Girl Travels with Boyfriend Days 8 & 9: We Shoulda Stayed on Vacation

Mike and I got back last Sunday evening, but I’ve been busy with a couple writing assignments, catching up with work, and some minor political event that definitely hasn’t brought me to tears multiple times in the past week. (Steve Bannon as chief strategist? Good call – the Jews were getting too comfortable in this country for my tastes.)

Mike also wants it clarified that he does not have negative feelings towards Russians. He just was frustrated he would have to wait longer in line to buy all his knick-knacks from the gift shop and all the people in line just happened to be Russian. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmk.

Saturday morning, Mike and I wake up later. I’ve been frustrated with our late wake-up times, thinking we’re missing out on activities, but I will come to realize when I get home that this is something to celebrate, not bemoan. Part of vacation is resting, and the lazy mornings are part of that.

As we walk down the stairs, Mike wants to talk about our future living arrangements.

“When we get a study, what do you think of having busts in there?”

I don’t respond. It’s not going to happen so I don’t see the point in continuing the conversation. Mike is obsessed with the idea of a study. I am obsessed with a place with a dishwasher for an affordable monthly rent. Besides, we haven’t even started apartment-hunting yet, so I’m not sure what the point of this conversation is.

“Caitlin? What do you think of busts in the study?”

I still don’t respond.

“Caitlin. Caitlin. Caitlin. Caitlin. Caitlin.”

“WHAT.”

“We should get busts for our study.”

“Who should we get busts of?”

Mike pauses. He hasn’t thought that far ahead. He only wants to annoy me.

“Julius Caesar,” he responds.

“A little on the nose,” I say.

“You’re right,” Mike agrees. He tries to think of some other names but I’m back to not paying attention. The uber has arrived and we get in.

We start the day with a late breakfast in the Roma Norte district. I get Eggs Benedict and Mike gets something that also has eggs and is probably good.

Some good Eggs Benedict.

“Who is Sam Smith?” Mike asks me.

“The singer?”

“No, he’s…” Mike takes another look at the article he’s reading.

“Oh, the philosopher?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s in the Richard Dawkins camp. He’s very proud of himself for being an atheist.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah. As if that’s a brave thing to be in British academia.”

“Dawkins wrote that article on why women aren’t funny?”

(lolol it’s true – women aren’t funny and America is right to hate us.)

“No, that was the guy who died – oh, what’s his name? That pseudo-intellectual college boy’s wet dream.”

“Christopher Hitchens.”

“Yes!”

“I never read that article. I should go back and read it.”
“No, it’s not necessary. He starts off asking ‘why aren’t women funny? Come on, you know what I’m talking about.’ Then he talks about a study where women understand comedy better than men, and then he talks about how men are funny for evolutionary reasons. To find a mate. Whereas women get pregnant, so they… can’t be funny I guess.”

“Arguments about how men and women are different because ‘evolution’ and ‘science’ are always awful.”

“Pseudo-science bullshit. Oh! He also said fat women, ‘dykes,’ and Jewish women don’t count. So I guess I can be funny by his definition. Because I like women.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You’re my beard.”

“Okay.”

Mike and I continue to discuss philosophy BS before deciding to walk over and see The Angel of Independence, a statue Mike was curious about.

We walk by what we called the Third Street Promenade of Mexico City – McDonald’s, Starbucks, other American fast food chains. Mike wanted to look at a video game and DVD store similar to Amoeba Records (whose lifespan already has an end date – long live streaming) so we walk inside. I see a Spanish-language version of s 2009 film called Miraculous Hands. It’s a biopic of Dr. Ben Carson starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and I find myself nostalgic for simpler times.

The "M" is covered so it just looks like Miraculous Butts.

Several hosts of restaurants shout at us in Spanish to eat at their restaurants. Mike begins to respond to each of them with something along the lines of “lo siento” because we just ate and are not hungry again yet.

“Mike,” I say as I usher him along, “something you learn as a woman is that you do not need to respond to every person who yells something at you when you walk down the street.”

“I know. I just feel bad.”

“They’re trying to get you to eat at their restaurant. You can ignore them.”

We walk along the street that has the Angel of Independence.

“I wish we had something like this in LA,” he says as he takes a picture of another bust. “Just a street of statues of famous people.”

“Do you know who any of these people are?”

“No.”
“Then how famous can they be?”

Mike concedes the point.

The statue is neat and big and we can go inside the bottom like a tiny version of the Statue of Liberty. Mike says he thinks this is better than the Statue of Liberty. I say the Statue of Liberty is much bigger. He repeats that this is better anyway. I move on from this conversation.

There are four smaller statues surrounding the Angel of Independence. One of them is “justicia” with a lady statue representing it.

“That’s my girl Justicia,” Mike says.

“Well, it’s not someone’s name. That’s Lady Justice.”

“No. Justicia is a real person.”

We argue for a bit about it before I realize it’s a stupid argument and why do I get dragged into stupid arguments all the time instead of walking away from the get-go? But Mike has discovered how fun this conversation is for him and he needles me a bit more about the other statues and how he and Justicia are homies.

Afterwards we head to the Palacio de Bella Artes, which is a beautiful museum and the first one we see that doesn’t have any part outside. We start with some ancient artwork from very early Mexican history that is compared to sculptures from Ancient Greece. The sculptures are mostly copies, not original, so that the museum could paint them as they imagined they originally appeared thousands of years ago. They’re much more colorful this way, and they’re clearly painted using Mexican tastes rather than Greek ones.

“It’s interesting,” I say.

“I think I like just the white better,” Mike replies. “The painted ones are a little uncanny valley for me.”

Palacio de Bella Artes.

There are some fantastic murals. Mike takes 16,000 photos of the murals. We see some more modern Mexican art as well. We take a look at an exhibit from a French artist from the 19^th century as well.

It’s late afternoon, not quite dinnertime. We get a drink after walking around for a bit in the Zocalo neighborhood. The place we stop at has dancing, and couples get up and dance with each other.

