D.F!

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ALRIGHTY! It's been another week already, time flies when you're having fun!

I'll start where I left off.. Mexico City! A.k.a. the DF (or District Federal, in your best Mexican accent). First impression... It's HUGE. 25 million people, that's more than in the whole of Australia, in a single city. The sky was brown and yellow from the pollution and the traffic was horrendous! BUT... all in all it was awesome! There's actually a lot of trees throughout the city which was surprising to me. And if you can ignore the police stationed on every street corner bearing machine guns, some areas of the city looked pretty schmick actually!

The hotel we stayed at was called the Eurostar Reforma, and it was VERY nice for quite a low price! (What a poet). We ended up with a group of 8 (myself, Kaitlyn, Maren, Lucille, Ludivine, Helene, Alice and Cassian). That's 7 girls and 1 guy - poor Cassian! The first day we decided to be true tourists and jump on a double decker bus tour for the day, which was awesome. It took us around to all the major attractions of the city, including Centro Historico, Zona Rosa (a district with lots of little shops and markets), Condesa (looootttsss of nice restaurants), Latino Americano Observation Deck (Tallest building, only not very tall!), and El Angel de la Independencia - all very impressive!

For lunch we hung around Centro Historico, with half of the group going to a crepe place (in fear of getting food poisoning from street food) and the rest of us ending up in a little Mexican Taqueria! I have one recommendation for anyone travelling in Mexico. At least TRY the street food! Just once even! So there is a chance that you'll have a stomach ache afterwards or be leaking out of both ends... but a majority of the time, there's no after effects at all and it tastes AWESOME! Plus, you get a huge plate of food for the equivalent of about $2 or $3.

Anyway, Day two, we started off the morning at Museo Nacional de Antropologia, where we checked out all the Aztec and Mayan artifacts. I'm usually not a big fan of museums but it was actually pretty amazing! Although being me, I did spend most of my time taking photos of the ancient Mayan jewellery in the cabinets =) Very cool! I did take some photos of the statues and buildings as well, you know, just to seem serious about being there. Although I'm not sure sitting on the statues and posing was really allowed... oh well! If you get in trouble, saying "Sorry, no espanol!" usually works.. for young blonde girls anyway!

Afterwards we split up, with Kaitlyn and I heading off to the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco, about 40 minutes drive from Mexico City (That's an expensive 100 pesos in a taxi - about $7 total... its tough to be in Mexico). This was without a doubt my favourite part of the whole trip! Xochimilco is a little village on the outskirts and every street is covered in market stalls and entertainment. The town has 170km of canal systems with hundreds of rainbow painted gondola-like boats. Being two tall, english speaking, white girls, we kind of stood out from the crowd (just a little) and as soon as our taxi arrived on the edge of town we were hunted down by a scrawny little man on a push bike who instructed the taxi to follow him through the alley ways. We ended up at the boat dock and were met by a man instantly who took us onto a boat and offered us an amazing deal of 1000 pesos ($72) for a 2 hour trip around to see all the little sites and the markets on one of the boats, which we thought was a good deal until we realised the guy next to us was selling tickets for his boat for 15 pesos (about $1)!!!

So obviously, being poor students, we changed to the cheap boat with about 20 other people and took a cruise down the river with one little mexican on the roof with a giant stick pushing us along! As you move along the canals there are mini gondolas that float past with people selling all sorts - ice cream, fruit, food, flowers, arts and crafts.. and best of all, Mariachis that jump on your boat and sing to you! It was such an awesome cultural experience, and most of the people that were on the boats with you were Mexicans on family day trips, so you really got a feel for it! After the boat ride we walked through the markets (or some of them!) and ate a traditional mexican dish which was amazing and I don't remember the name of aahhhhh. I'll have to go find it again =) The tortilla base was bright green which was kind of scary but it was well worth it!

That night, back to Queretaro! And as usual, even though I arrived home late, there was a plate of dinner waiting for me on the stove from Martha, with a can of coke and one ferrero roche.. love it =)

This weekend will mostly be full of studying, so much work! But I will be heading to Teotihuacan (pyramids) with the uni for a one day trip on Saturday.. pretty excited!

Buenos Noches! xx

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