"Curiosity and judgement cannot coexist..."

...said my yoga teacher, Philip Urso, via a podcast of excellent classes called "LIVE, LOVE,

Happy cries can be ugly, too

TEACH." I'd rather have a fun quote to title my blogs, but I'm mostly talking to Stella and Usche and we don't share the same sense of humor. Anyway, this concept was one of those POWBANGWOW revelations. And so appropriate for the day that followed...

8/30, 3p

San Miguel is the definition of Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover. Houses and store fronts appear to be solid walls with door shaped holes. When you walk slowly (not my speed) and stick your head into different holes (really not my speed) you can discover gorgeous hotels, ornate haciendas and full artist markets. 

I slow from a gallop to a wander. I’m not disappointed with the results, as it’s making San Miguel oodles more interesting than cool walls and doors. 

 I wander into Centro Cultural ”El Nigromante”, the cultural center, because of its

Centro Cultural "El Nigromante"

abundance of flyers for current activities. At first glance, it just looks like a walled Plaza. (It’s boring when the theme just punches you in the face over and over like this.) Then I stick my head in a room- it’s basically a museum! But also there's a ballet class happening! And free Philosophy classes advertised! All surrounding a gorgeous fountain and grassy chill out space! I LIKE THIS PLACE. 

Rooms are dedicated to different artists. This ain’t your grandparents' art. The artists are provocative, surrealists, sensual. One room houses a mural that covers the walls and ceiling that takes my breath away. I think the common denominator is they all studied in Mexico. I'm being awful about details this trip.

Fav: Las adventures de Yui en el país de las maravillas, by Yui Sakamoto

On my way home, I pass a store with an open store front for a change. Casa Corazón. I see

Want.

hearts... I was OBSESSED with hearts in my 20s like every other basic bisch. I almost walk away, because I’m too old and cool to get so excited about a store full of hearts anymore, and it’s probably half-cheese, half-suck anyway...

I stick my head in. There. Are. Hearts. Everywhere. Obviously. There is also a beautifully scripted mural over the doorway. It dedicates the store to Xóchitl Sánchez's (the artist) grandma. Fifteen seconds in and I’m choked up. There are tributes to the Sánchez's grandma, and also to love, treasure, hope, and joy, all over the front room of the store- because this warm fuzzy place is an open puzzle of rooms that go on to feature angels and clouds and love and softness in general. 

I melt. The hard candy shell cracks and I start crying in the middle of that stupid store. It’s so full of goodness and light, I JUST CAN’T. Xóchitl Sánchez approaches me (this is before I’m fully crying, thank God), and I babble in broken Spanish about how much I love her store, how beautiful, how lovely, how I’ll be back to buy something but I’m here for three weeks and it’s my first day

My best go: "My grandmother's heart was the world where I
lived happily, until one day her heart burst into a million
pieces. We who remember her carry her in our hearts...
(I can't make out the rest) This temple of the heart
is dedicated to my grandmother."

and I just can’t buy everything I want on the first day, etc, etc. I wonder if she gets this a lot because she is super gracious...
Or maybe she’s just an angel from heaven, Bianca! Stop thinking people are as fist-hearted as you are!

Anyway. I leave when I start softly sobbing over a little scrappy cat made out of a bean bag with big, green buttons for eyes. 

A late afternoon intense thunderstorm starts as I sit down to work on yesterday's blog. 30 minutes later I hear Usche lapping up water from nowhere near her water bowl. 

Soaking my produce in a magic potion
that will keep my poop solid :)

Now one of the things I love about this house is how open it is. My favorite is how the living room extends outside seamlessly. So seamlessly, I didn't realize there was a giant glass door I could have closed to keep the water from flooding into the kitchen from outside. 

Thank God Martha showed me where the towels lived. I clean up the water (a HUGE amount of water for 30 minute rain shower!) and I'm ready for a drink.

I head to my friend Brooke’s favorite place, La Parada, for dinner. Que Tal Lomo and Chile Pisco Sour for dinner. The dish was great, but the drink was GREAT. I'll definitely have that again. 

I get home and find a tiny frog has hopped into the living room and nestled against one of the towels I left out. I cup him in my hands and his smooth little body popcorns around until I put him deep in the wet grass. I love it here.

All are welcome here, Sir Frog.