Walking around Zocalo.

Our final meal is at a food court/market similar to Grand Central Market in Downtown LA. We look around and all the mini-restaurants look amazing. I decide on a burritos with some fantastic-looking carnitas and it is one of the best burritos of my life, even without guacamole. Mike falls victim to the siren song of the sushi burrito, and while it’s good, it is not as good as my carnitas burrito.

I have also, in my time, been seduced by the sushi burrito. It is less than the sum of its parts.

I wait in the world’s longest line for some churros with chocolate dipping sauce for dessert. Between them and the burrito, this is a culinary highlight of the trip. Food malls are great.

Mike and I walk home, making our way through a park and enjoying how nice our last night is. We are sad to leave so early tomorrow.

Sunday morning comes and we get out of the room in a timely manner. We make it to our airport terminal at 10 AM. We find out 20 minutes before our flight at 11:58 PM that we need our exit papers. We lost those. We miss our flight. We get new exit papers. We get home 9 hours later than anticipated.

So, I guess that’s three flights in my life I’ve missed now. I am an idiot.

Let’s not bring this up if you ever see me hahahaha okay thanks much.

So happy to be back in LAX and that my customs pic is so cute wow straight stunna over here.

Was that the universe warning us not to return home?

“Yeah, because Mexico is gonna be a better place to live than the US,” my roommate jokes with me when I tell her about that theory.

Okay. Fine. Point taken.

I’m home now, and the election happened so soon after Mike and I returned that it sort of flows together in my mind.

My trip with Mike to Mexico City was fantastic, and I’m glad I had the experience. I would recommend it to anyone.

Girl Travels with Boyfriend Day 7: Lucha Libre is Prime Entertainment

Chapultepec Park is walking distance from us, so Mike and I decide to spend the afternoon there and then go to a Lucha Libre show tonight. We stop on the way to Chapultepec at a bakery and they are playing Creedence Clearwater Revival and everything smells amazing and I wonder if it's truly necessary to ever leave.

As we walk to Chapultepec Park, Mike gets antsy.
"You got us lost again."
"How dare you. I've never gotten us lost."
At that moment we see the entrance to Chapultepec Park.
"I never doubted you," Mike tells me.
"You are so annoying."
"That's not true." Mike thinks about my statement. "You like it."
"Which is it? It's not true or I like it?"
"It's not true." Mike pauses. "You like it."
Whatever. Mike and I walk around the park for a bit and decide to go to the Museum of Modern Art. A lot of the art is outside and it's awesome seeing it in the grass and the trees. Mike takes pictures of me taking pictures of the art. He pretends he's not doing it but he is not subtle.

We get to some wooden sculptures.
"Want a picture with these like those profile pictures with the lamps at LACMA girls have?" Mike asks.
"Yes."
"Oh, I was joking. I didn't think you would say yes to that."
"Well I did. So yes please."

Don't care if he was making fun of me because this is fsho a #profilepic.

Don't like the way that statue is looking at Mike.

We head into the museum itself and look at a few of the exhibits. It's not a large museum. Then we head to the gift shop and Mike, I have discovered on this trip, loves gift shops.

He spends as much time in gift shops as he does the rest of the museum we're visiting.

He went into Frida's gift shop 6 different times to see what mug he wanted before finally making a decision.

He bought one of everything at the Trotsky gift shop. Mike says I'm exaggerating but I don't think by much.

At the Museum of Modern Art, he buys a nice coffee table book.

We leave the Museum of Modern Art and head over to Chapultepec Castle, and it's probably my favorite museum visit of the trip. The grounds are beautiful, having once belonged to Spanish aristocracy and then turned at some point into a military academy before becoming a National History Museum. It sits on top of the hill of Chapultepec, which was a place of special significance to the Mexicana people in pre-Hispanic times.

As we walk up the hill, we start taking pictures. I catch Mike taking a picture of me.
"I'm not taking a picture of you," Mike responds when I ask him. "You're so self-centered."
"Maybe I wouldn't be so self-centered if the world didn't revolve around me."
"Touche."

When we get to the museum itself, we find it focuses on the relationship between the Spanish and Indigenous people of Mexico. The murals are bold and intense and rawly emotional. We see depictions of indigenous people getting baptized. We see rich Spaniards taking over lands. We see maps of Mexico and its territories in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. There's artwork and ceramic from pre-Hispanic times and clothes from different eras post-Hispanic as well. There are cannons and machine guns and rifles and portraits of governors.

Spanish Catholics baptizing an Indigenous person.

Sleeves.

Leisure wear.

There is also this very dope globe from the 19th century. I walk over just as two other Americans check it out.
"Look at this," American #1 says to American #2. "It's a globe from the 19th century."
They are standing right in my way of taking a photo which makes them probably the worst.
"See, this is when Mexico used to have part of the US," A#1 says. "And it shows Texas by itself for some reason."
Ahem. For some reason? I decide if he doesn't know Texas was an independent republic for part of its history then he forfeits the right to stand in front of the globe while I am attempting to take a picture. I do not voice this opinion because there are times when I am not actively looking to fight with a stranger. With enough patience that you might as well call me Dr. Caitlin (zing), I wait for the two of them to move on before I take a picture. Then I grab Mike and show him the globe because it is awesome.

This is not a current map.

"Look, there is Sweden all as one country taking over Scandinavia. And here in southern Africa it's Cape Colony and then just undetermined land. Tripoli in the north. And obviously there's no Poland because it didn't exist at the time."
"Poland didn't exist at the time?" Mike asks.
"Yeah, Poland disappeared during Catherine the Great's reign of Russia and came back with the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. You knew that, right?"
"I vaguely knew it."
"Wow. Here I thought you were a history major."
"Okay. Come on."
"That's almost as embarrassing as not know knowing Texas was an independent republic at one point."
"No it's not! First of all, that's my own country's history. And second of all..."
But Mike couldn't think of a second of all. And he gave me so much shit for not knowing about Hadrian's Wall a few months back (he told his father and his sister I didn't know about the Wall and they both said "well, it was nice while it lasted" and now I can never see either of them ever again) that I was having a good, obnoxious time finally getting to return the favor. A really awesome aspect about dating Mike is being really annoying about knowing details about history that I kind of have to scale back on with other people.

