![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Boy was that trip fun. Another one never to come home from. At least the cool people from that one live here, too, and I see them regularly.
Right off the plane, we had to hurry and put our stuff in our rooms, get lunch, and get on the bus to Sala Nezahualcoyotl for the rehearsal, 2:30 to 6. The orchestra was reading, but they were much better readers than the ones last year, and the new director (to take over from Velasco, who died and to whom the concert was now a memorial as well as a celebration of the 25th anniversary of something) was superb. His name is Carlos Spierer, and he's German-Argentinian, and he conducted the rehearsal in three different but perfectly-accented languages. He'd count off in Spanish mostly, and occasionally in German. But he was terribly goo, and very patient with the German trumpet who was throwing diva fits all over the place.
From that rehearsal, we (henceforth, "we" refers to the customary party group which my mom and I hang out with; generally, Salad, Bill, Corita, Arielle, Ian, and occasional variants) took two cabs to a restaurant called La Fonda del Recuerdo on the other side of town, my group squishing 4 people in a little green bug without a front seat. Arielle sat on Salad's lap. It was quite amusing. Once we got there, there was dancing on stages which seemed to be a cross between flamenco and mariachi. Nice heelclicking stuff, and a hat dance, and once they tied a long piece of cloth in a bow with just their feet. The food was interesting. Not wonderful, but novel. The cab back was just was fun, but longer, since we ran out of gas, had to pull off on a side street, hail another cab, yell at it as it drives off just as we finish paying the first one, and commandeer a city bus to take us back to the hotel. Once there, the sunken bar (same one as last year, the Radisson Paraiso) was closed but Salad managed to convince them to let out a couple more Dos Equis. We didn't stay long, though. It was around 2 when mama and I got back to room.
Friday, the rehearsal was supposed to be 10-1 and 3-6, but they extended it to 8. So it was an 8-hour rehearsal. Oh well. Lunch seemed short. Once we were out, however, people were tired enough to want a tame dinner. Mama stayed at the hotel restaurant, but let me go with Gina, Scott (Mermelstein, I think I've called him Mermel here before), Po, and Salad, downtown to eat and sightsee. Two cabs of us went, and I had an informative conversation with Salad, as I was in his cab. We got to the Cathedral and walked around it a little. It was quite impressive, and there was a band in the middle of the square with speakers just as impressive. Yikes. It must have been some kind of holiday celebration, because everything was lit up and had flags all over it.
From there we meandered to the Tower (of Latin America, I think), and paid the 4 pesos each to go to the top (I had five my mom had given me, so I didn't buy dinner that night, but she said later she'd meant to give me ten). Wow. 50 stories is quite tall when there's an open-air roof to look off from. Mexico City is shiny from on top, bordered by mountains which the lights only go halfway up. Quite pretty. And huge. it goes on forever to the mountains in every direction. 22 million people.
The we found a bar to sit in and eat; it turned out to have good food. It was called quite appropriately "La Opera." Salad and Scott both let me eat some of their food, and I ate the ice Scott was afraid to use in his drink (Po took a picture of me chomping it; it was fist-sized and quite hard). We took only one cab on the way back, though it had a front seat. Gina sat across everybody on the back seat, but not on me, so I had more room than anybody. I must say, crowded cab rides in the right company are certainly fun.
Once back at the hotel, we went up to The Notorious Party Room (Bill and Chris were roommates this trip, in 309, the 804-equivalent of last year), and it was quiet for some time as Gina had everybody try the flavored-tequila sampler she'd bought. From what I smelled, the strawberry one tasted like body lotion, and the coconut one like suntan oil. I think I'll cut the rest of that night, since Mel, now you have a reason to think the devil is on my side... hee.
( The Abridged Version of My Decadent Mexico-City Antics )
The next morning it was difficult to get up, especially since they'd announced an extra rehearsal. Saturday was going to be a free day, but we needed it. So, 10-12:30ish, I think, we had a piano rehearsal and Charles gave us the sit/stand cues. Then a cab from the hotel to the Anthropology museum with Scott and Anne Campbell, a respectable set. The museum was certainly cool. There was a huge authentic column holding up the roof of the courtyard from which one went to all the exhibit halls, with water pouring down its sides and from holes around the top. I wonder if any of the pictures I took will come out. That's not usually something you have to worry about with a digital camera. We saw the Maya stuff and the Olmec stuff and Teotihuacan and it was all really cool. Susan's style kind of resembles Mayan stylization. Oh, we saw the thing that everybody calls the Aztec Calendar, the huge round circle thing that's really not a calendar but a Stone of the Sun, a kind of altar. Boy was it cool. There was also an exhibit on the Pyramid of the Sun, which I went and saw last year and still have the tan lines from.
