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Published: September 12th 2008
¡Hola a todos!
Less than a week here to go till I leave Mexico. Today was the last day of classes, and there´s only finals to go on Monday and Tuesday. This last weekend was pretty eventful in D.F. navigating the subway system and seeing the sights in the little time we had. D.F. reminded me a lot of San Francisco because there are so many tourists and different language´s being spoken, it made me nostalgic for the real S.F.
Oh, but I forgot to include my trip to the zoo the weekend before last. Anyways, the zoo here in Morelia is huge. I went with my friend Ashley for a few hours and even in those few hours where we were constantly walking, we still didn´t see everything. One huge difference with the zoo here is that they let you get SOO close to the animals, it´s almost scary, they would never allow that in the U.S. Even on the street when I pass the zoo on the way home from school and see the lions there´s about 10 feet of separation (I wonder how the loud traffic affects them). And if any of you have ever been
el leon
i passed this lion on the way home from school everydayto the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz where the gravity is all messed up, there´s a place exactly like that smack dab in the middle of the zoo, with a house where the water runs uphill, and when you think you´re standing up straight you´re actually slanted. I even got a bit nautious inside. I wonder how many other places there are like that in the world....
For this last weekend, Kirsten and I went to D.F. and I´m glad we did most of the traveling by ourselves because we both like to walk everywhere and go to as many places as we can. I won´t talk about everyplace because there are too many. But on Friday we went to the National palace and the Cathedral in the Zócalo. The cathedral is the biggest one I´ve ever been in, you could fit 5 cathedrals inside of it! Afterwards we met up with some other friends to eat dinner and then took the subway towards the University where one of them has an apartment we were going to spend the night in. The subway system is huge, and you definitely need to be careful with your belongings so you don´t
get pickpocketed. And guaranteed on every subway car someone will be on there selling pirated cd´s for a buck. These people all work for the same person and blast music out of a speaker in their backpack. In the U.S. people on the BART would tell these music people to shut the hell up, but I guess it´s part of the culture here. And the university is like a city itself, there´s even a Costco and Home Depot there. We had a lazy night just watching a movie and rested for the next day.
On Saturday Kirsten and I got up early and took the subway to Coyoacán, the extremely beautiful neighborhood (you wouldn´t know you were in a huge city) of Frida Kahlo and Leon Tronsky. On our way walking to this neighborhood we spotted a Fort and decided to go in, which turned out to be a museum where all the artifacts of people we´ve been studying in class were. Stuff like the original Mexican constitution, Hidalgo´s pistol, all the war flags and cannons, and swords of Morelos and others. It was really cool to see in person the history right in front of us.
By
this time our other friends came to meet us to go to Frida Kahlo´s house, it was really beautiful arquitecturally with tons of her sketches and paintings and letters written to her. We didn´t go to Leon Tronsky´s house, but ate lunch, and then parted ways with our friends who were going back to Morelia early to study for finals (the people who are going on the Spain program directly after took finals a week early and left). Kirsten and I then proceeded to the Anthropology Museum which was fantastic! It was divided into different eras, and we didn´t make it everywhere because we didn´t have time. In the middle of our trip there we were getting tired and decided to go to the cafe and get a beer. Because we were a little dehydrated it affected us more than it should have (haha), but it perked us up and made our feet stop hurting, and definitely made the rest of the museum more enjoyable.
That evening we got a room at a really nice hotel for $12.50 each (I love Mexico), and ate and wandered downtown. We were dead tired and came back early to shower and watch
la casa encantada
exactly like the mystery spot in santa cruz, ca...strange... the Olympics (!!!). On Sunday we went to the Templo Mayor, ruins that are smack dab in the middle of the city. And the Museum hold the largest collection of Aztec and Maya artifacts from the region. It was fantastic. The ruins are only partially uncovered (there used to be a parking lot on top of them), and the rest are under the cathedral and under the whole city. Modern Mexico City was actually based off of the existing gridlike infrastructure of Tenochtitlan. It would be really interesting to dig up the rest of the city, but obviously that´s not going to happen.
In the afternoon we went to Teotihuacán! It was great! It was about an hour outside of town, and we traveled down the avenue of the dead in the midst of tons of pyramids, and even climbed some of them! It was amazing to be in this ancient city in the beautiful countryside. It was also the first time I used my umbrella for the sun because it was so hot. AND I ran into a friend from high school, Woody Loudermilk, what a coincidence! Kirstin and I didn´t get home until 1:30am on Sunday, but
el zócalo
the meeting place for protests it was totally worth it, and I spent way less money than I thought I would because we stayed at a friends appartment Friday night and got in free to all the museums because we´re students in Mexico. Too bad we were only there for 2ish days, because there´s so much more to explore. I guess that means I´ll have to come back 😊
I´m sad that all of the Spain program students have left (a good friend Ashley included). We went out Tuesday night to celebrate before they left yesterday...and didn´t get home till 7:30am...and didn´t go to school yesterday to hang out with Ashley in her last hours here. I figure I´ve been a good student up till yesterday.... The Olympics too have me occupied, I watch them whenever I have time. It´s pretty exciting and they make me want to excercise, especially since I haven´t here as much as I wanted. Anyways, this weekend I´ll be relaxing. I want to go the VIP movie theater one more time to see Se Busca (Wanted) with Angelina Jolie, and on Sunday I´m going to watch Morelia´s soccer team live in the stadium! I guess I´ll do a little
la catedral
the biggest one i've ever been in studying too for finals on Monday and Tuesday. All right, sorry that email was super long, I´ll be in California soon! Love,
Mon
PS: the best popsicles EVER are here in Morelia. the fruit one´s are the actual fruit mashed up on a stick, and you can have them dipped in fresh chocolate and covered in nuts...yum...
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