I am trying to defend myself so people don't think I'm the worst and you know it's not worth the effort. I'm annoying and I like knowing history stuff and whatever. I will not call myself a "history nerd" because that is a humblebrag and we all know it.

Mike and I get to a part of the museum that shows gauchos and cowboys.
"Stuff like this reminds me how white-washed Westerns in American films are."
"Oh yeah," Mike agrees. "A lot of Mexicans in the Old West. Not everyone looked like John Wayne."

Mike sees the gift shop.
"What do you think? Should I get something kitschy?"
"It's a gift shop. So."
Mike gets something kitschy.

Chapultepec Park is pretty I guess.

After the castle, Mike and I walk to a restaurant called Muelle 22 for some oysters, sushi, and risotto, and it is an excellent dinner.

Pineapple and shrimp risotto.

Mussels.

"You didn't tell me why you hated umbrellas," Mike tells me over dinner.
"Oh. Yeah. Boston."
"You could have just told me. I had to read about it on your blog."
I try to suppress a giggle. I am 50% successful.
"...do you feel betrayed?"
"No," Mike whines, and that ends the conversation.

Mike and I catch an uber to Arena Mexico for the Lucha Libre show and while we both anticipated it was going to be a bomb show, we had no idea it was going to be one of our favorite things of the trip. Because Mexican wrestling is, if anything, wholly entertaining.

We each get a cubana - spicy Coronas, essentially - and cotton candy. I have to use the bathroom, and walk into a stall before realizing it's a "bring your own toilet paper" affair. I grab a paper towel and then some woman steals the stall I had planned on using which is super uncool but there's another one right next to it so I get by. We have trouble finding our seat but a guide helps us and then he asks us for a tip and we're definitely not at the Staple Center but a tip is no big deal I guess.

Vendors should out their wares - beer, enormous bags of chips, nachos, cotton candy, and Top Ramen. No, seriously, Top Ramen is something you can buy and eat at a Lucha Libre show.
"I think I'm gonna get one," Mike says.
"Absolutely not."
"What? Why not?"
"You're not in college. You're an adult. That's disgusting."
I take another bite of cotton candy.
"Wow. I didn't realize you were so judgmental."
"There's so much salt in those things it could kill your unborn child in its first trimester. You wouldn't even need Planned Parenthood. Just get a value pack of those things."
"Well that sounds great because I don't want to get pregnant."
Mike eventually gets a Top Ramen.

An announcer starts calling the names of the wrestlers. They come out to special songs and walk down a ramp where six girls in what are essentially bikinis dance.
"I'm a little worried about my sexuality because my first thought on seeing those girls is that they're not really dancing," Mike tells me.
There is no place for Mike in Trump's America I guess.

Not the best pic but those are the ladies.

One guy swinging another guy upside down.

Another swinging.

In the ring are six wrestlers at a time, and they're split into teams of three - one team is the Good Guys and one team is the Bad Guys. This is all some of the fakest stuff I've ever seen but it's still really, really fun and the acrobatics and enormous thighs are very entertaining.

The arrivals of these wrestlers are fantastic. My favorite entrance is a guy in a sombrero, artillery rounds wrapped around his chest but no shirt, spandex shorts, and knee pads. He walks out with a rifle in each hand and what must be a six-year-old wearing a white gaucho outfit next to him. His name is Dragon Jr. At the end of the walk he picks up the kid, twirls him around to the music while still holding one of the guns in the other hand, then sets the kid down so he can enter the ring. The kid, meanwhile, walks off with one of the rifles.

He's a Bad Guy and I am so motherloving entertained right now my lungs are about to leave my chest.

He's on a team with Bobby Z (black cowboy hat) and another guy who is just straight-up named Terrible because nuance can go fuck itself - this is Lucha Libra, you stupid jerk. Terrible is dressed in all black and has shoulder-length hair and tattoos and he saunters out to SHANIA TWAIN and I've literally never been more excited about $20 spent in my life.

I think Bobby Z came out to Van Halen.

The woman next to me can tell Mike and I are American and she starts giving me information about the show. "The music lets you know where in Mexico they're from. When it's mariachi, they're from Guadalajara." That's pretty neat.

Then there's a round of just two women wrestling - Dallys and Marcela. Their thighs are so amazing and it makes me wonder what their workout regiment is and I immediately sign up for my classes next week on ClassPass.

"The women are rougher than the men," the woman next to me says, "because they don't spend as much time celebrating."

The men like to gyrate their genitals in their opponents faces after a particularly brutal move. The women don't do that quite as much.

After Dallys wins, another group of Mexican wrestlers come out. Mistico is dressed in silver with a big silver cape and apparently he's a big deal and super famous. It's apparent why - when he wrestles, he's acrobatic and charismatic, even when he's "losing." At one point, the three bad guys do a sort of pyramid thing where the two bottom guys of the pyramid are standing up and the top one kneels on their shoulders, and Mistico jumps from the ropes and grabs the top guy's head with his legs AND BRINGS HIM DOWN. IT IS INCREDIBLE. DAMN WHAT DID I JUST WATCH GOOD GOD HOW DO YOU TRAIN FOR THIS and we have such prime seats for $20.

Mistico is fighting against a guy called Luciferno because Lucha Libre knows why you're here and it's not for the subtle character development.

"Do you see that little guy in the blue gorilla costume?" the woman next to me asks. "It's not a kid, it's a little person. Mistico will defend him from the bad guys. He gets involved sometimes too. Just watch."

