Polanco

Because the whole point of my being in Mexico is to do research for my dissertation, I haven't done nearly as much exploring as I'd like. For the past several weekends I've started trying to rectify that and see more of the city.

Areas of Mexico City are distinctly defined - every area you go into is part of a colonia, which is kind of like a neighborhood (the best comparisons are probably the way that we talk about Soho in New York, Uptown in Minneapolis, or the Short North in Columbus). As opposed to American neighborhoods, though, the colonias are very formalized - every area is part of a colonia, and if you look at a street sign it will have the colonia and delegacion (kind of like district or county) listed on it in addition to the street name. My colonia, Tabacalera, is very small - I'm actually kind of sandwiched between two much larger colonias, the Centro Historico and Juarez. Tabacalera is essentially corporate - as I may have mentioned before, the Senate and police headquarters are just around the corner, and a major business hotel area is less than a five minute walk away. It's an ideal place for someone who wants to spend her time working and doesn't want a lot of bars and noise at night, but it's a little bit lacking in the excitement category.

In order to find some excitement, this past weekend I went to a colonia called Polanco - and I have to say, until I got there I don't think I'd realized just how diverse Mexico City is, at least economically. Polanco is a very wealthy part of the city, and that was evident as soon as I got there. Most of the stores and restaurants I've seen up until now have pretty much been housed in overgrown closets; even the grocery store by me, while a good size for a store here, is probably a third the size of grocery stores back home. Restaurants in particular are often squeezed into what looks to be about an 8x20 feet - and if you could the food stalls on the street, you're talking more like 4x6. In essence, space is at a premium. This is all I've seen for the past month.

So you can imagine my surprise when I got to Polanco on Saturday and found myself surrounded by stores the size of houses - and not a little house either. We're talking full-on, colonial gabled houses here. These were the kind of stores where they have 1500 square feet and three items on display. These were, in short, the designer stores. In my scruffy jeans and beat-up sneakers, I couldn't even get up the courage to go in - I was certain they'd just throw me out! And tucked between the designer stores were the Mercedes and Audi dealerships. It was basically like walking down Fifth Avenue in New York, except with far less traffic and more poorly-paved sidewalks (sidenote: I'm not sure what Mexicans have against sidewalk repair, but it is a distinctly low priority. Also, if I don't stare at the ground at least 90% of the time, I WILL trip).

The other thing Polanco has that I had trouble finding elsewhere is knitting shops. That was actually my destination - I wanted to pick up some yarn and needles for a project I'd decided to start. The yarn shop was in a little shopping area called Pasaje Polanco, and I have to say, it was absolutely lovely. Pasaje Polanco is a little enclosed courtyard area filled with boutiques and small shops, as well as a few restaurants and a Starbucks. I picked up a drink, planted myself at a table outside the Starbucks, and proceeded to sit and read for about 45 minutes. It took about 15 of those minutes before I realized what seemed so strange to me about where I was. See, the one absolute constant in my life for the last month has been traffic noise. Mexico City is immensely busy, with lots of drivers, lots of traffic, and - naturally - lots and lots of car horns. My apartment's windows face on a fairly busy road, so even when I'm not out and about I hear cars pretty much all the time. But sitting at the Starbucks there, I didn't hear a thing. In that nice little courtyard it was quiet except for the sounds of people chatting and children playing, and I have to say, it was really lovely.

The other detail about Polanco is that there's a substantial immigrant population there. A lot of Mexican Jews - around here, that mostly means Sephardic Jews with roots in Western Europe, Syria and Lebanon - live in that area, as well as other transplanted foreigners. Because of that, there are stores and restaurants in the area that are decidedly familiar. I had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen (I can't tell you how happy I was to see a salad), which was next door to Teavana, and so forth. It was a lovely morning/afternoon, and the fact that I was able to walk back to my apartment fairly easily - it's probably three or four miles by the most direct route - was a definite plus. I've now explored most of the colonias that were particularly interesting to me; I have to figure out where to go next!