Then back to the hotel for a slight rest and a picnic on the hotel-room floor with my mom with some life-altering conversation, before the buses left for the concert. It went surprisingly well. I'm not sure why it was so surprising. I suppose none of you know what any of this is, but I'm listing the program for you anyway.
Presentacion del Coro de la Orquestra Sinfonica de Houston
Saint-Saens- Sanson y Dalila (we didn't sing that one, just solos and orch, but it was cool)
Wagner- Tannhaeuser: Freudig Begruessen wir (Tournament of Song is what its label says)
Bizet- Carmen: Habanera, torero, and gitana
Verdi- Aida: two scenes one with the Moorish slave dance, the Nile anthem and alta cagion, the other with the Ptah's temple songs
Gounod- Faust: Marguerite's watz (very catchy) and the Soldiers' Chorus (also catchy, irritating when you don't know the words cause only the guys sang it)
weirdly enough, the Marseillaise (French anthem, only non-opera piece in the program)
Verdi- La traviata: Prelude, Introduction, Brindisi (drinking song, the one everybody knows), un di felice & Stretta
-Il Trovatore: Introduction and anvil chorus, stride la vampa, and the guys' miserere
Puccini- Tosca: Tre sbirri...una carrozza
- La Boheme Musetta's Waltz
Verdi- Rigoletto: Un di, se ben rammentomi (just soloists)
-Nabucco: Va Pensiero
Borodin- Prince Igor: Polovtsian Dances! Yay!
4-hour concert with two intermissions.
The $25 buffet we had once back at the hotel was really tacky and cheap. There wasa quincin~era going on at the same time and we figured it was probably food from there. Mama stayed in the restaurant while I wandered upstairs to the Notorious Party Room with people. It was a much tamer party this time, nobody drank much, people just talked. It was an intellectual one like the one last year, the engineering nerds discussing problems they've solved, computer and photography nerds chiming in. Quite an interesting discussion. It got slightly less innocent after a couple people left, as Salad explained how it was that he was able to give a girl a massage while he was naked without getting too conspicuous (think "physical," he said, and then proceded to explain what a medical physical entails once you get to be an adult). Then even the late-up people left, and I thought I was gonna be kicked out, too, but Salad gave me till he finished his beer, and gave me some life advice. I really find him quite helpful. He's like David, only less intense, more laid-back, and slightly cynical.
He mentioned in passing the possibility of his dying, and my mind sort of froze. He went on through how it'd be no big deal anyway, and I was still too paralyzed to disagree. It would indeed be a big deal to me. No more nihilist svengali? Once I got back to my room I was miserable enough considering the possibility that I spent 45 minutes crying before mama got there and gave me some vitamins so I could breathe (pollution gave me a sore throat and a brick nose), and found me trying not to sob. She was comforting, but all Sunday I was unsettled enough to be shaking (the fever helped, too, I'm sure, though I didn't fall down during the Suday concert, but came close). I did actually dream that night that he died, and was quite glad to see him every time Sunday that I did. Wandering about as the buses got loaded, getting his luggage as we arrived at the airport, giving a charming wave from the infinitely long check-in line as I floated up the escalator...
The plane ride wasn't awful, but my ears are still stopped up. There was a good dinner. Chicken stuff and a cute little flan/jello thing. Then we got a ride with Bill's tenant in his car, instead of with Corita and Arielle as we'd thought we would, and waited at his house a little while he dropped off stuff and got ready for Arielle's party. Bill's tenant, a lawyer whose name is Laura, offered me a job. That might be interesting.
At Chapultepec, she was very loud and possibly drunk. She kept telling Salad and me both that we should go home and get rest because we looked terrible. Well, we were both sick, but not dying yet and there was a party. It was quite fun. Ian showed some of the pictures on his digital camera, and we discussed the rumors about the Notorious Party. Well, Laura randomly took a cab home. We seemed to be all right anyway, and went home eventually of our own volition. It was around 2 in the morning when we got home. I slept till 6 in the evening today. It's midnight now. I think I'll go to bed.