I am so uncomfortable with that development so I decide to move on in my head.

The match with Mistico ends and I can't remember who won. Another match follows. A guy named Maximo comes out with a pink mohawk and a shirt that says KISS ME in pink letters on it.

"That's Maximo," the woman next to me explains. "He's gay. When he celebrates a move he kisses the other guy on the mouth."

Maximo is very popular.

Sure enough, there's a montage on screen of Maximo kissing other wrestlers on the mouth. Later in the match, Maximo is fighting with another guy who is oiled up and wearing spandex shorts and Maximo gets the best of him and kisses him on the mouth. The other guy is so distraught about being kissed by a man that he is legit out of commission for a few minutes. Heterosexual masculinity is so fragile, yo. (Also, is this where I bring up the homoerotic undercurrent of the whole affair? Or should I do that later?)

Mike and I walked around for a bit after the show and got a drink at a bar in the Roma Norte district. Anyway great Friday well done us.

Girl Travels with Boyfriend Day 6: Leon Trotsky and Pujol

"I look like a Mortal Kombat character," Mike complains as we walk in the rain. His hood is up and buttoned.
"You don't have to button it all the way up. It's not even raining that hard. It's drizzling."
"This wouldn't be happening if we had an umbrella."
"It's barely raining. Why are you so sensitive, bruh?"
"How can you even SAY that?!?!"

Mike and I head back to Coyaocan today to see Leon Trotsky's house. We stop first at a Mexican bakery and we wonder how it took us so long to get to a Mexican bakery because damn it is great stuff and very cheap. Make sure to get to a Mexican bakery while in Mexico. The donuts are good, the cheese pastries are good, the sandwiches are good, the churros are good - hey, it's all good.

There are not very many things Mike is adamant about on this trip, but the Trotsky museum is one of them. Mike identified as a communist in high school, and while he no longer considers himself as such (he was always a Hillary supporter even when I was feeling the Bern, so sometimes my politics are left of his), he still loves himself some communist history.

The Trotsky house is beautiful and fascinating. Trotsky had most of his family members killed by the Bolsheviks. In 1928, when Stalin kicked him out of Russia, he moved from Kazakhstan (hmm, places I don't want to be include Kazakhstan circa 1928) to Turkey to Norway to France and then finally found asylum in Mexico in 1937 thanks to a good amount of help from Frida Kahlo, who had communist sympathies herself.

Trotsky's exile travels.

Stalin was obsessed with Trotsky even after Trotsky left the USSR, and Trotsky suffered one failed assassination attempt before the second one finally succeeded - a spy from Spain managed to be his secretary's boyfriend and got access to the house that way, then killed Trotsky by knocking him in the head with an ice axe.

Trotsky's room.

"Damn, that's cold," I say. I belatedly realize my pun. Mike narrows his eyes at me. Guess he knows how it feels now when someone is just trying to go about their day and they are bombarded by puns.

We're in Trotsky's study after having left his library.
"So he gets this whole study to himself while his wife and secretaries and assistants get that library," I observe.
"Yep," Mike responds.
"He gets a whole room to himself. So much for communism, am I right? What about sharing everything you have?"
I think my willful misunderstanding of communism is the closest Mike has ever come to leaving me.

#artsy

After we walk through the museum, Mike asks if I want to do a guided tour of the museum.
"Um, ok. We can latch onto this group that's halfway through."
Mike doesn't want to do that, obviously.
"Because otherwise, if we start at the beginning, it would be like going through the museum an entire two times in a row."
"Yes, that is what I want to do," Mike says excitedly, trying to play like that was my idea. It is not my idea at all.
Oof. I remind myself that Mike has been super chill with the things I've wanted to do. I am not a selfless person, it turns out.

I almost succeed in getting us to leave when a big group of people walk in.
"Oh, great, we're surrounded by Russians," Mike says. I am frankly surprised Mike feels this way and his casual xenophobia almost makes me love him more. He realizes what he says and tries to walk it back but it is too late. I now know he is not always nicer than me, and that weapon stays in my arsenal.
We find a guy who, thankfully, wants the tour to go as quickly as we do. It almost looks like he was about to go on lunch before Mike and I asked him to guide us. He is insecure about his English but his English is fine. We actually do learn some cool stuff, and I am not upset we did the guided tour even after walking through the whole museum by ourselves one time through. I know so much about Leon Trotsky now, so that's a cool thing.

Mike letting his true colors shine.

We get Japanese food for breakfast and it is okay. It starts raining again.
"You don't have to look like a Dragon Ball Z character if you don't want to. It's really not that hard."
"It's Mortal Kombat, Caitlin. Gosh."
"Wow. How embarrassing for me to get that wrong."
"Do you ever feel pressure to be as funny as me? You don't have to, you know."
"I don't feel the pressure."
"Because I'm funny enough for the both of us? I get it."
"Because you set a bar that is... achievable."
"Yeah. It's good to challenge yourself."

I've seen so many Santander banking establishments in Mexico City and it's odd. When I was a finance manager, Santander was a lending institution we used for people with bad credit who wanted to buy a Lexus. They're skeevy, from my recollection. Most lending institutions who prey on work specifically with people with roach credit are skeevy. In Mexico City, Santander is everywhere. Bizarre.

After the museum, Mike is not feeling 100% (fighting a cold), so we go back to the room to rest up before our evening at Pujol. This is our second world-famous restaurant out of two this trip (the other being Biko). They are both on the list of 50 Best Restaurants in the World. It is also in Polanco.

Mike and I get to Pujol and it's quieter and kind of fancier than Biko. Biko is hip, almost, whereas Pujol is almost blueblooded. We both agree we like Biko better, but the internet does not agree with us, so what do we know? Also, I learn Biko is "techno-emotional" cuisine. I do not know what that means but I guess my tastes are not quite so refined.

