Never Again a White Christmas!

Freising's non-white Christmas market

The Munich tabloid's headline was clear and to the point: "Nie mehr Weisse Weihnacht!" And unfortunately, at least for 2018, it proved to be correct. It was a cold, at times grey, at times blustery Christmas, but at least it stayed mostly dry during the actual holiday.

Moles of the world, rejoice: There is no snow!

Climate change in Europe means that fewer and fewer folks get to see white stuff, not only at Christmas time but before and after the holiday season as well. And believe me, a Christmas market is not the same when rain drizzles instead of flakes fall. I've now been here in Germany for a bit more than two weeks, and today was the third day that I actually saw some blue skies. It's been pretty dismal, weatherwise, and there are no tales of exciting adventures that I have to offer.

The sun made a rare appearance on Christmas Day

If things had gone by plan, we'd be somewhere on the Autobahn at this very moment, an hour or two away from Freising. Instead, we're stuck for a day in Cologne after Sabine fell mysteriously ill last night while we were visiting my cousin, Paddy, and his family. She's been feeling dizzy and sick all day, and it didn't make much sense to try to embark on a 7-hour trip in the Skoda. Thankfully, my cousin and his family are superb hosts, and our staying for another night is not causing any major problems.

A bit of German humor to brighten the day

We had spent Christmas proper with Sabine's brother in the Dortmund area. While Sabine and her son, Jona, had driven up from Bavaria (where I had spent the first few days after my arrival on December 10) I had visited one of my former college professors in Jena and my brother in Berlin. Add to that Sabine's birthday on December 12 and her bother's on December 20, and you start seeing the full picture. In other words, it has been a true Family & Friends Holiday Happening.

While in Dortmund, we twice ventured out on rather staid beater bikes in an attempt to burn off the gazillion calories that holiday festivities bring. In Berlin I had tried to do the same by walking at least 10,000 steps a day. I can't say that I am too impressed with the results. Freising's weather in my opening week had been so crappy that I had managed only one 17-mile ride that prematurely ended in a rain, sleet, and snow extravaganza. Yuk, yuk, yuk.

I completed my travel by train, which turned out to be comfortable and relatively inexpensive--and even (mostly) on time! The German rail system used to be super reliable, but in the past decade there have been more and more problems and only about 70% of all passenger trains are now on time. What has the world come to! Even Swiss trains, which were known to never be late, are showing signs of weakness in an increasingly digitized world where anything analog equals being prehistoric.

In Jena's old town

Berlin's Europacenter

Amazing food selection in the KaDeWe (Berlin)

Happy camper in the Berlin subway

Berlin Hauptbahnhof--fourteen lines crossing on three different levels. Pretty cool.

Once we get back to Freising (tomorrow, I hope) it's time to get ready for New Year's. Maybe we even get a chance to go to the Alps for a day of mild hiking. The weather forecast is not too exciting, though, and outdoor activities may continue to be curtailed by temperatures just above freezing and periods of occasional drizzle. In other words: November weather in December and no real winter in sight. I suppose the tabloid headline was correct. All that's left to say is: Happy New Year!

Jürgen

Three days in a cleaner, more modern CDMX--Ciudad de Mexico

Mexico City's huge cathedral hasn't changed a bit

Forty-one years ago, back in 1977 when I visited Mexico City for the first time, it was simply known by two letters, D.F. "De Effe" stood for Distrito Federal, the same as the DC modifier that we still attach to our US capital. But it seemed to me that the De Effe is out of vogue as there seems to have been a major rebranding of the city as CDMX, Ciudad de Mexico. Municipal metro busses sport the logo, tourist ventures make use of it, and more than just a few oversized four-letter logos are installed in parks, in squares, and in front of banks.

If you need drinking water, call your friends at the
 relevant CDMX department for free service

It was my first visit to Mexico City in more than 30 years. Quite frankly, I can't remember the exact last time I was down here; I'm sure that my buddy Howard was still trying to eke out a living before finally throwing the towel and moving back to the UK, only to eventually end up in Madrid. So maybe closer to 35 years? Regardless, Mexico City is still Mexico City, but some changes are obvious.

Blue skies over Mexico City? You gotta be kidding!