Right off the plane, we had to hurry and put our stuff in our rooms, get lunch, and get on the bus to Sala Nezahualcoyotl for the rehearsal, 2:30 to 6. The orchestra was reading, but they were much better readers than the ones last year, and the new director (to take over from Velasco, who died and to whom the concert was now a memorial as well as a celebration of the 25th anniversary of something) was superb. His name is Carlos Spierer, and he's German-Argentinian, and he conducted the rehearsal in three different but perfectly-accented languages. He'd count off in Spanish mostly, and occasionally in German. But he was terribly goo, and very patient with the German trumpet who was throwing diva fits all over the place.
From that rehearsal, we (henceforth, "we" refers to the customary party group which my mom and I hang out with; generally, Salad, Bill, Corita, Arielle, Ian, and occasional variants) took two cabs to a restaurant called La Fonda del Recuerdo on the other side of town, my group squishing 4 people in a little green bug without a front seat. Arielle sat on Salad's lap. It was quite amusing. Once we got there, there was dancing on stages which seemed to be a cross between flamenco and mariachi. Nice heelclicking stuff, and a hat dance, and once they tied a long piece of cloth in a bow with just their feet. The food was interesting. Not wonderful, but novel. The cab back was just was fun, but longer, since we ran out of gas, had to pull off on a side street, hail another cab, yell at it as it drives off just as we finish paying the first one, and commandeer a city bus to take us back to the hotel. Once there, the sunken bar (same one as last year, the Radisson Paraiso) was closed but Salad managed to convince them to let out a couple more Dos Equis. We didn't stay long, though. It was around 2 when mama and I got back to room.
Friday, the rehearsal was supposed to be 10-1 and 3-6, but they extended it to 8. So it was an 8-hour rehearsal. Oh well. Lunch seemed short. Once we were out, however, people were tired enough to want a tame dinner. Mama stayed at the hotel restaurant, but let me go with Gina, Scott (Mermelstein, I think I've called him Mermel here before), Po, and Salad, downtown to eat and sightsee. Two cabs of us went, and I had an informative conversation with Salad, as I was in his cab. We got to the Cathedral and walked around it a little. It was quite impressive, and there was a band in the middle of the square with speakers just as impressive. Yikes. It must have been some kind of holiday celebration, because everything was lit up and had flags all over it.
From there we meandered to the Tower (of Latin America, I think), and paid the 4 pesos each to go to the top (I had five my mom had given me, so I didn't buy dinner that night, but she said later she'd meant to give me ten). Wow. 50 stories is quite tall when there's an open-air roof to look off from. Mexico City is shiny from on top, bordered by mountains which the lights only go halfway up. Quite pretty. And huge. it goes on forever to the mountains in every direction. 22 million people.
The we found a bar to sit in and eat; it turned out to have good food. It was called quite appropriately "La Opera." Salad and Scott both let me eat some of their food, and I ate the ice Scott was afraid to use in his drink (Po took a picture of me chomping it; it was fist-sized and quite hard). We took only one cab on the way back, though it had a front seat. Gina sat across everybody on the back seat, but not on me, so I had more room than anybody. I must say, crowded cab rides in the right company are certainly fun.
Once back at the hotel, we went up to The Notorious Party Room (Bill and Chris were roommates this trip, in 309, the 804-equivalent of last year), and it was quiet for some time as Gina had everybody try the flavored-tequila sampler she'd bought. From what I smelled, the strawberry one tasted like body lotion, and the coconut one like suntan oil. I think I'll cut the rest of that night, since Mel, now you have a reason to think the devil is on my side... hee.
( The Abridged Version of My Decadent Mexico-City Antics )
The next morning it was difficult to get up, especially since they'd announced an extra rehearsal. Saturday was going to be a free day, but we needed it. So, 10-12:30ish, I think, we had a piano rehearsal and Charles gave us the sit/stand cues. Then a cab from the hotel to the Anthropology museum with Scott and Anne Campbell, a respectable set. The museum was certainly cool. There was a huge authentic column holding up the roof of the courtyard from which one went to all the exhibit halls, with water pouring down its sides and from holes around the top. I wonder if any of the pictures I took will come out. That's not usually something you have to worry about with a digital camera. We saw the Maya stuff and the Olmec stuff and Teotihuacan and it was all really cool. Susan's style kind of resembles Mayan stylization. Oh, we saw the thing that everybody calls the Aztec Calendar, the huge round circle thing that's really not a calendar but a Stone of the Sun, a kind of altar. Boy was it cool. There was also an exhibit on the Pyramid of the Sun, which I went and saw last year and still have the tan lines from.