Pujol is great, don't get me wrong. It's excellent. We did like the food better at Biko but Pujol is still good. The service, however, is... different. In both restaurants the waiters launch into full-on explanations of the food and how they're made and how to eat them and that's cool. But in Pujol they kind of... hover?

We sit down in Pujol and immediately after placing my drink order I think about using the restroom. We haven't even ordered our food yet, so I haven't touched my utensils, and also I'm about to stand up anyway. A waiter comes over, grabs my napkin, airs it out, and tries to put it on my lap. Is he appalled I haven't done that yet? I feel like a heathen. I can't tell if this is supposed to be exceptionally good service or they are throwing serious shade at me.

Later, after our first course, a waiter comes over and cleans all the crumbs off the table. Now we have a nice table but also are we savages or what.

My second course is a beef tongue soup that is incredible. They give me a spoon and no fork and also some tortillas in case I want to make a taco. I attempt but the taco is messy. I spill a bit. After this course is done five restaurant employees come over to change the tablecloth to a brand new tablecloth that has no spills on it. It is a touch humiliating. They are wondering how we even got into this establishment, I'm sure, but OpenTable doesn't ask you about your table manners when you book a place so take that, suckers.
"Why are they changing the tablecloth halfway through the meal?" Mike asks me. "We're just going to need it changed again later."

We are running out of fancy Mexico City restaurants we can safely come back to.

The rest of the meal is amazing and dessert is ridiculous. You hear "avocado ice cream" and go "no thanks" and then you eat a bite and you're like "oh damn my man well done." Because I'm allergic to nuts, they switch out a nutty sweet drink and give me a lemon meringue dish and I feel like that is a win for me because it's very very very good. There is a fancy churro Mike and I share. Dessert was solid.

Lamb taco served with zero utensils, but hey - I'm the savage here. Good taco tho.

Dessert was a feast unto itself.

From communism to snobby fancy restaurants, Mike and I are decidedly more comfortable in some arenas than others.

Girl Travels with Boyfriend Day 5: Frida Kahlo and Dia de los Muertos and the World Series

My face is still puffy this morning. I complain, but not very seriously. I know it will go down by the end of the day. Mike seems into it.
"It's like you're a different person," he says. "Hurry, we better get out of here before my girlfriend gets back."
I snort.
"No one would even think there was anything wrong. You just look like someone who is..."
But Mike didn't have the second half of that thought planned out, so it didn't have the exact impact he was going for.

We get breakfast and my stomach is still a little fragile but I manage. I am very brave.

We uber over to the Frida Kahlo house in the Coyoacan district. The line is ridiculously long. In Spanish there's a sign that says something about buying our tickets online. Mike thinks that means we absolutely have to. I tell him that's unlikely, that we can probably buy our tickets at the door, but he is adamant.

We buy the tickets, wait in line for another 40 minutes or so, and then I finally read the sign myself. I don't remember the exact words, but it seems pretty clear that it doesn't insist on us buying tickets online - it just means we could move to the front of the line faster if we've already bought them online ahead of time.

We waited another 40 minutes for no reason. At least we got some bomb churros out of it.

I don't know very much about Frida Kahlo but she's fascinating. The house is a must-see just to learn more about her as a person. She got polio when she was six and as a result, her right leg was shorter than the other. Then, at 18, the bus she was in got hit by a tramway and she almost died. Her injuries left her barren, and she got kind of obsessed with the motherhood she would never attain. Her husband, Diego Rivera, was probably more famous during their lifetime, but he was also a fat lecher and how are you gonna have an affair with your wife's sister like that? Frida had affairs too though, and after divorcing Rivera for sleeping with her sister (fair), they got remarried just one year later up in San Francisco. Some of these great love stories sound very exhausting to me and I don't think I'm up for all that emotional labor. How do people do it. Just be nice and stuff.

Not Frida's work exactly but some cool sculptures.

Dope courtyard at Casa Kahlo.

Eyes still recovering but a beautiful home.

There is also an exhibit relating specifically to Frida's clothes, and that was probably my favorite part of the exhibit. Frida required corsets because of her injuries, so she turned them into art in of themselves. She embraced the fashion of her mother's ancestry from southeast Mexico and covered her injuries and weaknesses with long skirts and beautiful jewelry to distract the eye. Her fashion became a source of strength for her. It was very interesting.

After the museum, Mike and I decided to wander around Coyoacan to see if there were any Day of the Dead celebrations happening. And you know what, there were! It was a carnival! All of these tamales and enchiladas and chicken sticks and chocolate and ferris wheels and wooden roller coasters. There was a mime act that Mike and I watched and really enjoyed. We got our faces painted. Mike wasn't sure he wanted to do it, but he got talked into it pretty quickly.

Setting up another altar.

The woman who paints Mike's face doesn't do a typical Catrina make-up look. She puts some purple in his beard and eyebrows and adds some glitter.
"Do you like it?" he asks me.
"Yes!"
"Me too. I look like Daario Naharis."
"Um. Sure."
"Dark. Mysterious. Dangerous. That's me, babe."
"Yes. Yes it is."
"Thank you. I knew you'd agree."
"Like you'd totally be able to get Khaleesi to bone you."
"Exactly. Yeah. Exactly."
"I think you look more like a deer version of a werewolf. Because of those antler things. Like a were-deer. You turn into a majestic deer at the full moon."
"I like Daario Naharis better."
"I like weredeer. It's elegant."
"I'm sticking with Daario Naharis."

La Calaverna Catrina in more modern clothing.

Daario + Catrina = <3

It started raining while we were getting our faces painted, so we had to buy ponchos. Mike is obsessed with umbrellas. He keeps talking about umbrellas. I suppose somewhere in the world is a place where when it rains, the water falls straight down, but after spending four years in Boston I do not trust umbrellas. When rain falls it falls sideways onto your face and into your mouth and your umbrella is just going to turn inside out and now you have an inside-out umbrella to carry on top of everything else. This is a bias I don't anticipate going away. Boston has ruined umbrellas for me.

