Week 43, 2023
Turku, Finland
It has been a long time since I wrote in this blog.
Today I activate myself to write here, because it is the most suitable space to share my world to the people I care about and are distributed across our amazing planet. Thinking particularly, those of you who do not know Mexico.
From week 34 to 38 I was in Mexico. My mom needed some support. Then, my time was busy at home. I didn’t even have time to see my generational friends. However, the most important thing is that mom started to recover ??. In this blog post I share some visual highlights of my time back home, which is not tourism, but daily life. I organize the photos in four categories:
Let’s start by fling to Mexico City. A sign, at least for me, that I am reaching “Aztec land” is when I am reaching Mexico City’s international airport, Benito Juarez, which it is in the middle of the “town”. The ocean of lights is just something unique.
1. My neighborhood
Mexico city is a big metropolis. When possible, you do your activities in the area where you live. In my case, I grew up in Colonia del Valle and during my time there, I was mainly in this area of the city or in the hospital where my mom is treated. The hospital is in the alcaldía Tlalpan. Here a couple of links of the area of the city where I grow up: link 1 and link 2. Below photos of what I could see almost everyday.
What surprised me the most during this visit is to realize how many houses, which I saw as a child, now are turned down and instead there are building buildings. The city keeps growing.
[Back up to categories]
2.Food
Mexican traditional cuisine was declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO. For me, to share about Mexican food is challenging, because in my opinion all our senses should be involved. Additionally, I am not an expert and I do not know how to clarify certain ingredients which I only have seen in Mexico.
However, in this post, I will share food that I ate. For example, each time we were at the hospital, we treated ourselves. The cafeteria was/is really good. Below some photos of the dishes.
On Sept. 15th, Mexicans starts the independence celebration. Hence, it is common to find diverse dishes or desserts utilizing the independence theme in their decoration. As the following jello utilizing the colors of the Mexican flag.
Also in September is quite popular and very special to eat Chiles en Nogada. My aunt makes them DELICIOUS!
Mexican candies in September are also a must have. We had a beautiful meal on the 15.9. but I do not have photos only from the delicious food. However I have one from the sweets:
Also we ate at the Parroquia:
and some Tortas Don Polo:
Well, I could have photos and more photos of food….. of course plenty of fruits were also eaten 😉
3.Daily life – errands
In this section I share random photos of daily life. During my time in Mexico, I needed to run different errands. A glimpse of those are in here.
3.1 Metro and Downtown Mexico City.
I needed to do some paperwork in downtown, which I could not do via internet. In my opinion, it is faster and more practical to go to Mexico City downtown with public transport. For me the metro is the best. A trick, or advice, is to avoid the busy time, even though it is busier most of the time nowadays. I mainly travel on the female section of the metro.
What was new for me this time, which I only have seen in Asia earlier, were the stickers on the floor indicating where to wait for the metro and leaving the space for the passengers to go down.
To find art or culture in the metro stations is relatively easy. At least in the “old” metro stations.
Note: things were not that empty all the time, but I try to take photos when there were not people around to respect privacy 😉
Also in this trip I took a metrobus, which now the network is bigger than the last time I was in downtown.
Downtown is BEAUTIFUL and INTERESTING and MAGICAL in its own right.
Next photo is from the main “square” of Mexico City: el Zocalo. Behind you can see the cathedral and presidential palace is on the right. There is a Metro station below so it is easy to come out from the metro and admire this spot of the city.
Walking in downtown Mexico City is to walk through history, a mixing of cultures and one walks having a full sensorial experience including sounds, smells, images, symbols, etc. It is just something to experience.
In the next photo, one can see the torre latinoamericana.
Theater of Bellas Artes:
Reforma, el caballito:
In downtown, shopping areas are peculiar. One find the street that focuses on particular category, e.g. of electronics, or tiles, or jewelry, or bathrooms, etc. If you are curious, yes I stop in couple of these shopping areas. ??
3.2 Driving and parking
To go to the hospital and other errands we needed to do it by car. Traffic is crazy if I compare it to the traffic in Offenburg, Joensuu or Turku (my other hometowns I would say). It is just not comparison, they are different worlds in our same planet.
Traffic of the first photo was when we were heading to the hospital. Here you can see a metro station that runs at ground level.
Each time we were heading to the hospital, we passed through the estadio azteca.
Parking is an issue in many areas, so they are looking for different solutions constantly, even inside buildings.
That parking place is from the following building:
Or those tower parking places also can be found in supermarkets:
3.3. Church
I also visited the church where my dad is resting. The Mexican flag is in the altar, because it is September, as I mentioned above, it is a month of “Mexico”.
Crypts:
I found the following sticker interesting. It reads: “United in the distance.”
Actually in the service, when people access the church, they use face masks and wash the hands.
3.4 Hospital and medical services
In my opinion, we have EXCELLENT doctors in Mexico. We also have very good public hospitals. A challenge Mexico has, again in my opinion, there are not enough hospitals for all Mexicans. The health system requires a lot of investment.
In our case, we can can do things in public institutions, which my mom has paid through her taxes during her working life. However, we need to complement certain services with private practices. The prices of those private ones can vary. In the following photos I want to illustrate architecture of the hospital where my mom was operated as where her rehabilitation is. I really love the Mexican architecture, across time. One can can see mexican murals, and in my opinion the hospital is EXCELLENT.
The people must use mask in this hospital. It is mandatory.
The photo below I found it in one of the hallways. It reads: While they said to each other “it could not be done, it was done”.
The photo below is from another organization, which I discovered because I needed to do some studies for myself. Then, aI was guided to go to Salud Digna.It is a foundation that offers medical studies to accessible prices. Amazing service and also A LOT of people.
Even that there were plenty of persons at the same time, the service was quick and good. They also have chairs reserved for different type of groups, as below you can see sits for pregnant women.
Finally an entrance of a private hospital. Another style.
4. Daily life – grocery shopping
Before heading to Mexico, I was asked: what type of fish do we eat there?, for example. Which I do not have an answer for. I am ignorant to the topic. ? Therefore I decide to share some photos of our supermarkets and “mercados sobre ruedas“. I will be paying more attention to those important details step by step.
Below is the first supermarket I went right after landing. There the watermelon was huge:
Here some fruits that we will not find in Finland or Germany, for example: mamey and Tuna (Fruit no fish)
It is easy to find plenty of avocados among other fruits and vegetables:
Supermarket fish display:
Bakery in supermarket:
Alcohol is also sold inside supermarkets:
Personally, I ENJOY A LOT to buy at the “mercados sobre ruedas“. I was not able to find an article in English clarifying what are “merchados sobre ruedas”, but in brief: they are temporal market installed for one day on specific streets, where one buys closer to the producer. If you want to read more about them, here is an article in Spanish.
I was lucky because there were still some mangos manila (yammi ??):
One can also eat prepared food at “mercado sobre ruedas”. I found interesting how they keep having covid practices.
A couple of things happen in my food-hunting trips, which were new for me.
One, I had an earthquake drill in a supermarket. To put some in context. We had very bad earthquakes on Sept 19th in the past. So we have a National Earthquake drill on this day. At the day and time of the drill I was in a supermarket. So we were to the safe zone customers and employees. It was interesting.
Another new things for me was to realized how many dogs, as pets, are nowadays. The number has increased so much that even supermarkets welcome them.
The blog post is a bit long but I hope it transmits a bit of my world in a daily life in Mexico city. Missing other stuff, as we play board games each Sunday – and some other days when possible- , cleaning the house, etc. However maybe in another post we can talk about other details ?? .
-Yop!