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Published: October 27th 2010
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On Thursday, we flew into Mexico City and took a bus to Cuernavaca where we met our new host families at the school and took a taxi to our house. My house was located on a very busy, commercial street as my host family owns a little shop (tienda) and lives behind it. The next day we took placement tests for the coming classes and took a tour of downtown Cuernavaca. The bus system was very confusing to me, but we just had to remember the few bus numbers that would take us downtown and back to our houses and the school. When we wanted to get off we had to yell, "Alto, por favor!".
On Saturday we visited the Shrine of Virgin of Guadalupe which is a basilica in Mexico City. It was more of a compound than a single basilica and there were lots of gardens around the compound. The cloth that depicts the Virgin de Guadalupe is at the front of the sanctuary and there was a service going on so we went downstairs where they have moving sidewalks that cross in front of the fabric underneath the altar. The image was said to miraculously appear on
New and Old Basilicas
The cloth is in the new basilica. the fabric, which was much bigger than I thought it would be.
Afterwards, we visited the Pyramids of Teotihuacan, which was an Aztec city. It was set up like a modern city with a wider main street and a drainage system. We climbed both the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, which are the two largest pyramids there. A man hawking jewelry actually followed me between the two because I accidentally said I liked on of his necklaces. I had no money on me, but that didn't seem to bother him. After the pyramids, we went to this little roadside restaurant where I got cactus chicken. One of our chaperones was celebrating her birthday and after they blindfolded her, they replaced her cake with a bowl of flour, so when she blew into it the flour flew back at her. I found a little playground out back with rides that probably would never be allowed in an American playground, but they were incredibly fun. Particularly the metal sphere that 4 people could sit in and spin like on the tea cup ride.
On Sunday we went back to Mexico City and visited many of
the attractions downtown. First we visited the cathedral in the Zocalo (Town Center; every Mexican town has one no matter how small). It's apparently the oldest and largest religious construction in North America. I was the only one who forgot that shorts wouldn't be appropriate, so someone lent me their windbreaker to wear around my waist.
We visited the Palacio National, which is like the White House of Mexico. It's mostly open with a large courtyard in the middle and they grow agave plants in their garden. The palacio has some of the most famous Diego Rivera murals in the country that depict the history of Mexico. We didn't really go into the zocalo because the World Cup was going on at the time and the entire square had been taken over by giant TV screens and gated areas. Next to the Palacio National is the Templo Mayor which used to be the pyramid in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec city located where Mexico City is now. It's now a museum and you can walk through the ruins and look through some more traditional pottery and jewelry in the adjacent museum.
Next we took the bus over to the Castillo
de Chapultepec which is located in a large, beautiful park. The castillo is at the top of a hill and we had tour guides explain the history of the park and the castillo as we climbed. The castillo is a natural history museum now and has more murals by Diego Rivera. There were a lot of vendors in the park selling snacks, toys, and luchador masks, but we had been advised against buying food from street vendors for health reasons.
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