Let's start with the most obvious: Back in the '80s, during my usual December visits to the city, I would never see a blue sky. It was somewhere out there, but you simply couldn't see it. The city, already huge back then but now being the home to more than 21 million people (largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere), was choking in its self-inflicted pollution. The sky always looked brown, as if fires were raging all around. It was only on rare occasions, such as after a hard rain or unusually strong winds, that the citizens would actually see the sun. It was hell. Howard always was glad when I came to see him because it gave him an excuse to escape to Puebla, or Cuernavaco, or Taxco, where one could actually breathe.

Modern buildings and a cleaner atmosphere are now part of Mexico City

Well, I don't want to say that CDMX doesn't have a pollution problem. That would be sugarcoating the issue. But the improvements are not just noticeable, they are dramatic. The traffic is still dense, dense, dense, but what about the dedicated bus lanes, docked and dock-less bike share services, an electric trolley system, and expansion of green spaces? If you want some data and figures (number of registered vehicles in CDMX, percentage of trips by bike, etc.) you may be interested in this interesting link I found. Please come back to the blog after digging into those statistics.

Overall, the city seemed to me much cleaner and much more civilized than thirty years ago. Mexicans are very proud and clean people who value the neat appearance of their homes and towns--but that's not always apparent in the large cities where different socio-economic patterns govern than in smaller towns. Well, let me tell you: CDMX is cleaner than most big cities I have visited in the past few years. Maybe it's the armada of public-service street sweeps, maybe it's the more affluent folks who are walking their dogs and are cleaning up after their pets, maybe it's just a general pride that has now swept over the anonymous masses--the city is clean as a whistle (with the occasional exception of a side alley)! Even the metro is spic-and-span.

More civilized? Sure, once in a while a frustrated driver will honk, setting off a cacophony of claxons that you will never hear in the US. But if that was pretty much the way traffic worked years ago, it now is the exception. People queue up to enter the bus, there's none of that mad shoving and pushing in the metro, and drivers stop for pedestrians when taking right turns. Gees, you could think you're in Germany!

While all this is for the better, thankfully (at least to this nostalgic geezer) so many other things haven't changed. Christmas lottery tickets are still being sold, taco stands are everywhere and patronized by everyone, 95% of ice-cream shops still have the place name Michoacana in their logo, street sweeps use old-fashioned brooms made of reeds, some cars are being held together by bailing wire, schoolgirls still wear their immaculate uniforms, taxis still outnumber Ubers, women who should not wear a size 46 still squeeze into a 36, anything one can possibly need is available in some obscure shop that you will come across if you just walk far enough, and loudspeakers are still being used to peddle anything from today's restaurant menu to the fact that "we service microwaves regardless of manufacturer," in endless loops. Oh gosh, how I love all this and have missed it without realizing it!

Just as I did in San Miguel, I stayed in an Airbnb in the very heart of the old historic centro de la ciudad.  It was clean, secure, quiet, and inexpensive, and I had all the privacy I could ask for. One day I took a tour of the city with one of those hop on / hop off buses, which showed me how many new buildings have been built. I was able to see my good old friend Ludwig, who works for the German School in CDMX and is a colleague in the field of anti-doping. And yesterday afternoon I participated in a "beer walk experience" courtesy of a $25 coupon from Airbnb. 

My $25-a-night Airbnb's bedroom--I also had my own dining room/kitchen and bathroom

The largest collection of tequilas I have ever seen

Ludwig and I had dinner at Saks San Angel, which also houses the Tequileria de San Angel

Cerveceria Cru Cru was one of the stops on our beer walk experience with Paola

The best beer I had in Mexico City was born at Falling Piano

Without local guide Paola I would have never found the rather obscure location of Cru Cru

Most of the time I just wandered around fairly aimlessly, mingling with the crowds, having a drink here, dinner there. I didn't want to overload myself with visits to museums, but I dropped into the occasional church to marvel at how imposing they are in light of all the poverty that still exists.

Opulence

And so I ended my eight days in Mexico, rekindling an old love affair. I am determined to make every attempt to come back more often and revisit and discover other colonial towns. Mexico is so varied and has so much to offer, and I really should seize the opportunity more often. With today's tools--smartphone, GPS, all those apps--there's no excuse not to run away from home and experience how other folks live. Next stop: Christmas markets in Germany, but that will have to wait for five days....

Jürgen

Colonial Mexico: Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende

Usually it doesn't take long to rekindle old love affairs, and this quick trip down to colonial Mexico that I have been embarking on for the past five days proves the point. Sure, I have been in Mexico in the past decade or two, on CADF business and floating and bloating on the Riviera Maya, but it was more than 30 years ago that I truly traveled in the interior of the country, maybe closer to 35 years. How could I let so much time pass by without coming down here?