Mike and I grab dinner nearby as we wait out the rain. Dia de los Muertos is interesting. There's so much of La Calaverna Catrina (the skeleton lady in the outfit from the 1910s that is associated so heavily with the holiday) but there also seems to be some straight up Halloween. Kids go trick-or-treating for three days straight and wear superhero costumes and pumpkin costumes and Monsters Inc costumes in addition to the typical Dia de los Muertos fare. It's pretty cool seeing two cultures come together. I am also jealous these kids get three days of trick-or-treating and I only ever got one but I suppose that is just a truth I will have to live with.

Mike and I order margaritas and some food. A guy with a guitar starts playing a Spanish version of "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps." I hum along because that song is great. The guitar player notices and asks if we would like a song. 60 pesos for one song, 100 pesos for 2.
"No, gracias," I say just as Mike says "si."
Mike wants to buy me a song. He tries to think of one his dad likes but he can't remember the full name of it. It's a nice little serenade.
"You're my dream girl," Mike says.
"Want a little wine with that cheese?"
"You like it."
I do kinda like it.

Dinner is saffron risotto and filet mignon stuffed with mushrooms. Still thinking about how good that risotto is.

Mike is pensive in the kitchen while wearing his poncho.

When we get back to the room we talk about which bar we'd like to go back to. I check Facebook and realize it's the 9th inning of Game 7 of the World Series and the Cubs and Indians are tied. I do not care about baseball. Baseball is boring. But the Cubs haven't won a World Series in 108 years and this is a big deal and I kind of like watching American sports games at bars in different countries.

Within five minutes we're back at the Irish pub. The game is on, but they're doing something with a tarp, and someone changes the game IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NINTH INNING to a soccer game. I wonder if this is real. We came here specifically because the TVs were showing the Cubs game and now we're watching soccer?

But it's clearly a shootout, so I know there's no point in asking them to change the channel until the shootout is over. Once it is, I ask an employee to put the baseball game back on.

"No," he says, like he can't believe anyone would care about baseball.
"It's historic!!!! This team hasn't won in over 100 years! It's game 7 of the World Series!" I am not a Cubs fan or a baseball fan but I'll be damned if I'm not a part of this moment in American history in even this very small way.

I remember I am getting excited about this and also I'm still wearing all my Catrina facepaint and I probably look pretty silly.

I ask a second person, and she says no, and then I ask a third person, and he says they're already changing it, and now we're at the top of the 10th inning and we get to watch a player steal second and there are cheers in the pub so I know we're not the only Americans here.

Mexico City. Irish pub. American baseball.

A live band plays some covers of American pop hits and it's pretty great and then we go to a second bar and there's a live band playing American pop hits and they are not quite as good and then we go home.

Great day.

I am very good at ending these posts thank you.

Girl Travels with Boyfriend Day 4: In Which I Visit My Third Hospital in a Foreign Country

Spoiler alert: I am fine. Second spoiler alert: either Mexican hospitals are remarkably cheap or Mike and I just ditched the bill. Third spoiler alert: that joke I made in a previous post about not learning my lesson about nuts was not only not funny but also turned out to be Chekhov's peanuts. (I am not pleased with that wordplay but I also cannot help myself.)



This morning is lazy. Mike is hungover and I'm a bit sleepy. We decide we're cooking dinner ourselves tonight, so Mike grabs a few last minute items and gets a marinade going. We decide to walk around Zocalo for Day of the Dead.

I buy a dope Day of the Dead shirt and then we walk around some street with cobblestones and no cars and so many Day of the Dead altars!!!! They are amazing. Pics are below. I took the first one and Mike took the rest.

Mike and I haven't eaten yet, so we decide our first order of business (after wandering around the altars) is to grab something from a taqueria. We find a place that looks good and order tacos with mole. Do you know where this is going? I should have.

Jingle All The Way plays on a TV in the back of this taqueria. I have to order an americano four times before it seems like the waiter understands. We're halfway through the meal before we get our coffee.

The tacos with mole look amazing. I take one bite and immediately can tell something is wrong. I don't taste anything at all. I taste warning sign.

"I think there's nuts in this," I tell Mike. Later, research would let us know mole often has nuts. I don't know why I didn't know this, but I do know why I didn't ask. Mike and I have asked various versions of "nueces, alergia, cacahuatas, tienes" and the waiter so rarely understands the question that I've gotten frustrated. I know you know what I'm saying when I say cacahuatas! My accent cannot be that bad!

We ask a nearby waiter if there are cacahuatas and he doesn't comprehend. We ask another man who seems to know some English, and at first he is confused, and he asks a cook, and they say no and it's safe to eat. But it's not appetizing to me anymore. Mike finishes his food. I don't want anything else.

Then the same man, who assured us the food was safe, comes back over and tells us that there are, in fact, peanuts in the sauce. I give the plate back and don't order anything else. They bring out flan because they feel bad, and I have one bite, but I'm not feeling it.

Jingle All The Way is a terrible movie. I had forgotten about Sinbad. Mike says last he heard, Sinbad was working on a cruise ship. That was 10 years ago.

They play a movie called Boys and Girls next where Freddie Prinze Jr. plays a NERD and that woman from Meet Joe Back - Claire Forlani? - is nice to him even though he is not nice to her. Jason Biggs is in it and he is young. I think his face has gotten more punchable as he has gotten older.

We keep walking for a bit and Mike is very concerned about my nut reaction. He thinks it is a big deal that I accidentally ate nuts. I think nut allergies are the dumbest thing and I'd rather just not deal, so I play it cool. I tell him very calmly that I have to find a private alleyway so I can vomit. If I am relaxed, Mike is relaxed.

Mike wants to go back to the room. We had such a late start today that I have no interest in doing that. We are enjoying Mexico City, goddamn it.

We pass a street called Simon Bolivar and I tell Mike it's a missed opportunity to call it Simon Boulevard. He agrees.

