The last of the Mexico City adventures

Alright, so when I wrote yesterday's blog I said today would probably consist of packing and getting things ready to leave... well, it's now 8:00 pm and I haven't packed a single thing. This morning the sun was shining, so I got some pool time... YAY! Then after pool time my dad, who was all packed this morning, took Dan and I to the Castillo de Chapultepec for one last Mexico City adventure. The Castillo de Chapultepec is an 18th century castle that has been turned into the Museo Nacional de Historia. The castle was once the residence of the Emperor Maximilian, President Benito Juarez, and Dictator Porfirio Diaz among others. The castle is beautiful and quite majestic, its kind of like the Versailles of Mexico. Several of the rooms in the castle have been restored displaying its original furniture and allowing you to see what the room looked like when the castle was used as a residence. Unfortunately, this one was the one place we visited where we weren't allowed to take pictures inside but the outside of the castle is pretty impressive and might give you and idea of what the inside may have been like.





Anyway, I should probably go pack... Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Mexico Post-Marie Period - circa July 18, 2008

Today was probably our last day out and about in Mexico City. We leave on Sunday and tomorrow is going to consist mostly of wrapping things up and getting ready to leave and MAYBE a little bit of pool time. We'll see how much luck we'll have with that... given that it hailed this afternoon (yes, it HAILED) I'm not exactly expecting tomorrow to be sunshiny but you never know. There is also the possibility of using the indoor pool which is available rain, hail, or shine but it's not the same. Anyway, we've done our fair share of archaeological/historical site seeing and museums while we've been here so today we decided to "spice" things up a bit and went down to the Av. Reform where we visited the Zoologico de Chapultepec (Yep, the zoo - how's that for spicy), had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, and visited the Museum of Modern Art.

The Av. Reforma is one of the best known in Mexico City. The street is lined with sculptures/ art work and gardens - it's beautiful.

We took TONS of pictures at the zoo but don't worry, I'll spare you guys and only post a few. We loved the pandas and we decided that the jungle gym definitely resembles their natural habitat... NOT... but these pandas seemed to have adapted to their environment, Darwin would be proud :).

These are dromedaries (single humped camels). Last time we visited Brazil we actually got to ride one which was slightly more exciting than looking at them.

Aren't they beautiful? This was a really cool area of the zoo where the birds just kind of got to roam free. Well, not exactly but they allowed visitors to walk through the giant cage with the birds wandering around.

Dan's a fan of the buffalo so we thought we'd get a picture. These weren't the best looking buffaloes we had ever seen but they were still buffaloes and Dan was still impressed with the size of their heads.

Then for lunch we decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe - just in case you couldn't tell by the picture or the fact that I already mentioned this above :). Dan ordered fajitas - which were great, I ordered a salad - which was mediocre, and we both had lemonades were fabulous... but going to the Hard Rock Cafe is more about the experience, the decor, and the memorabilia than the food. So here are a few pictures of the decor and the memorabilia for you...

Dan's an Elvis fan and I'm a U2 fan... convenient that we were able to get both in one picture.

So, we've seen our fair share of museums this trip but I really wanted to visit the Museum of Modern Art before leaving. They only had one of the exhibits open today but it was still really cool.

This was one of my favorite pieces - the picture doesn't do it justice. It's a piece by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco entitled "Mis manos son mi corazon" or "My hands are my heart."

Mexico Post-Marie Period - circa July 16, 2008

Today we visited another set of pyramids at a place called Tula. Tula is considered the most important Toltec site in Mexico. At its peak the city was believed to have covered up to 6 sq miles and had a population of approximately 40,000. The site is most famous for its giant stone warrior sculptures, Atlantes, located on top of one of the pyramids.

Here we are at "ground level" surrounded by some kind of pillars that were part of some other structure - yep, clear as mud, I know. Anyway, the point of the picture is that you can see the pyramid with the Atlantes behind us.

The bottom of the pyramid is decorated with carved friezes of serpents, eagles, jaguars, and coyotes.

