"A nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places." -Isabelle Eberhardt
"A nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places." -Isabelle Eberhardt
I remember day seven as mostly uneventful, but we did do some stuff! Roxy and I said goodbye to the rest of our group and we took off down the uneven sidewalks towards the Coyoacan square. We headed straight to the bookstore I had seen a few days earlier, named Gandhi. I was on the hunt for a Spanish edition of Alice in Wonderland. I was hoping to find a version with an illustrator other than John Tenniel. I have a small collection of A.i.W. books, by different illustrators. They had a few versions but all by Tenniel, so I picked the one with the cover I liked the most. Very scientific.
I researched bookstores in Mexico City before we left on this trip and really wanted to check out one of the Pendulo (Pendulum) branches. They were all an uber ride away though and by Monday, it seemed like too much effort! Especially after spying Gandhi right in the neighborhood we were staying. The Pendulum stores are café bookstores and the pictures look amazing. Gandhi was two floors, although small and jam packed. I would recommend Gandhi and I hope to make it to a Pendulum when we return to Mexico City next July.
I ended up buying a few other books, also in Spanish, even though I do not speak or read Spanish! I bought a book of folk tales titled, Cuentos Populares Mexicanos , and another book whose title, Muerte y el Más Allá , translates to, “Death and Beyond,” which I believe is about many cultures’ death rituals. I am trying to learn Spanish, so it is my goal to someday be able to read these! In the meantime, they look good on my coffee table. Oh, I also bought a new journal! Roxy grabbed a few books and some cool VW bus bookends as a gift to my sister. She said all she wanted us to bring her back from Mexico was a VW bus and she got one.
We decided to get lunch at a spot we had walked by a few times on the way home from Sandra’s house. I did not note the name of the place but we both had chilaquiles, (mine with divorced chili!) and I also had a michelada of sorts. I forgot to add tomato juice, so it was just very limey, salty beer. Nothing wrong with it, just not what I was expecting! After lunch we went back to the bookstore because I decided I needed to spend more money there and picked up a sketchpad and some colored pencils.
After a nap and some writing/drawing time, we decided to head back out. It was raining quite a bit, so we wandered around for a short time and decided to go somewhere for dinner, even though neither of us were not feeling so great in the stomach area by that point in the trip. We ended up at an Argentinian restaurant called Mafalda. We had a few empanadas, a salad and beers for about $15 US. This was a tough dining experience due to our lack of Spanish! All I could say was, “Lo siento, mi español es mal!” We walked back to La Casita, but first stopped at the 7-11 for sparkling water and a beer to share (only $2 US for both!) and played a hand of rummy before bed.
The post Mexico City Travelogue – Day 7: Gandhi bookstore day appeared first on The Book Nomad.