Super Fav: "La pequeña flora," by Alejandro Rivero Leal

"CHINGA TU MADRE!"

Churros y chocolate will melt your face

...said the motorcyclist to our driver, who - until that sentence anyway - had been getting back into the shuttle...

8/29, 4:45p
San Miguel is a stop and go traffic jam. Streets are too small for one car, let alone two lanes. Our driver fumbles with the printout of our addresses when- BAMBAM! -a guy on a motorcycle slams his hand against the driver’s window as he hiccups his bike past. Driver honks and rolls down his window to inquire in Spanish, “WTF!!” (I’m paraphrasing.)

A short back and forth through the window before Moto blocks our shuttle with his bike and Driver hits the brakes and pops out of our vehicle. My forever-a-JHS-Ram-homegirl-wannabe perks up. The Canadians behind me look at me in surprise: “Uh-oh.”

1 hour in & Stella is already a footwarmer

Moto hops off his bike and rips off his helmet. Moto Girlfriend goes from ragging our driver from the back of the bike to following Moto around trying to calm him down. The men yell at each other and I swear to God, I’m 99% sure I see them chest-bump. 

The gist of the argument is Moto didn’t appreciate Driver’s lack of attention to the road and Driver didn’t appreciate Moto physically accosting his window while he was driving. See, they are both on the side of safety, and both have very valid points (in between personal insults to intelligence levels and manhood). Thus, the argument goes nowhere. 

Realizing the scene he’s making, having stopped traffic IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INTERSECTION to yell at a stranger, Driver starts to get back in the shuttle when:

“Chinga tu madre!” Moto recites the universal incantation for a bloody nose. Driver FLIES back into the intersection and pops Moto in the face. Homegirl-wannabe laughs out loud. 

The Canadians, confounded at the sudden turn of events: “What happened???” 
Homegirl-wannabe, enjoying the hell out of this scene: “He said something bad about his mom.”
Canadians: “Oooh.”

Viva Mexico!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actual fist fight. I’ve seen my friends get jumped and morons maul each other in bars, but Moto & Driver are circling each other in 1930’s “put ‘em up, put ‘emmmup” fashion. It’s highly entertaining for a minute, but not one of the four streets worth of on-lookers are stopping it and the moment loses its momentum quickly. 

Driver either sees Moto’s nose is bleeding and realizes he’s done his job, or he catches a few of the spectators on their cell phones and assumes they’re calling the cops (OR he remembers he’s actually working and what he’s doing is very dumb). Regardless, he suddenly ends the fight and slips back into the shuttle, apologizing profusely. He explains Moto was very drunk. I believe him and congratulate him on drawing blood. The Canadians are cool about it, too. 

First view of the Cathedral (I think)

After Driver drops off the Canadians, we have a helluva time finding my place. As we make three point turnarounds and go down wrong streets, Driver recounts the fight to me no less than three times. One of the times, he says the crowd was chanting “Rocky, Rocky...” 

I’m not saying he’s embellishing, I’m just saying I didn’t see a crowd, nor did I hear anyone chanting. Maybe they were doing it from inside one of the shops or bars nearby?

Anyway, we finally find my place and Luciano, the guard, meets us at the gate. It’s a big, black non-descript gate that opens to reveal a gorgeous ornate iron gate that opens to reveal a private cobblestone street lined with beautiful modern homes. Driver waits zero seconds after stopping the shuttle before he recounts his fight to Luciano. 

I meet Martha, the housekeeper, who introduces me to Usche and Stella, my new Schnauzers. Stella is a gentle sweetie and Usche is all bark. For the first half hour, that’s all I get from her. Barking. I feed her. Barking. Treat. Barking. I lay down on the floor with her. She quiets down. I get up. Barking. 

These sweet ladies...

If I wasn’t so floored by the house, I’d stress about the barking. This. House. Is. Fantastic. Gorgeous. Kickass. I’ll expand on specifics as/if they relate to my stories. Just imagine a really cool, really big, very beautiful home and that’s where I get to live for the next three weeks. (Eeeeeee!!)

Why do I want to buy everything?!

I walk the ladies (they’re 11 year old sisters, so I’m trying to give them the respect they deserve) in the park successfully. Now that Usche knows I’m cool, the barking stops. 