We find a dark parking garage with no security just in time - I was about to throw up in the middle of the street and that would have been a whole thing. Mike gives me a modicum of privacy. He is intrigued by a Lady of Guadeloupe altar in the middle of this dark and seedy garage. I feel somewhat better after throwing up.

"Bitch I'm back," I tell him, appropriating Beyonce's "Formation" because I feel like a rockstar after getting it mostly out of my system. Mike is relieved.

We grab water at a convenience store. Mike wants to look at a church and I don't want to. Am I in a hurry to get somewhere? I realize I am still irritable despite trying to play it cool. I try harder to be cool.

We keep walking and the streets get more and more crowded. I see a farmacia and tell Mike I'd like to get some benedryl. We stop. The lady doesn't know what benedryl is. I take out my phone and type it on my notes app. Still nothing. I type "alergia" and she gets it and finds some medicine. I remember I have a benedryl pill in my purse and take it, but I also buy the extra allergy medicine.

We decide to walk to Templo Mayor but I am not getting better. I cough, but I remind myself I'm still recovering from a cold. I'm getting an itch here and there, but it's not hives, obviously - I only break out in hives when my reaction is serious, and this reaction isn't serious, so it's obviously not hives - so I do my best to ignore the itching. The stomach pain doesn't go away.

It's so crowded. It's so crowded. I want to sit down. People are yelling at me to buy things in Spanish and I don't want to deal with it. Where are the trash cans? I have two empty water bottles and I'm so annoyed I'm still carrying them. Why isn't my stomach feeling better? It's not a serious reaction, that itch isn't getting worse, it's not spreading, I don't need to scratch my scalp-

My face puffs up and I can physically feel it. Well, I've gotten puffy face without a serious reaction. But it wasn't paired with a stomach pain that won't stop. I didn't feel this weak. The itching is starting to become something I can't ignore. My breathing is labored in a way that has nothing to do with the cold I'm essentially over.

"I would like to go to the hospital," I tell Mike calmly. I almost add the word "please." He agrees. I walk quickly - the hospital isn't a terribly far walk but I don't want to waste too much time. Mike keeps pace with me. I'm feeling weaker, and every time I check my maps app, it feels like the hospital we're going to gets farther and farther away. Finally my maps app goes blank. Mike's phone is dead. I don't know how to get to the hospital anymore, and it's probably another 20 minutes of walking at least.

If I'm being honest with myself, I don't think twenty minutes of fast-paced walking is a good idea at this point.

Mike sees a restaurant and says we should beg them to let us use their WiFi to call an uber. I agree. I usually would do the talking but good god I need something to lean on at this point because standing up is just so tiring. I remain calm, or try to, but everyone else is moving so slowly and I would like to get to the hospital now, thank you.

"Don't panic," Mike says, and I am annoyed because I am not panicking, thankyouverymuch, and it takes me a minute to realize that he is repeating that phrase for himself just as much as he is for me and my grouchy attitude.

They let us use the WiFi - a true testament to how awful a puffy, red face and a body grabbing onto a chair for dear life can look. The uber driver comes. I feel much better. We will be at the hospital soon. Once there, I will be fine.


I remember my first allergic reaction out of the country. I was 20, and in Budapest, and had eaten a candy bar with roasted peanut flour. The hospital didn't know what an allergic reaction was, and I got lucky and the reaction wasn't bad. I didn't need medical attention after all. I worry the hospital here will not know how to treat an allergic reaction. I try to push the thought out of my mind. There isn't anything I can do if they don't know how.

I remember my second time I had an allergic reaction abroad, in January 2014. My friend Pip and I were on Atiu, an island in the Cook Islands with about 100 people living there. I told her it was mild and would pass, and she very calmly said "okay, I trust you, but what if - and hear me out - today we went to the hospital?" It was a smooth trick, so I agreed to it. When we got there, I pointed to the expensive pricing at the hospital just for being seen by a doctor and told her it would be a waste of money because there was no way in hell they had anything that could help me, all the way out here in the middle of the South Pacific. And again, it was mild. And again, I am lucky to travel with people who are more concerned about my anaphylaxis than I am.

I don't always pay attention to little details like "what exactly are the ingredients in this thing I'm about to put inside my body?"

I don't count the almost-hospital visit in Atiu as my second visit. I count the visit in Rarotonga, the main island in the Cook Islands, when I finally caved and decided to treat my leg for the second-degree burn I sustained four days earlier when my calf hit an exposed muffler on a motor bike. They gave me a shot of penicillin in my butt. I'd never had a shot in my butt before my trip to the Cook Islands. I guess I can say I have now.

While in the uber, I remember being stranded in Belize when my car broke down. I remember my various hospital visits. I remember my flight from Berlin to Geneva being grounded because of a volcano erupting in Iceland. I remember my one-person car accident driving in the snow from Boston up to Montreal. I remember I have travel days like Sunday, where Mike and I spend a beautiful day in Xochimilco, like normal tourists, and days like Monday, where Mike and I wander around Polanco like typical visiting Americans, and then I remember I have days like today, where my belief in my own invincibility leads me to yet another hospital in a foreign country.

This uber driver is literally the slowest driver I've ever had in any city I've ever been. He knows we're going to the hospital, and he picks the lanes with all the cars in it even when there's a lane with no cars right next to it. He drives the speed limit, if that. I swear to God he's playing elevator music. I moan in the backseat.
"This ride is a joke," I mutter weakly.
"What?" Mike asks.
"Nothing," I mumble.
I think about saying "um, emergencia, alergia, hospital" to the driver. I imagine him responding "hey, rules are rules" in Spanish, because this dude seems like a total Pollyanna. I decide to groan a little bit more loudly to see if that affects his driving. It does not. It does succeed in worrying Mike even further. I feel like a dick but I am not feeling well enough to correct Mike. I figure he'll see I'll be fine once we get to the hospital.
"Hotel California" by The Eagles starts playing, and I think to myself I hate the fucking Eagles, man. I laugh in my head. I lean against the car window. When the driver's map app shows we're only 4 minutes away, I do math to keep my brain occupied. 240 seconds, I tell myself. Too long to hold your breath underwater, I remind myself. Stop being an idiot, we're almost there, I tell my morbid thoughts.