Then back to the hotel for a slight rest and a picnic on the hotel-room floor with my mom with some life-altering conversation, before the buses left for the concert. It went surprisingly well. I'm not sure why it was so surprising. I suppose none of you know what any of this is, but I'm listing the program for you anyway.
Presentacion del Coro de la Orquestra Sinfonica de Houston
Saint-Saens- Sanson y Dalila (we didn't sing that one, just solos and orch, but it was cool)
Wagner- Tannhaeuser: Freudig Begruessen wir (Tournament of Song is what its label says)
Bizet- Carmen: Habanera, torero, and gitana
Verdi- Aida: two scenes one with the Moorish slave dance, the Nile anthem and alta cagion, the other with the Ptah's temple songs
Gounod- Faust: Marguerite's watz (very catchy) and the Soldiers' Chorus (also catchy, irritating when you don't know the words cause only the guys sang it)
weirdly enough, the Marseillaise (French anthem, only non-opera piece in the program)
Verdi- La traviata: Prelude, Introduction, Brindisi (drinking song, the one everybody knows), un di felice & Stretta
-Il Trovatore: Introduction and anvil chorus, stride la vampa, and the guys' miserere
Puccini- Tosca: Tre sbirri...una carrozza
- La Boheme Musetta's Waltz
Verdi- Rigoletto: Un di, se ben rammentomi (just soloists)
-Nabucco: Va Pensiero
Borodin- Prince Igor: Polovtsian Dances! Yay!
4-hour concert with two intermissions.
The $25 buffet we had once back at the hotel was really tacky and cheap. There wasa quincin~era going on at the same time and we figured it was probably food from there. Mama stayed in the restaurant while I wandered upstairs to the Notorious Party Room with people. It was a much tamer party this time, nobody drank much, people just talked. It was an intellectual one like the one last year, the engineering nerds discussing problems they've solved, computer and photography nerds chiming in. Quite an interesting discussion. It got slightly less innocent after a couple people left, as Salad explained how it was that he was able to give a girl a massage while he was naked without getting too conspicuous (think "physical," he said, and then proceded to explain what a medical physical entails once you get to be an adult). Then even the late-up people left, and I thought I was gonna be kicked out, too, but Salad gave me till he finished his beer, and gave me some life advice. I really find him quite helpful. He's like David, only less intense, more laid-back, and slightly cynical.
He mentioned in passing the possibility of his dying, and my mind sort of froze. He went on through how it'd be no big deal anyway, and I was still too paralyzed to disagree. It would indeed be a big deal to me. No more nihilist svengali? Once I got back to my room I was miserable enough considering the possibility that I spent 45 minutes crying before mama got there and gave me some vitamins so I could breathe (pollution gave me a sore throat and a brick nose), and found me trying not to sob. She was comforting, but all Sunday I was unsettled enough to be shaking (the fever helped, too, I'm sure, though I didn't fall down during the Suday concert, but came close). I did actually dream that night that he died, and was quite glad to see him every time Sunday that I did. Wandering about as the buses got loaded, getting his luggage as we arrived at the airport, giving a charming wave from the infinitely long check-in line as I floated up the escalator...
The plane ride wasn't awful, but my ears are still stopped up. There was a good dinner. Chicken stuff and a cute little flan/jello thing. Then we got a ride with Bill's tenant in his car, instead of with Corita and Arielle as we'd thought we would, and waited at his house a little while he dropped off stuff and got ready for Arielle's party. Bill's tenant, a lawyer whose name is Laura, offered me a job. That might be interesting.
At Chapultepec, she was very loud and possibly drunk. She kept telling Salad and me both that we should go home and get rest because we looked terrible. Well, we were both sick, but not dying yet and there was a party. It was quite fun. Ian showed some of the pictures on his digital camera, and we discussed the rumors about the Notorious Party. Well, Laura randomly took a cab home. We seemed to be all right anyway, and went home eventually of our own volition. It was around 2 in the morning when we got home. I slept till 6 in the evening today. It's midnight now. I think I'll go to bed.