Art nouveau cineplex in rainy Guanajuato

With all my bike-related travel for the year done, re-qualification as an American Airlines Executive Platinum frequent flier in the bag, and crap weather in Lubbock I decided to use some of my accumulated miles to escape for a week to Mexico. American has direct flights from DFW to various cities in Mexico, among them BJX, or Leon/Guanajuato. It's a quick and easy trip, and so I found myself last Tuesday night on Mexican soil. My hotel was just a 35-minute Uber ride away, and within just a few hours after my departure from Lubbock I was in a different world. Thirty-five years ago things weren't that easy...

Guanajuato has many hidden parks, squares, and other green spaces

The Teatro Juarez is a remnant of a bygone era

Even with rain, Guanajuato has color

I had pre-booked all accommodations before the trip, the first two nights in a small hotel in the center of Guanajuato, and then three nights each in San Miguel de Allende and then starting tonight in Mexico City, using Airbnb. So far, so good. My attempt to escape crap weather in Lubbock didn't fully come to fruition, though, as it rained for two days straight while I was in Guanajuato. A bit of a bummer, but I was prepared with raincoat and umbrella.

Guanajuato has lots of things to do inside--there's the fabulous Teatro Juarez, Diego Rivera's birth house, and of course the Museo de las Momias, the famous mummy museum. See, when it doesn't rain it's actually very dry in Guanajuato, and bodies that have been put into the local mausoleums naturally mummify instead of decaying in the usual way. I had visited the mummies many years ago and was surprised at the way the museum has been spiffed up and has become a very cool place to visit. When you go, don't forget to check out the cemetery/mausoleum first and marvel at the fine assortment of re-purposed jalapeno cans!

The world's smallest human mummy: a fetus that was found in his mother's (background) womb

I spent quality time strolling through the markets, sitting in coffee houses, and enjoying local cuisine. The street scenes are still the same a they were decades ago, with vendors left and right, toddlers wearing knit caps to keep them warm, women sitting on the curb under a tiny overhang with a few pieces of fruit and some vegetables neatly arranged for sale. The only difference is that now everybody seems to hold a cell phone in hand.

After two rainy days I took the bus (about $8 for a 1:15 hr ride) to San Miguel de Allende. Back then I had ridden lots of busses, but this was a totally different experience: on-board wifi, seats that recline twice as far as the best domestic first class airline seat, and on-board entertainment replete with complimentary headphone. Wow! Things have changed, after all!

Checking in for the bus ride: drink and snack are inclusive!

Thanks to GPS and my smartphone it was easy for me to find my Airbnb in San Miguel, and now I have spent three nights here and will leave once this blogpost has gone live. San Miguel was always the more "touristy" of the two cities, with Guanajuato being less a mecca for artists and hippies. That difference is still there. While in Guanajuato I saw very few gringo tourists, but here they're all over--and with it come higher prices, fancier restaurants, and real estate offices that sport Sotheby's and Christie's logos. If you want to live in San Miguel, better bring at least a half a million dollars to get a stylish place, but a few million would be better. Think of Taos, New Mexico.

Panoramic view of San Miguel de Allende

The rain had moved out of the region, and the past three days have been glorious! I have been doing a lot of walking, with a special trip to the interesting Botanical Gardens on the outskirts of town. These long walks have taken me through neighborhoods rich and poor, up to vistas of the city and through the narrow callejones that are too narrow for cars. Cobblestones, beautiful parks, churches galore, and lots of galleries (if you're into that) make San Miguel a quaint tourist destination. Here are a few pics, randomly taken to show the colorful beauty of this part of the world.

Needless to say, I had fun, not only walking around but also having a beer here, a margarita there. Last night, while sitting in a sidewalk bar/restaurant I met an interesting Mexican couple and totally enjoyed our civilized conversation. At other times, I was reminded of all those trips across the Rio Grande to San Carlos where we went to the local cantina to knock back a few beers. I'm sure glad my Spanish is good enough to feel comfortable in some of those places. 

Last night on the way home I had a final order of tacos al pastor, better than what you get at any food truck in the US. Life's damn sweet! And now I'm off to Mexico City for another three days of adventure.

Jürgen