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Catedral Metropolitana
The Metropolitan Cathedral viewed from Templo Mayor. You can see how stones were taken from the ruins and used to build the cathedral when the Spaniards arrived. Templo Mayor is part of what was the great city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire (now Mexico City). Mexico City is such a strange place. It probably has one of the worst reputations on the planet. They have a saying here in Mexico "If you want to show your Mexican patriotism, kill a chilango." A chilango is a person from Mexico City. They have reputation for being rude, selfish, agressive people without any morals to speak of. An example of racism at it´s finest.
And like most cases of racism, it is completely unfounded. Sure there are jerks in Mexico City. There are jerks in Tokyo, jerks in Paris, and yes, jerks in Los Angeles, Houston, and podunk-town Indiana. But people are people, wherever you go. Nice ones, rude ones, ignorant ones, poor ones, rich ones.
During my weekend in Mexico City, I got sick. Really sick. Like I´m standing in the metro station and I realize I need a bathroom in 30 seconds sick. Unfortunately upon returning to where I had left my compadres, I realized they were gone. So I pulled out my cell phone to call and see where they were at. I didn´t even get the number dialed before the battery completely died, trapping the phone numbers of every soul I know in Mexico
Templo Mayor
The ruins of this great temple are right in downtown Mexico City. inside. No way to call anyone, no way to know where they went. After searching the metro station high and low for a familiar face, with no luck, I approached a bus ticket counter to ask how to get to a city called Xochimilco, which was the next spot on our agenda. The man at the counter asked where in that city I was going, to which I replied "no sé". What do you mean you don´t know?, was his confused response. I explained that I was traveling with a group and had not made the plans, but was only following the leader. He informed me that it was probably not a good idea to go there looking for them because I would probably get even more lost, at which point my eyes started to swell up. This poor guy felt so bad for me, he started asking if he could call someone for me (I explained about my phone), he tried to take my SIM card out and put it in his phone to get the numbers, no luck there either. He tried to put his phone battery in my phone, wouldn´t fit. Just then I remembered that I
Museum at Templo Mayor
Inside Templo Mayor there is a fantastic museum housing more excavated ruins and artifacts. had the director´s cell phone number on a piece of paper in my purse. Since he couldn´t call a cell phone from his work (because it is so expensive to call them in Mexico), he called his girlfriend, gave her the number, told her to call it and says she´s calling for 'Audra' and ask the person to call his work. We were waiting for her call back when suddenly one of my friends found me and said she´d been looking all over for me. I thanked this man about a million times for his help and apologized for my stupidity. But I will never forget that experience because he was just trying to do whatever he could to help me, he couldn´t just send me away with an 'I´m sorry'. Very rare to find no matter where you are, and proof that good people are everywhere, even in Mexico City.
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Tim Muller
non-member comment
Hi Audra!
Great Story! So wonderful to hear from you and great to hear you can find good wherever you go! Love from Tennessee!