The Cabrals sitting on top of the stairs leading into one of the ballcourts at Tula. I'd give you more information on the ballcourt and the ballgame played there but I know as much about these as I knew about the pillars in the picture above.

Just hanging out on top of a pyramid.

So we all know that ANYTHING looks tall next to me but you have to admit that this is a little more than the usual.

Ok, but really my favorite thing about these giants... they had cute little butts!!! I decided to post the picture of Dan pointing at the butt rather than the picture of me grabbing the butt... just figured it was more G rated. Besides, my dad would approve of Dan's picture more than he would my picture :).

On our way back to Mexico City from Tula we stopped at Tepoztlan where we visited the Museo Nacional del Virreinato and the Iglesia de San Francisco Javier.

Tepotzotlan is a beautiful town, several of the buildings there were built in the 17th and 18th centuries. The museum we visited consists of a former Jesuit college, church buildings, and several beautiful courtyards and gardens.

Unfortunately, because you can't take pictures with flash inside of a museum, most of the pictures don't really turn out... so you get pictures of the courtyard and garden instead.

But we did manage to get a decent picture of these bowling balls... yep, bowling balls from the 18th century. Who knew? It's a shame we don't use these wooden (they may have been stone, I don't remember now) bowling balls anymore, at least that way I'd have an excuse for being such a horrible bowler.

Mexico City after Marie...

Marie left last week and I've missed her... so, in order to deal with her absence I've been keeping myself busy by revisiting all sorts of places that I went to while Marie was here (the National Anthropological Museum, Teotihuacan, and the Zocalo)... ok, so as much as I love Marie I really haven't been revisiting these places to deal with her absence but so that Dan, who arrived after Marie left, could get a chance to see them. Surprisingly, I've actually seen a few new things at all these places.

On Tuesday it was raining (it's been raining pretty much non-stop since Marie left - Mexico City is crying because it misses her too) so Dan and I visited the National Anthropological Museum where we could stay dry. We spend the whole day there and saw ALL of the Anthropological Museum this time. Here are a few things we didn't see with Marie...

There is a second floor to the museum (yeah, we totally missed that the first time) and the upstairs has displays representing several groups of people that live in different regions in Mexico.

We totally missed the Olmec heads the first time around too...

And we never saw this thing... whatever it is. We decided it had lost a head and really needed one so Dan volunteered his :).

And, although Marie and I did see the burial replicas, we totally missed the ghost of Quel (and the ghost of the statue of the woman given birth) floating above the replica.

On Thursday, the rain decided to let up for a few hours, giving us a chance to visit Teotihuacan. Dan and I climbed the pyramid of the moon, which Marie and I didn't do for some reason...

The steps of the pyramid of the moon were by far the biggest and steepest... not really and issue for people with long legs but my legs aren't exactly long...

Still, I did make it to the top and here's the proof... :)

Dan and I also discovered (really, it wasn't exactly like we discovered anything it was pretty obvious but Marie and I managed to miss it completely) a covered area where they had really well preserved pyramids where you could still see the stucco and the painting on the pyramids... it was awesome (sorry you missed it Marie).

Here's Dan at the entrance of this really cool area.

See how the steps were cemented and stuccoed and painted? Teotihuacan must have been pretty darn impressive in its hay day.

Friday was overcast but we managed to escape the rain, for the most part at least, so we took a cab down to the Zocalo (the historic downtown) and also saw a few places that Marie and I didn't get to see. We visited the Palacio de Bellas Artes and saw an exhibit with some of the works of the Mexican artist Jose Luis Cuevas.

This is a self-portrait bronze sculpture by Jose Luis Cuevas outside of the Palacio de Bellas. Jose Luis Cuevas must be a fascinating individual (those of you who are into art and psychology Google his works and we'll talk sometime).

We also stopped by the Casa de los Azulejos where Dan got his shoes shined. We were totally ripped off (and we knew it too) but we figured the money didn't mean as much to us as it did to the guy shining Dan's shoes - at least that made us feel better about getting ripped off :).

