Museum of Frida Kahlo: Mexico City

Mexico City: Museum of Frida Kahlo.
Dec 3
Soft taco breakfast.  Black tacos.  They come from blue corn.  Regardless of the color, it is so nice to be able to walk out into the street and there is a canopy and under it is a congregation of locals eating tacos together that two senoras are proudly making.

Mexico City is great.

This entire country is great! 

Casa Azul, the home of Frida Kahlo.

Irmante and I decided to visit Casa Azul – Museo Frida Kahlo (The Museum of Frida Kahlo).

We knew where the Museum of Frida Kahlo was located in the city, but for us to get to it seemed to be a fun game for the locals.  We caught the metro to a station where we were supposed to catch Bus 200.  The bus station was closed, so we walked to where some buses were parked and asked the guys sitting around.  No, this was not the right area.  They send us over by a gas station where buses were parked.  No, that was not the right area.  They sent us over across a busy street where buses were parked.  No, that was not the area.  They sent us further down the street where buses were parked.  No, that was not the area, they send up back to where buses had been parked by the gas station.  No, that was not the area, they sent us back to the first buses we approached when we left the metro.  We asked a bus driver there again.  A man on the bus told us to just get on the bus as it would take us to the area where we wanted to go in the city.  Right…  Irmante and I walked back to the metro and took a train to an area of Mexico City closest to the Museum of Frida Kahlo and we would walk to get to the house.

[su_note note_color=”#b0b1b6″ text_color=”#030303″ radius=”6″]Irmante suggested that we try to not eat junk food while we are here in Mexico City.  I agreed to the pact, but said that we should be able to indulge in ice-cream as it is hot.  Less than eleven minutes later Irmante was lured into an ice cream kiosk, and that lured me in.  I am not sure if that was the powers of suggestion, stimulated weakness.  In any case, sugar got a hold of us. [/su_note]

[su_pullquote]We ate spicy lemon flavoured grasshoppers as we were standing in line. They were actually delightful. [/su_pullquote]We found the Museum of Frida Kahlo, and the beautiful blue house.  There was a line-up down the street that would require an hour long wait to get inside the door.  It was 140 pesos ($7) for a ticket into the Museum of Frida Kahloon a Saturday and it seems like we also got a ticket to the Diego Rivera Museum as well.

Casa Azul courtyard.

The house is beautiful and the gardens are huge.  Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderón  was a physically tortured woman, due to a streetcar accident when she was 18 years old when a metal handrail punctured her torso, leaving her partially crippled.  It was then that she really began to express herself through surrealist painting, starting with the corset of her full body cast.

Part of a shrine for Frida, this is a demon riding a dragon!

When we left the Museum of Frida Kahlo, we found a little market where we had dinner and chased that down with fresh ceviche on a tostda.

Then, on the walk home we found a hole in the wall taco and beer bar that had a classic rock cover band playing.  There was a row of middle-aged senoras standing up from their tacos and dancing.  Irmante and I watched it for three songs.  It was very entertaining…

Something at this market smells.

Back in Condesa, Irmante and I came to a small bar called The Beer Box where we drank fancy exotic Mexican beer.  I had an oatmeal stout called ‘Desayuno de la Abuela’ which translates to ‘Grandma’s Breakfast’, and it had a photo of a really old woman drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette on the label.  Amazing!  On the way home, Irmante and I stopped at a little pub across from the hostel where we are staying and had one more beer and chased that down with mezcal.  It seemed like an unnecessary idea, but the three older Mexican ladies sitting next to us were drinking it and were sharing sips from their drinks with us until we just ordered our own.

We were talking nonsense by the time we got back to the hostel to go to bed…  Before we could even do that I was on top of the railing of the hostel shower taking photos I thought necessary of Mexican innovation.

I can see that mezcal is going to be dangerous…

Mexican innovation:
“Señor, we need two showers.”
“Okay, then let’s just put a petition in the middle of the bathtub. We’ll put a shower head at each end, and a pallet to stand on so that no one has to stand in anyone else’s shower water.”
“Bueno!”