today was a day filled with new experiences for me. i explored parts of mexico city i have never been to. so far we've been hitting at least one place per day that i've been to before. first off, we went to xochimilco to ride the boats. i didn't think we would have time for this on this trip since it's quite a bit away from the city center but it's just one of those things you have to do. maybe it's hard for people unfamiliar with mexico or the history of df, to believe that there used to be a lot of water. that there were canals like venice where the people traveled by boat. a large network still exists but there's this section famous for the tourists. the boats are simple yet decorated. there are tables and chairs for you to relax. the idea is that you will probably be doing quite a bit of eating and drinking. as you float down the canals, you encounter vendors in boats with many things such as gifts and even serenading musicians. your guide does all the work and navigating. you could stop off at a restaurant proper or animal sanctuary. it's quite tranquil. only, i wasn't in the mood for this shit! traveling in a group causes tension and today it exploded but that was later in the day and i'm not going to elaborate. but since the ride is so tranquil, i calmed down and was glad we took the boat ride, even though we didn't really engage with the side activities which i think pissed off our guide as he probably makes more money taking people to side activities.

after our roughly 1 hour boat ride, we went to coyoacan which is supposed to be the nice, intellectual, artsy, if not snobby part of df. this is where frida kahlo lived in the blue house, now the frida kahlo museum. of course, this place had the most americans i saw during my whole trip and the most lesbians. when you tag a place 'the kahlo museum', it's just a given that you're gonna find dykes there. the place itself was rather dull. perhaps that's due to my not really being a fan of her artwork. nonetheless, i rather liked the ofrenda there and since i haven't posted any pics of ofrendas so far, here it is.

ofrenda at museo frida kahlo

if you know about frida then you know about her relationship with leon trotsky and how he lived close by and that that house is also a museum. hence, we walked over to museo casa de leon trotsky. now i don't really know that much about the history of communism, the fight over power within the revolutionary leaders, and trotsky's exile but there was some information on this at the museum that i could understand. mind you everything is in spanish but there was a picture of the party leaders with their fates on it. needless to say, only stalin lived. (when you visit places, you realize how little you know about the world and how much catch-up reading you must do. or at least me.) the house was really cold and it's hard to imagine people actually living there but since they were from russia, i'm sure it felt like summer!

part of my planning for the trip naturally involved collecting information on vegetarian restaurants. but when you travel with a group that isn't 100% vegetarian, it's very hard to convince everyone to eat at a no-meat establishment. with the bickering of our group causing someone to leave (the omnivore), it became much easier to check out the vegetarian restaurant. it's called vege taco and damn if that wasn't some good vege tacos! we ordered several different plates and by far the best was the carne asada taco. don't even bother trying the other fake meats there because you will think the place is not good.

it was starting to get dark and coyoacan is a great place for ofrendas, so i've heard. we planned to meet up with some okinawans so we headed over to check out what was going on in the city center and wait for our companions. it wasn't as insane as el zocalo but still very crowded. i'm glad that our events were in this order because if we went to the zocalo today, i'm sure it would have been pure madness. as we viewed the ofrendas, it felt very much like santa cruz. all the stalls carried the same basic things and were dare i say neo-hippy. we also shopped for muertos gifts for home. you'd think it'd be easy to find sugar skulls in the capital during this holiday but it was a pain in the ass. the tents selling them almost closed by the time we found them. we got one just in time! next time i visit mexico during el dia de los muertos, i must visit one of the smaller towns famous for it outside of mexico city. one of those cemetery deals.