Getting ready to end the Mexico Menaderings on Tuesday  and head back to Minnesota.  We will have been gone 45 days.  Staying in private homes through the airbnb website has been an interesting experience.  For the most part we have stayed with folks who left the USA to try another life in Mexico.  Some have only been in Mexico six years or so but others have been living here for a good portion of their lives.  They were all great in helping us plan our days.  You never know what you are going to get with an airbnb stay so be prepared and open minded.  Other than the unfortunate blockade experience on the bus ride to Chiapas we have not run into any difficult experiences.   We never felt in any kind of danger although we have certainly stayed out of areas with State Department warnings.  Mexico is rich in history, culture and art and we have enjoyed wandering through museums, archeological sites and churches.  We've enjoyed bus trips out to the countryside where you can still see horses plowing the fields. It's good to see folks protesting Monsanto here too.  I'll miss the abundant fruit choices here.  I won't miss the rough sidewalks.  We were lucky neither of us took a tumble.  I rarely took off my tennis shoes.  Mexican women love their high high heels.  I don't know how they do it.  I wish I had a couple more days at the beach.  I'll miss having somebody doing my laundry for me even though one place gave my tan shorts to someone else and it was days before I got them back.  People work really hard here and their days are long.  It's not good to see so many children working.  I'm glad to see alternative transportation services in Mexico City and it generally was less smoggy than I was expecting.  I'll be thankful though to get back to a place with water that I can drink right out of the tap.  Ok, going out for one more beer then it's time to pack!

Strolling through Chapultepec Park today.  It was free day in the park and we started out with the Contemporary Art Museum, then the Rufino Tamayo Museum.  Combine those and you might have something like the Walker in Minneapolis.  Then onto the zoo.  We skipped the Anthropology museum. I know, I know it's probably the best museum in the world of its kind but you can only do so  much.

We were back on the subway yesterday heading for downtown again.  The subway gets easier every time I use it.  Saturday morning was less crowded as I suppose folks were getting a later start to their day. The subway is 5 pesos one way.  That's less than 40 cents right now.  What a bargain.  Our destination was the Belles Artes.  A beautiful building and the location of many fine murals by Diego Rivera, Siqueiros and Tamayo.  Outside is the beautiful Parque Alameda and just beyond that is the smaller museum that houses the most famous of Rivera's murals depicting La Catrina and historical figures walking through the Parque Alameda on a fine Sunday afternoon.  The mural survived the earthquake in 1985 that killed thousands in the city and was later moved to its current location.  When we arrived at the museum there was a recital of pianist and vocalists going on so we could not get up very close to the mural. Apologies to the artists as I came in scrunching my water bottle and zip zip zipping my purse.

Sitting in the park yesterday in the Coyoacan neighborhood about 8 subway stops south ( ?) of our neighborhood.

This is a photo of me and two strangers. I know its weird but there is something I like about it anyway. We were at the Frida Kahlo Museum yesterday.  It was high on my list of things to do.  We didn't pay the extra 60 peso fee allowing rights to take photos inside. Took a few in the courtyard outside anyway.  Loved the inside of the house.  They left everything just as it was when she was living there.  Beautiful display of costumes and jewelry.  As I write this it is not even 8 am and someone is playing very loud dance music somewhere in the courtyard of the apartment complex where we are staying.  An updated version of the Bee Gees Inside and Out is playing.  Ahh, I can hear a few neighbors beginning to protest.  Music still going half an hour later.  The place where we have been staying was once called Little Peyton Place.  It was built in 1908 in a London style by an Irish architect.  The inside of our apartment has features that remind me of San Francisco.  This building has a long history.  Placido Domingo, Luis Buñuel, Octavio Paz and Frederico Garcia Lorca among others lived here in the past.  And now we have a famous DJ just outside the window. Get the party started.

Out amongst the teeming masses yesterday and today. I don't know what the population is now for Mexico City but there were a lot of people walking the pedestrian mall between the zocalo and the Bellas Artes yesterday. The double long red metro buses were packed to standing room only.  The green street cars looked the same.  Cars are everywhere.  Meanwhile down below, the subways are filled to capacity.  We rode the subway yesterday and today in rush hour.  Maybe it's always rush hour.  The subways are confusing at first but then you learn the lines by color, the stops by symbols and the directions by what's at the end of the line.  Just happy that I'm not taking that to work every day.

A few old white domes in Mexico City.