I have a headache. My head has been killing me since my run a few hours ago. I determine its the altitude when I discover México City’s elevation and also accidentally get really drunk off two beers. 

8/30, 630a
I wake up. 

12p 
I finally leave the house. Self care takes forever. 

On my way to the central Plaza, I stop by Café San Agustín I’d been stalking churros & chocolate since I saw some chocolateria’s on my Google Maps. They give me the menu in Spanish which always makes me feel warm and glowy. My accent still works!

Praise be! Produce...

I read the menu and vow to myself to try everything once. I start my commitment with the “Mexican” chocolate (as opposed to Spanish, French, etc) and have a change of heart. It’s FINE. But nothing will ever beat the churros y chocolate in Granada. And now I’ve polluted myself for the day. 

I explore the plaza and the soak in the town. I FIND PRODUCE! It’s been two days of living off protein bars, bread and cheese (last night in my drunken stupor, I ordered fondue for dinner) and I’m dying for a vegetable. 

My idea is to get my activity ideas from flyers around town. I find a wall of awesome fliers for music performances and classes and realize I’m at the library! The library is built in an old church or school campus. Maybe. I don’t know, but it’s the coolest library I’ve ever been to. Room after book-packed room maze with each other around a covered open-air plaza.

I eavesdrop on a table of a dozen expat retirees having some sort of meeting. I’m prejudiced against gangs of older white people, and I want to see if they’re hatching a well-meaning plan to “fix” something that is none of their business so I can justify my distrust. 

All libraries should look like this!

I gather they’re discussing medical something and having to travel back & forth to the states for treatment. I hear them making an effort to integrate themselves into the Mexican community and they talk a lot about giving back, supporting the community, locals and newcomers, and developing a mentorship program. 

Okay. They’re fine. I was wrong to suspect the worst. I'm sorry older, white people for my ageism and racism. I'm not being facetious (not all the way, anyway). I recently listened to a podcast I love called With Friends Like These where AnaMarie Cox interviewed Robin DiAngelo about her book "White Fragility: Why its So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism". 

A. IT WAS FASCINATING and B. made me think of all the ways I can be a total racist. DiAngelo challenges listeners to fess up and make amends for racist behavior. So I make amends to energy and existence in general for jumping to conclusions about a group of people based on the way they look. It was judgmental, ageist and racist. 

(This was super easy, by the way. I'm terrified of when I actually make amends to another human's face as a result of my racism. But we've all got to be the change we want to see right?)

Stella isn't the best yoga buddy...

"There's a man here looking for you"...

...Is the text I got from my Air BnB host today. Oh. Fuhhhhk...

This is my face 24/7 when I
walk around foreign countries.

8/28, 8:30p

I land in Mexico City after fourteen hours of airports and planes. I feel weird. What’s the elevation here? I have no idea, but that’s the first question that makes me regret doing ZERO research on Mexico City. 

Usually I’d have a Lonely Planet or Rick Steve’s Guide that I can use to research every question I can think of. Obviously, I’m clutching my smart phone, but I’m also plagued by a compulsive frugality that is so insidious, I’ll drive twenty minutes out of my way to save a dollar on gas at Costco. So if you think I’m gonna rack up roaming fees to look up Mexican trivia, think again. 

Immigration is fast and easy. Getting my luggage is fast and easy. The airport? Harrumph. 

If I HAD BOUGHT A TRAVEL GUIDE, I’d have studied my transpo options and the airport layout. When Meg, my smart & beautiful roommate, visited CDMX a few months ago she said she got an Uber from the airport. Being also smart & beautiful, I figured I’d do the same. 

But how? Where?? 

"If you want to live a happy life, tie
it to a goal, not to people or things."
~Albert Einstein

Fortyish years ago, I was born and raised so close to the Mexican border that I’d go with my dad to Mexico to fill his truck with diesel because it was cheaper than the US. (See? The seeds of pathology are planted early.) The Mexican side of my family raised me, and my grandma spoke no English so Spanish was my first language. Immerse me in a Spanish environment and after two weeks, I dream in Spanish. (I swear! It happened in Costa Rica!)

I was NOT prepared for how lost I felt in the airport. It’s a damn airport, not my subconscious, and there are pictures that indicate taxi, arrivals, departures... but what does the ride share picture look like? 

