Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 18

After lunch we headed to a nearby Metro station and bought five tickets for the bargain basement price of 10 pesos (which equates as about 20 cents per metro trip...). Mexico City Metro gave off this whole "retro-future" vibe - with "futuristic" lettering all throughout the stations but just the stations were a little on the run down retro side. It sort of felt like how a 1970s sci-fi movie with depict metro stations in the future... (Maybe that's why some of Total Recall was shot here in Mexico City...?). The trains were fairly quick and efficient. About one comes every couple of minutes so you don't have to wait long. Also - all of the trains were on "wheels" - so they all ran much smoother than real trains. The ride was a little bit squishy but that's probably because Mexico City has a population of more than 20m or something.

We headed to a metro stop nearby the "Bosque de Chapultepec" - a huge park with heaps of museums and stuff. When we attempted to get into the park - we had this female mexican cop (who sort of looked like she was dressed for drug bust) scream obscenities at us and not allowing us to enter into the park. We were a little bedazzled - and stood there for a bit to plot our next move. We managed to cross under a big road (via the metro station) and find an alternative entrance to the park. I think that entrance had closed early or something vague..!

We headed to the big "Museo Nacional de Autropeologia" which exhibits a lot of pre-hispanic artifacts. We were on a bit of a quest to exploit the city's free museums during Sunday - but we came to find out that Gringos had to pay normal price on a Sunday whilst locals (and ex pats) get in for free. There was another drug cop who looked at people whilst entering the museum and funneled both Ant and I off to the Gringo ticket counter to buy tickets... not that they where that expensive (less than $5AUD a pop).

Upon entering the museum - it had a courtyard that was "Cameron Offices in Canberra" on steroids - with a huge concrete water feature (sort of in the shape of a reverse funnel) which was spewing water at little mexican kids (who are likely to get gastro from playing with the water).

Everything in the museum was "en espanol" - which sort of was confirming that not many people here in Mexico speak Spanglish... There were a couple of pre-civilization bits on Mexico City and cavemen (which was a little hard to follow). We then (idiotically) decide to go to the upstairs exhibits which were a bit like a Disneyland exhibit of the different cultures and peoples within Mexico (as Ant had put it). It was a little boring and repetitive - but the museum was definitely worth a visit for the downstairs collection which housed heaps of kick-a$$, big f##k off archaeological finds of pre-hispicanic Mexico - including giant stone heads, a cool tomb thingy and heaps of art and decorative art stuff. Unfortunately - Ant and I had spent too long in the upstairs Disneyland section - and the stewpid guards were shutting all of the exhibits earlier than the closing time by 10 minutes - so we missed out on a couple of rooms.

After the museum closed - we exited the park and walked past a huge Xmas tree... Let go of xmas people - it is now closer to NYs!! We walked along the Reforma Ave and past what looked like the "Business/Finance/Wall Street" part of town. Also fabulous was the American Embassy (LP warns not to hang around this area in the "Danger and Annoyances" section - sounds like fun!). The embassy had big huge f###-off barriers and police with sawn-off shot guns (well - maybe they weren't sawn-off but they were shotguns). Speaking of shotguns - a lot of businesses and banks have the whole hired-mexican armada thing happening - with security guards all decked out with ammo and shotguns/riffles. It feels like you are in some bad Mexican-drug lord movie or something.

It felt like a really long walk (maybe because we were both tired) - but it only was about 40 mins from the big park to the hotel. We crashed for a bit. Our hotel in Mexico City had free wireless internet (this is where Ant's Macbook came in handy) - so I could finally update this blog (didn't really post anything whilst we were in the states). The TV situation in the hotel was pretty good - as we could play some of our DVDs that we had bought from the states (Ant was really getting into the Drawn Together DVDs)... Ironically - "In the Line of Fire" was on "HBO Extra" - so we ended up watching that... Ahhh the memories of the Westin Bonaventure - with the lobby, rooms, and of course - the lift where the finale was at (where John Malcovich gets shot by snipers) happened - opps did I give away the ending??! (not that that movie was half-predictable. I also started to watch "The Bodyguard" - which featured in my Razzies book. According to the book - Kevin Costner's haircut won a razzie that year for "Worst New Star"... Also ironical about the movie - Whitney Houston was nominated for worst actress and her character in the movie ends up winning the oscar for best actress...

Anyway - it was at a very Latino time of midnight when we decided that we should try and find somewhere for dinner. We braved the streets of Zona Rosa (past the hordes of prostitutes) and found a 24hr Sambons. Ant and I both tried the chicken tacos - which were completely unlike tacos back at home. They were in a slightly fried tortilla wrap and smothered with sauce and guacamole (which tastes a bit spicy here) and (my favourite) refried beans... We almost (again) created a international incident when we decided we were sick of waiting for the bill (after 15 minutes) - so we walked up and created quite a panic amongst the cashier and the waitress...

We were a little tired somewhat after dinner. I managed to catch the end of "The Bodyguard" where Kevin's haircut shoots the assassin (who had a camera as a gun) and takes a bullet for Whitney (why???) but Kevin's haircut survives and makes passionate hot luv on an airport tarmac although Whitney's acting career didn't (... wait - did I give this movie away...?!). Until next time....