity to get into the team spirit and pick out some proper attire. For the Aguilas: James, Erin, and I. For the Chivas: Emilee and Ashley. Above is me, supporting my team with their mascot (plus sweet shirt).

We had pretty good seats that were up high so that we could see everything that was going on. People were already getting whipped up with team chants and such. One for the Chivas is "Olay, olay olay olay! Chivaaas! Chivas!" The other was "Vamos, Vamos America...!" and the stadium sides would bounce the chants off each other.

The Chivas section of the stadium looked like a prison had come to watch the game. It had barbed wire and armed guards around the section to keep Chivas and Aguilas from mingling. That side was the "militant loyalist" side and during the second half of the game, many people began lighting red flares and waving them around before hurling them down onto the Aguila fans below them. They also started shooting off fireworks during the game. One person was actually badly burned from a falling flare and, after the game, medics ran into his section.

The game was intense and very merciless. When the Chivas goalie knocked himself out by accident for a few seconds, the Aguilas fans started chanting a rude Spanish word at him. Whenever a Chivas player was tripped or hurt, the Aguilas would all jeer and laugh.

In the end though, the Chivas ended up beating the Aguilas on their home field 2-1. I was sad my team lost :( After the game, when people were slightly drunk and filing out, people started to notice that their were a bunch of white kids at a Mexican fútbol game. Suddenly, everyone wanted a picture with us. All the way until the bus station back to Cuernavaca, people were asking for pictures with us in our supporting team colors.

We finally got home to Cuernavaca at about 11:30, completely exhausted and full of the Mexican spirit.

Some pictures of the game can be seen here.