I don’t know because I don’t ask because people scare me because... anxiety, I guess? When I was little, it was called being painfully shy. Now I get to diagnose myself with a touch of mental illness so I don’t flog myself for being afraid to ask a stranger for help. 

I just walk. I catch a sign for the Metro. If I can’t figure out the ride share thing on my own by the time I get to the metro station, at least I ultimately have a ride. 

I LOVE subways. I can always reliably solve a subway system - even without my cell phone - and this one is no exception. Thirty minutes later I heave my way up the metro stairs, My Buddy’s 35 pounds making this into a CrossFit exercise, and enter La Condesa, my neighborhood. 

GOOD DOGS!!!!

Now, it’s 10pm. And I’m sorry, but I’m walking. It’s less than half a mile to my Air BnB and I’d rather get the workout than deal with any human being/Uber driver. 

This is for anyone worried about my decision: THE NEIGHBORHOOD IS SAFE. It feels like a much cooler, modest, sleepy Beverly Hills. Minus the expensive cars and entitlement. 

My Air BnB is small and cute, perfect for the 14 or so hours I’ll be using it. However, my sleep SUCKS with nightmares and restlessness. I hope it’s nervous exhaustion and that I’m not in a cursed room, because I’ll say it: I got a dark vibe. I’m booked back in this same studio for the end of my Mexico trip, so let’s put a pin in this until then. 

8/29, 10am. I visit nearby Parque México and see a whole block of the park is an excellent dog run and playground that dog trainers use to work. This is awesome!!

Different whistles and calls ring out from the playground and these perfect animals sit, shake, speak, and come on command. In another area of the park, I find a line of dogs laying on the ground, tethered to nothing. Some senior dogs are indeed sleeping, but others are clearly in position by their master’s command to STAY. 

GOOBOI!

The BEST is this: a single terrier sits by himself in the intersection of walking paths without a trainer in sight. This hyper alert Gooboi doesn’t look in my direction as I pass. His head is focused straight ahead as he STAYS. 

I see his trainer hiding behind bushes. I only notice him because Trainer waves frantically at a dog walker and indicates he’d like Walker to navigate his 10+ dogs slowly around Gooboi as a test. It’s too much for Gooboi- he breaks and sniffs some butts before Trainer can make it over to reposition him. Gooboi, you sniff butts if you need to! I’m beyond charmed by the whole episode. 

I make the mistake of spending too much cash this morning. I realize I don’t have enough to tip my shuttle driver and get road trip food. I have an hour until my shuttle is due.

I don’t know why, but I fixate on this ONE bank to use because my friend said it was the best and it’s a mile away. I pass closer banks, but I want to explore more. Plus, I walk a fast mile. 

If Stella was here, my last hour in Mexico City would have gone very differently. She’d never have let me fit a two mile errand in a one hour period. She’d have loaned me the money or made me stop at the first bank I saw. We’d have spent that last hour having lunch at the adorable coffee shop next door to our Air BnB. 

Gooboi leeeeeans out of his STAY position,
trying so hard to not sniff dog butts

Instead, I get a text from my Air BnB host that my shuttle has arrived twenty minutes early. I’m lost about half a mile away. I break into a run and I try to find the number to the shuttle service. The number is busy. I’m sucking wind. I’m not in as good of shape as I thought I was. (SIDEBAR: After I wrote this I finally googled Mexico City's elevation. 7,382!!!!!!! Santa Fe is around 7K and that city KILLED me for weeks before I acclimated. No wonder I feel like crap!)

Ten minutes later has me running up the streets of La Condesa because there are too many obstacles on the sidewalks. My phone is not working and also minutes away from a dead battery. I’m also still not 1000% sure I’m on the correct street until I recognize my front door as I RUN PAST IT. 

The driver had been THIS CLOSE to leaving my ass because no one around my Air BnB knew my name (because I don’t live there, but also I think my host was trying to give me an out if I needed it. “You’re looking for who? Nope, never heard of her.”). 

The sweaty shine of victory!

I collapse in the shuttle. We collect Phillipa and Dan, a Canadian couple, from the airport and start our journey to San Miguel de Allende. 

This is what I learn on the four hour drive:

~Phillipa & Dan have a house in San Miguel and are very generous with their snacks. 

~Shuttle busses are nimble with invisible corners. Time and again, I brace for impact only to swerve into the next lane. 