We get to the hospital and find the waiting room, but hospitals in Mexico are set up differently than they are in the States, and we don't know where to check in. We find a nice lady doctor wearing jeans and nice boots and Day of the Dead nail polish and I say "alergia - cacahuatas" and she sees immediately what's happening and sits me down while sending Mike to go figure out paperwork.

She takes my blood pressure and it's low. It's very low. She makes some sort of decision and tells me to bring my stuff with me and takes me to a room.

I'm moved to a room that seems to be a nurse's station of sorts. No bed. The doctors come back to relax. People come in to discuss prescriptions. They know I'm American, so I assume they're doing this because I can't afford a different room. I'm not sure. I'm happy to be treated, and honestly, the less pomp about it the better. They give me an oxygen mask. I feel much improved.

A nurse grabs a plastic glove and wraps it around my forearm, right under the elbow. I know she's about to give me a shot. I look away. She gives it to me right in the back of the forearm, under the wrist. I have never had a shot here before. I hate it. I can feel the needle inside me the whole time. It's painful, stretching the skin. She draws blood. It feels like it's in there for an hour when I'm sure it was only 60 or so seconds. Now I know why I've never gotten a shot in my forearm before. I'll take the finger prick any day.

Mike sits down in the room with me. His eyes are teary. I try to tell him everything is going to be fine now that I'm being treated, but too many people are fussing over me and I can't find the words. I feel like an asshole, looking at Mike, and I wish I hadn't groaned so loudly in the uber. A nurse tells him the room is too busy and he has to leave.

The same nurse, Forearm Shot Nurse, goes to give me another show in the crease of the elbow. This time I allow myself a vocal response, a short gasp of pain, at insert instead of just gritting my teeth. Who the fuck am I being stoic for anyway?

Hooked up to fluids and wearing an oxygen mask, I still feel weak but I feel better. Relieved. Everything is going to be fine. I wonder how expensive the bill is. I wonder if I'm going to need to move money around to pay for it. I think about the fact that I'm in a hospital in Mexico City and I wonder why I travel when this sort of shit happens every time I go abroad.

I thought about why and I wish I had some profound response. No, really, I do. I got really flowery with the language in my head, staring out the window of the hospital with the oxygen mask over my face, as I pondered my desire to travel as often as I do. The words felt fake. Honestly, I travel because I like it. Even with the dumb situations I find myself in (whether or not they are my own doing), I still get to experience days like Xochimilco. Dinners like BIKO. In bad situations I learn what I'm capable of. In good situations I get to embrace a new experience. I don't travel because it's good for the soul, I travel because it's fun and I like who I am when I'm somewhere new. I travel for silly, superficial reasons. I like being able to ignore work emails. I like hitting a corner of the Earth I've never been to before. I like learning people are mostly the same. I like finding the details that are different in manners and customs from one place to the next - the silly little things that may be rude in one place but perfectly normal in the next.

I am a disaster in my everyday life at home. I spill food on myself multiple times a day. I am surprised when I'm carrying ten things in my arm and one of them falls to the floor. I don't get why gravity has to be so constant sometimes. Why would I suddenly be less of a Calamity Jane just because I'm in another country? I'm still just as careless, just as blasé in the face of indisputable scientific fact when it doesn't suit my purposes.

Mike comes back again now that the nurses are gone.
"Everything is fine," I tell him. He is clear-eyed now.
"I know. I'll be more careful about asking about nuts at restaurants."
"Mike, it's my responsibility to ask about nuts. I'm an adult."
"Still."
It's sweet. I don't want to argue about it.
"That uber was slow, huh?" I ask.
"Yes! I should have said something."
"I don't think it would have made a difference." I share my observations about the Pollyanna-ness of thr driver and his elevator music.
"It was like Girl From Ipanema up in there," I say.
Mike laughs. I start humming the tune to that song. I even shimmy a bit. I wonder if the nurses liked me better when I was too exhausted to talk.
"I'm gonna hate that song now," he says.
We're quiet for a bit. I lean against the wall, still tired.
"I'm gonna be fine, Mike."
"I know."
"I'll probably have to wear this oxygen mask the rest of the trip."
Mike looks concerned. His eyes go wide.
"Are you -"
"No. I'm joking."
Mike guffaws and leans down, head in hands.
"I'm mad at you," he says.
"Are we in a fight?" I ask.
"Yes."
Mmm. I sing the melody from Girl from Ipanema again.

We find the pharmacy and the only amount of money I'm asked to pay is 48 pesos for the prescription. That's it. That's my entire bill. That is less than $3 US. Is there something I was supposed to pay and didn't? I saw something previously for 1720 pesos, which is still less than $100 US - not bad, considering. But I don't see that particular bill again. Just the one for 48 pesos. Huh.

Mike and I call an uber back and eat dinner in the room. I want to go out but I'm fading. Mike is unconcerned with going out. He cooks a chicken dinner and it's delicious. I decide I would like to walk somewhere for dessert. He agrees. We get some pretty dope flan.

It's late again. Tomorrow we are painting our faces. I had wanted to do that earlier today, before eating. I wonder what that would have looked like - holed up in the hospital, fighting an allergic reaction, white and black face paint smeared from when I rubbed the puffiness in my eyes. I coulda been so cute.

"I'm sorry I ruined today," I tell Mike. "Thank you for taking care of me."
"I didn't do anything," he protests.
"There is no way I would have made it without you," I tell him honestly.

Tomorrow is also Day of the Dead. Everything is great. We have a great trip ahead of us. What's a few hours in the hospital, really?