Our Mexico Trip - Day 3

Saturday found us worried about my lens: the expense, the fact that I'd have to have it remade back in Ottawa. Thankfully my new glasses are excellent, but still I felt pretty bad.

We had agreed to meet my mom and dad at the Costco and Mega Comercial Mexicana to do some quick grocery shopping. Kev and I always loved checking out grocery stores in all the countries we lived in. What does ketchup look like? What type of coffee can you find? What different or similar kinds of produce is there? Well, Mexican grocery stores are a treat! With no harsh winters, the produce is always in season and always fresh. I got some fresh greens and fruit, and the abuelitos did a bit of their grocery shopping.

My parents like to drive from their place to this part of town in the south of the city, and they do a lot of their grocery shopping here before arriving to see Lety and family to spend the day here with them. It's interesting that they have to schedule their day so. The reason is traffic. If you leave it too late, you'll have heavier traffic and face long lines at the stores. So my folks get their groceries done nice and early, and then they usually spend Saturdays with Lety and family.

After our groceries we got home to Lety and she had the good news: my lens had been found! Phew! I shall be more careful!

We chatted for a little while and then we got ready for our outing of the day: a visit to the Dolores Olmedo museum. Dolores Olmedo was a patron of the arts, a philanthropist, a business woman and post-revolutionary intellectual and a great personal friend of Mexico's greatest artists: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. This museum is the home that she shared with her mother for many years. It holds her personal objects, bought in many international trips. You can usually see overnight 150 original Diego and Frida pieces, but at this time they had been borrowed by the Muséee de l’Orangerie in exchange for 30 French paintings. The pièce de resistance, though, was the yearly "ofrenda" set up for the Day of the Dead.

Though your typical Day of the Dead altar is like a table of food offerings for your dearly departed who may come and visit your home or their grave on this day, the museum expanded on the theme. They created this beautiful room, very much like the village sets of old Canada in our Museum of Civilizations in Ottawa. We entered this magical room where you saw scenes from famous French paintings from the Muséee de l’Orangerie: 30 pieces by artists Paul Cézanne, André Derain, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Chaïm Soutine and Maurice Utrillo. These pieces are here while over 150 pieces of Diego's and Frida's are in Frence for the exhibit, Frida Kahlo-Diego Rivera: l’art en fusion. The art work was fabulous. Besides the beautifully crafted scenes, there were life-size "dead" artists made of papier mâché. So we saw Diego's skeleton painting a portrait and wearing his generously sized clothing (Diego was a big fellow!). You'll have to see the photos!

We left that magical room and found ourselves in a lovely garden full of peacocks. Yes, Dolores Olmedo loved peacocks. It seems they've been left to reproduce at will, so you can see peacocks all over the place. I didn't think peacocks could fly, but there was one precariously sitting atop a cross on top of one of the buildings.

Not all of the Diego art pieces were gone. We entered the room where visitors could view the borrowed pieces from all those French impressionists as well as a few of Diego's pieces. Wow. Seeing those paintings live is such an experience. Diego favoured large, bold strokes. He was not shy or subtle. There's some magic in his pieces. They scream: life, pain, beauty, strife, Mexico.

Our visit to the museum ended with a quick tour of the gift shop, which was full of beautiful objects, some of them quite pricey. However, it was well worth it!

We made our way back home to Lety's home where we she prepared a knock-out mole meal. She had rice, chicken, veggies, mini stuffed portobellos, and spicy sauces served with warm tortillas. We had an awesome lemon cake to fully celebrate Lety's birthday.

After some coffee and tea, Kev was starting to really feel under the weather. He went for a nap. Luis and Juanma had sore throats, and Let was not feeling good either. My mom and Dad were ready to get back home.

After Kev rested and Lety finished washing the mountain of dishes her visitors produced, we went to Saturday mass in the little church in her neighbourhood. Wow, talk about a steep walk! The neighbourhood or little town where Lety lives was basically built on a little hill. This church, the church of Santa Maria Tepepan, was built by a group of the first Spanish friars who came to this area. It is said that they carried the statue of the Virgin Mary on their ship, and when faced with sea storms, their prayers to the Virgin Mary strengthened their faith and helped them in the difficult voyage across the sea.

After a short mass, we were surprised to come out of church to find that a small group of pilgrims had shown up at the entrance of the church. Lety explained to us that at this time of year, it is common for pilgrims to travel from far away, usually on foot, to come to give thanks to their patron saint or to God in a particular church. They were all bearing beautiful yellow flower arrangements and big signs made of flowers too. The priest came out to bless them and to welcome them. He said a few prayers and sprinkled them with The pilgrims wanted to hang their flower signs. Kev pointed out that the signs were made with huge steel frames, so they must have been really heavy.

We felt we were very lucky to witness this traditional ceremony, and we waked back home. We sat at the TV room to watch some more baseball. Here we found that Kevin had a fever, so he went to bed early. Poor him! In spite of this, we were both thrilled by our exciting artsy day. We just wished Ali and Paula were here, as they would enjoy this so much with their artistic sensitivity.

Posted with Blogsy