SIDEBAR: Last night on the metro, a woman gave me a saint card for San Judas Tadeo. I paid her a few pesos for it. Turns out San Judas watches over drivers! There is a prayer on the back of the saint card that asks for firm hands, clear eyes, no accidents(!!!), and protection from drunk and aggressive drivers. Thank God I bought it, is all I’m saying. 

~Cheetos are sweeter in Mexico. 

~Every restroom costs 2-5 pesos. 

~Restrooms don’t include toilet paper. 

~Receipts make passable toilet paper depending on how shiny or matte the receipt is. Obviously, go for matte if you find yourself in the same predicament. 

We’re almost to San Miguel? I hope?? Because I need to pee again. 

"Have fun while I'm not... That's cool, whatever."

...said a restaurant to Colleen Sorenson, the founder of Muros en Blanco (White Walls), regarding nipples on a mural in view from their front windows. She objected back because art is full of nipples and so is the world, but the artist accommodated the restaurant by pixelating them.

645a I wake up. I do yin yoga and I DON’T CRY. I think I’m still warm and fuzzy from my perfect night last night, but still I highly recommend doing a yin class. Yin is to regular yoga, what drinking water is to your diet. Not terribly sexy, not exciting but necessary for your health and a great detox.

10a I’m the only person at Via Organica for the Wall Art tour. I meet Colleen Sorenson and get a private tour for the price of a normal tour. Since it’s just me, I opt to drive with Colleen instead of walk the neighborhood so I can see more. 

Yes, of course I thought of Stella (my bff, not the dog). I have a WhatWouldStellaDo moment every time I’m about to do something that has the potential to be the least bit dangerous, and it’s made me a more responsible Bianca. (My favorite WWSD moment was in New Orleans at 3am wearing a tiny dress and walking from Bourbon Street to the French Quarter to save money. I walked two blocks, realized Stella WOULD NEVER DO THIS and hailed a cab.) However, Colleen is a retired expat, and more importantly has a very good reputation online. I get in her Jeep without another thought.

She drives me to an overgrown ravine… 

I wish I was mean enough to write a gory story of all the ways she bound me with the strap from her Mexican handcrafted purse and tortured me with the glass from her bifocals (she doesn’t even wear glasses). I wish I could describe how her artists showed up and at first I thought they were going to intervene and save me but instead they used my bloodspray to accent their mural, a tortureporn representation of the birth of feminism named simply, “Lloras (You cry)”. However, this is a human being with a passion for art, doing good in the world. So she drives me to a ravine...

...and shows me incredible murals. Guadalupe has become the Arts District chiefly because of Colleen’s passion in spearheading making street art legal, because before 2013 anyone could be arrested for painting art on walls, even with the owners blessing, even if the owner was standing next to the artist, defending them to the police. 

The mural project, now named Muros en Blanco, has helped elevate the Guadalupe neighborhood - remember when I comparing it to East 6th in Austin? - from a rundown hood with spray-painted tags on the buildings to an up and coming area with an influx of money from young Mexicans who’ve returned from Mexico City to open new restaurants and stores in the area. 

If anyone is looking for a good documentary subject, Colleen & Graffiti World would be a great one. It’s the odd coupling of a 60’s woman who shuns cell phones founding a community of young artists in their teens and 20s in San Miguel and den mothering graffiti festivals that attract artists from all over the world. You’re welcome. 

Colleen’s passion for Muros en Blanco and providing for her artists is what spurred the Wall Art Tour that she does six times a week. All proceeds from the tours goes for paint for the artists and to support the community. Needless to say, I highly recommend it and I can’t wait to come back to see how the walls of San Miguel evolve. 

645p  

I’m writing when I realize the time and weather- it’s near sunset and it’s not raining!

I haul ass to the Rosewood Hotel rooftop to have the expensive drink I poo-poo’d yesterday. The view is better than I could have imagined. 

When you walk in San Miguel, the sidewalks are 2ish feet wide (thin!) and put you right next to the building walls. Streets are also thin and all the homes & shops are connected, so you walk around very much in the midst of clustered building snakes. Obviously, San Miguel is dripping with beauty with its bougainvillea, cobblestone streets, neogothic church and epic gardens, but this new bird’s eye perspective really stuns me. 

The churros and mezcal are hella nice, too.