Why did I come here
While on a flight headed somewhere I can’t recall right now, my laptop died and I opted to scroll through the vast array (uh-huh) of available in-flight movies and came across a movie called Frida starring Selma Hayek. Although I knew very little about this Woman, I often saw these militant (and often sexy) type females post pictures and quotes of Frida on their instagram feeds. You know, the infamous selfie with the head of roses, the eccentric outfits, the “girl power” empowering quotes and stuff. Yeah I thought Frida was cool from afar and now was my opportunity to check it out and boy was I treated to a historical lesson on resilience! I enjoyed learning about Frida so much that I became even more curious about her life, her works and promised myself I would visit the infamous Casa Azul where she actually was born and later died in.
Frida Kahlo was a celebrated Mexican painter known for her complex self-portraits and controversial lifestyle. She took the road less traveled often and had very little fucks to give which is what I liked about her. I won’t bore you with a long blog post on the life of Frida because if I haven’t bored you yet, it means you’re interested in coming here or maybe you’re on a long flight too! I will simply share some of the photos I took inside her home and how I managed to get there and inside quickly with one day to spare in my travels to Mexico City.
Getting there
Since we were staying in Mexico city near the Angel of Independence, getting to the Frida Kahlo Museum was an Uber or taxi ride away and every driver knows where this museum is as it’s become quite a local attraction.
Getting in without a guided tour
If you haven’t been warned elsewhere already, let me tell you that that getting inside this house no easy task if you’re unprepared and hungover from a night of partying like we were. You HAVE to book this tour in way advance (before you arrive) by way of online tickets or you may not get in because there is a number of allotted tickets designated for walk-ups and you have to arrive super early to queue up for those.
We arrived at the museum after breakfast around 11:00am (our first mistake) only to realize all tickets for walk ups had run out and we needed to be there at 7:00am the next morning to queue up for a chance at entrance being that the online ticket reservation process was far sold ahead in weeks and we only had a few days in this lovely city. Ugh!
The next day I arrived at around 8:00am with hopes of marking my place in line so I can have a chance of getting tickets. I was told that the line was already 2 hours deep in wait (ouch Frida!). While waiting in line I discovered these nice men who had volunteered to wake up early and make the lines for and hold a place in the queue for a fee (how nice of them). I observed groups of people skipping the lines with these “friends” who had been there waiting in line for them and all of a sudden disappeared once they got in. I observed the players and made my move to approach one of them to discuss the logistics. If you ever skipped the line at a nightclub and negotiated with a door bouncer, this process felt very familiar. I paid one of them $100 Mexican pesos to for his unauthorized “line” services and there I was, about 2 people short of entering the world of Diego and Frida!
Now I know this post is long but if I dedicated that much time to share, it means that I felt pain when I saw that line and failed to plan ahead. I really wanted to check out this place and on day 2 I succeeded.
Once Inside
