Sunday, January 13, 2008
Coyoacán, Mexico City
Well, classes start tomorrow already, so I'd better fill you in on these last few days' settling in here in Mexico City. CEPE (Centro de Estudios Para Estranjeros) is one of those departments where people from all over come to study Spanish - and Mexican culture - at UNAM (The National Autonomous University of Mexico) This is the oldest - and biggest - university in the Americas, and the campus is like a huge city unto itself, to the south of Downtown Centro Historico Mexico City. It's a long way back into the center of the city, but the subway is great here - about 20 cents (US) a ride! It's clean and bare and sort of quiet (running on rubber tyres) except that people will always get on selling CD's and they blare out their musical offerings full-blast on big portable speakers in their backpacks. This subway is sort of like a cross between Paris and ...Cairo!
It only clicked last Thursday after registration and placement tests, that UNAM holds a very special place in my childhood memories. The main library on Campus is none other than the famous iconic Bibliotheca Central built in 1956 by the architect Juan O'Gorman and covered with the largest mosaic mural on the planet showing vivid scenes from Mexico's history. http://bc.unam.mx/murales.htm
Now the reason this particular building is so special to me - in such a strangely obscured way - is that I remember seeing a bright unreal-looking picture of this building in some book or magazine - probably one of those kids' magazines like "Look and Learn" that I used to subscribe to when I was a kid. I remember being completely awe-struck by this intensely colorful and original building in that mythical, impossibly far-away place called Mexico which, to little me in Perth, Western Australia, in the early 60's must have seemed like some other planet. As I think back now, I feel that this very building was probably single-handedly responsible for kindling my passion for architecture, not to mention exotic far-away places!
Well, here I am in Mexico City at least 40 years later. My newest and first CEPE friend, Daisuke, and I are heading back onto the campus looking for the student cafeteria after enrolling for our courses. Now, I knew of course, that the library was somewhere in there, but the campus, like I said, is huge and I had never looked at a map properly. My Lonely Planet Guide is still waiting to be opened! And what's more, I had never come down here to the UNAM campus 12 odd years ago, when I first came to Mexico City with Nori and Megu.
Anyway, soon as we stepped through the first entrance way past the cafeteria... there it was!
Looming bold and solid and massive. The mosaics less bright than I had remembered them from that old magazine. Have they faded with time, I wonder? Needless to say, my heart was all a-thump as we stepped inside to find a spacious, bright, sunlight-flooded ground-floor study area - which I know will become one of my favorite haunts thanks in part to the wi-fi internet access which will make it a nice change from sitting at home on the computer...
Now that's just one reason why I'm looking forward to these next few months of study here in Mexico City! Another - and equally tantalizing one - is the gorgeous little place I've found to live in Coyoacán! - but that'll have to wait for my next posting...
Hasta luego, amigos!
It only clicked last Thursday after registration and placement tests, that UNAM holds a very special place in my childhood memories. The main library on Campus is none other than the famous iconic Bibliotheca Central built in 1956 by the architect Juan O'Gorman and covered with the largest mosaic mural on the planet showing vivid scenes from Mexico's history. http://bc.unam.mx/murales.htm
Now the reason this particular building is so special to me - in such a strangely obscured way - is that I remember seeing a bright unreal-looking picture of this building in some book or magazine - probably one of those kids' magazines like "Look and Learn" that I used to subscribe to when I was a kid. I remember being completely awe-struck by this intensely colorful and original building in that mythical, impossibly far-away place called Mexico which, to little me in Perth, Western Australia, in the early 60's must have seemed like some other planet. As I think back now, I feel that this very building was probably single-handedly responsible for kindling my passion for architecture, not to mention exotic far-away places!
Well, here I am in Mexico City at least 40 years later. My newest and first CEPE friend, Daisuke, and I are heading back onto the campus looking for the student cafeteria after enrolling for our courses. Now, I knew of course, that the library was somewhere in there, but the campus, like I said, is huge and I had never looked at a map properly. My Lonely Planet Guide is still waiting to be opened! And what's more, I had never come down here to the UNAM campus 12 odd years ago, when I first came to Mexico City with Nori and Megu.
Anyway, soon as we stepped through the first entrance way past the cafeteria... there it was!
Looming bold and solid and massive. The mosaics less bright than I had remembered them from that old magazine. Have they faded with time, I wonder? Needless to say, my heart was all a-thump as we stepped inside to find a spacious, bright, sunlight-flooded ground-floor study area - which I know will become one of my favorite haunts thanks in part to the wi-fi internet access which will make it a nice change from sitting at home on the computer...
Now that's just one reason why I'm looking forward to these next few months of study here in Mexico City! Another - and equally tantalizing one - is the gorgeous little place I've found to live in Coyoacán! - but that'll have to wait for my next posting...
Hasta luego, amigos!
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