Roma--"mi casa es mi casa"

Tomorrow, there will be a big march protesting the mass lay-offs of the city's electricity workers. Therefore, power may or may not be shut off for a smidge solely for principle's sake (not terribly uncommon, anyhow), and my class is canceled (I get one more day to prepare for my oral midterm exam-yippee!). Sooooo, instead of totally using wisely all this donated study time, I think I'll finally elucidate on our neighborhood.

Colonia Roma. It's a good, centralized location. As stated before, it's very safe (and it seems to let out a big ol' "shhhhhhhhhh!!!" at night, so quiet). It's got a hearty handful of good little museums and galleries. Also, there are lots of restaurants, cool bars, coffee shops, even vintage clothing stores. It's very middle-class. A mix of families, artists, and those in the "other" category (the box we'd check). It's beautiful in that crumbly sort of Mexico City way. It's crumbelievable, actually. It's a motley, myriad, melange of architecture, including stately colonialism, cute art-deco, and boring utilitarian. There are a lot of charming little neighborhood parks and lots of once/twice per week outdoor markets. We love it.

In pictures

The stately:

Perhaps once upon a time this was stately, now it's just charred, abandoned and a refuge for feral felines.

Color EVERYWHERE:

A slide in our closest neighborhood park. The picture was taken during rainy season, BEFORE beautifying efforts:

Taken during smoggy season, AFTER:

The stenciled, tagged, postered plywood covering the vacant building adjacent to our apartment:

And lastly, our beloved tortilleria called "Nelly" where, at least two times per week, we buy corn tortillas, piping-hot and freshly-made on the cute little tortilla conveyor belt before our very eyes. They're amazingly cheap, too.

Nuestra Casa

As I type this, our neighbor is playing some beautiful guitar. Yes, that's correct--I said NEIGHBOR! We are officially moved into our Mexico City casa. Our apartment is in a lovely neighborhood called Colonia Roma. Roma has the reputation of being the artist and musician enclave of Mexico City (hence, perchance, the neighbor playing guitar below us). We like this neigborhood because it's safe and pretty (but still a little gritty) and not snooty. Oh, and I guess we kind of like it for another reason; it's in our price range. Yeah, that's important.

This is our sweet door knocker (if you visit us, you can try it out!):

This picture is dedicated to our moms. See! We're safe!

Living Room/Study, Bedroom:

Our bathroom with the awesome pink motif, and an example of the bathroom tile to match flawlessly said motif:

Our tiny (cute!) stove in our tiny kitchen (which is not so cute):


















Peering out of our tiny kitchen across the "courtyard" to our bedroom window:

We have rooftop access, and this is the view to the lovely botanicals of our neighbor (not the guitar-playing one, a different one):

There's some of it, at least. This weekend, we're exploring the city, which should equate to a plethora of good snapshots come Sunday.