We had lunch at the Cafe de Tacuba... there's a story behind this place but I can't remember it. Whatever the case, the place was beautiful and the food was great.

We also visited the Museo del Templo Mayor... ok, so this place is an old Aztec temple located in the middle of the Zocalo right across from the Catedral Metropolitana and yes, Marie and I totally missed it... I have no idea of how we managed to do that but we did :).

I'm standing in the Templo Mayor in this picture and you can see the Catedral Metropolitana in the background. Yep friend, we were right there... HOW DID WE MISS IT?

And here's a picture of what we missed. The Templo Mayor is fascinating. It has seven different layers - each successive ruler would build a layer on top of the previous layer making the temple bigger each time. Most of it the temple has been destroyed leaving the different layers visible.

Today we visited a town called San Angel (which Marie didn't get to go to). Once upon a time it was considered a rural community well outside of Mexico City but with the expansion and growth of the metropolitan area it's not all that remote anymore and actually just seems like part of the city. Still, San Angel definitely has a different feel than other parts of the city.

There are still a lot of old colonial buildings in San Angel and it is an area largely inhabited by artists and writers. Every Saturday they have a market where these artists display and sell their work.

They also have the BEST quesadillas, really, probably the best food I've had while I've been here! They make the corn tortillas right on site and fill the quesadillas with Oaxaca cheese and your choice of chicken, beef, chorizo, mushrooms, or all sorts of other stuff. If you look closely, you can see Dan and my dad in the upper righthand corner of this picture.

Messy... but DELICIOUS!!!

And, of course, like any good place in Mexico City they have museums all over the place. This one was once the house of some ambassador and is a great example of the colonial architecture found in San Angel.

Sombreros

Ok, so if you are going to be in Mexico you HAVE to take a few pictures wearing a sombrero...

Here are a few patriotic "Viva Mexico" sombreros.

And, of course, some fancy mariachi sombreros... in a variety of colors.

A Night of Chaos

I expected, upon returning to Provo, that my adventures would slow down a little bit. However, our peaceful Sunday evening at home was rudely interupted by the cacophonous alarming of a whole houseful of smoke detectors. Most of us were just sitting and chatting or reading when we were suddenly interupted by the shrill beeping of the alarms. At first we just stared at each other in bewilderment...then we began wandering around the house with our fingers in our ears trying to figure out what had caused the symphony of dissonance to begin. Not finding anything, we began disconnecting the devil devices (at least all of them that we could reach) in an effort to preserve our hearing, while my aunt tried to find someone to call who might have any idea about how to stop the 10 or more shrieking contraptions.
We finally discovered, while on our raid to disconnect anything making noise, the source of the problem. Chrissy and Steph heard a strange noise in one of the back rooms of the basement. Frightened, they ran to find me (as if I could do anything to protect them!) and grab possible weapons (they ended up with a hammer and large plastic spool...nice choices girls!). Well armed, they followed me as we explored what they thought was the sound of a creature locked in one of the back rooms. As we listened a bit longer we discovered that the noise was actually water dripping through the ceiling via the smoke detector. A stream of water followed the alarm as I disconnected it but, thankfully, the beeping stopped. Then we were just left with the mystery of the leaking ceiling.
We quickly discovered that the toilet in the bathroom one floor above was overflowing gallons of water onto the floor (we suspect the workings of the small grandchildren in this disaster). After many towels and some plunging we conquered the toilet and returned it to its normal functioning.
The next task was to dry up the carpet beneath the leak downstairs...towels on the floor to dance on and a towel overhead to keep anymore toilet water from dripping on our heads.
We found some "interesting" things in carpet as we soaked up the water.So in our efforts to calm down and soothe ourselves after the disaster, we decided to make some Oreo shakes. As if the night had not already been full of frustration and unfortunate events, I managed to snap a large plastic spoon in half while scooping ice cream and slice my hand on the rough broken edge...narrowly avoiding bleeding into the ice cream! :) Fortunately, Nurse Chrissy was on hand to superglue my new wound closed so that life could get back to normal.