We arrived in Mexico City on Tuesday. Our flights were fine, nothing major to report. Getting through immigration upon arrival in Mexico, however, really sucked... both of us had to wait about an hour in line to get through... that's what everyone wants at the end of a trip to have to wait an hour to get out of the airport, but we survived. Of course, by the time we did get out of the airport we hit rush hour traffic, which is always lovely in big cities, and it took probably another good hour and a half to get home.
Although neither of us has ever been to Mexico City, our experiences here have been qualitatively different. Quel is completely energized by big cities and is loving the opportunity to be in a big city again, even with the traffic. She is also loving the fact that while she's at her parents house she doesn't have to do much of anything... it's nice to get away from the stresses of everyday life every once in a while. Meanwhile, Marie is surrounded by Spanish everywhere we go and surrounded by Portuguese while we are with Quel's parents...so Marie basically depends on Quel for all forms of communication. And while Quel finds comfort in being at home with her parents Marie is trying to figure out and abide by all the family rules and is having a really difficult time handing her dishes and dirty laundry to the maid (Marie has an easier time being helpful than being helped).
So our days thus far have consisted mostly of chillin'. The first night we were here we really didn't do anything other than get settled in. On Wednesday, we went to the mall... Quel's choice of activity not Marie's. Again, Quel loves the malls in big cities but was really disappointed because she didn't find anything worth buying - how sad! Today we went to the Anthropological Museum with Quel's mom. It's huge and we only had time to see about 1/3 of the museum, which was probably OK because after a while everything starts to look the same anyway and you probably want to split the museum up into different trips so you can enjoy the experience.
In our downtime we have been making good use of all the cool stuff here at Quel's parents' apartment complex. We go to the pool (you have your choice of indoor or outdoor - although we have been confined to the indoor pool because of the lack of sunshine and an abundance rain), workout at the gym (where you can have your own on-call personal trainer...if you want to), and sit in the sauna. We have yet to watch a movie in the private movie theater that is available here...we will be scheduling that soon. We are also hoping to catch the massage therapist that comes to the complex tomorrow and get a relaxing massage. So you can see that our time thus far has been extremely stressful! Anyway, here are a few pictures of our day at the museum.
This is us outside the museum by the cool fountain.
This is Quel looking "stunning" (definitely not Quel's choice of words) while standing next to... something.
We don't really know what this is but we thought we needed a picture of Marie looking "stunning" standing next to it.
We also thought we needed a picture of Marie standing next to this snake. Notice how her hand is on the display... yeah, the security guard saw it too. Marie had no idea of what he was saying to her but Marie is good enough at reading non-verbals that she could tell that the angry look on his face was not a good sign.
Can't you tell Marie is having a great time?
Here's Marie basking in the "sunshine" with the natives... it was important in her recovery after the security guard incident.
One of the really interesting things at the museum is all of the artifacts that depicted people in different conditions in society and life in general. This display here has the artifacts representing the socioeconomic stratification of the ancient Mayan society. The bottom tiers represent the working class and top tiers depict the ruling class. Marie had a fun time contemplating where she and Quel might have fit in this ancient society. Thoughts?
Marie hopes to someday have a cool house like this - Quel, not so much.
Quel hopes to someday have a headdress like this - Marie, not so much.
These two pictures are more evidence of depictions of human conditions. The artifacts in the picture on top are of drunk men (see the red eyes?) and the picture on the bottom shows artifacts of individuals with disabilities of some type. There were also several artifacts representing the roles of men and women in ancient society.
This is a replica of the impressive structures that were used for performing human sacrifices (the big smiles on our faces... inappropriate affect?).
Inspired by the temple for human sacrifices, we decided to perform a little sacrifice of our own...but not a whole human...not even a whole Quel-sized human...just a Quel head.
And here we are waiting for our cab to take us back to modern civilization.
Upon arrival, Quel's mom asked the counselors in the ward if they knew if someone would be playing the piano during sacrament meeting (piano players can be scarce at church in Latin America). When they informed her that they didn't she eagerly volunteered Quel to play the piano. This wasn't altogether surprising (Quel seems to have to play the piano every time she visits any of her parent's wards) but this time Quel decided that she wasn't going to do it alone and roped Marie into holding the hymnal open for her (there are no spiral bound hymnals in Spanish, which can be problematic for the pianist). Three cheers for Marie for saving the day! Don't worry these pictures were taken while Quel was playing postlude music after sacrament meeting ended not DURING the meeting.
Ok, the highlight of the day occurred during Sunday School. We were sitting there quietly listening to a lesson about Alma and Amulek... Marie was especially focused trying to understand as much Spanish as she could. Then all of the sudden, out of nowhere, we notice this red balloon floating just above the tops of people's heads. The balloon had just enough helium to keep it afloat but not enough to let it rise to the top of the room. So, this balloon bobs around the room for half of the lesson and NO ONE (except for the two odd foreigners) seem to notice (much less be amused by) the balloon's behavior... which made everything even more funny for the two odd foreigners because everyone kept ignoring this balloon that would suddenly stop right in front of people. Really, at one point the balloon stopped right in front of this one man's chest and the guy didn't even flinch, he just sat there until it floated up again and no one around him even looked at it except for the two odd foreigners giggling in the back row. We anxiously waited for the class to end so that we could get a picture with the renegade red balloon. Unfortunately it looks like we are holding the balloon in the picture but if you look closely you will see that it has a will of it's own and is just floating midair.
