Some thoughts before I leave...

I'm leaving tomorrow, it's so sad. I really had a good time here. Hmm... unfortunately I do have to pack, buy people things, and say goodbye to a few people last-minute, so I don't really have a lot of time to have a good, heart-warming "goodbye Mexico City" blog entry. I'll try, though.

Some thoughts... I really wish I would have kept this blog rolling while I was here. I learned a lot. I saw a lot of things. I can communicate in Spanish now. This is a really cool city. Honestly, if you haven't been here, you don't understand. An American's perception of Mexicans, Mexico, and Mexico City is so backwards... I'm really glad I came.

Ugh, so much I didn't blog about...

...museums, parks, the beautiful view and sunsets from my apartment, the dogs I live with that are adorable but poop in the tv-room all the time, learning how to cook cookies and "impressing" the Argentinians I live with, street food, the juice stand by my house with the juicer whose name translates to "Candy Jacob," Tepotzlán, how I'm now obsessed with the artist "Jesús Helguera," some of the great bargains I made in the markets, the culture and awesomeness of Lucha Libre, all the beautiful monuments and statues around the city and Avenida Reforma, my crazy search for an apartment, being able to decipher accents in Spanish for the first time, that one time I wandered into a weird clown-protest, Zócalo, finally finding Aztec dancing again and being disappointed, Mexicans' perceptions of me with my gringo hair, all about food and how Mexican food is different in the states, discovering that a street performer dressed as an angel taking pictures with children was actually a man, giving directions to a Mexican for the first time, the amazing subway system, the fun of power outages and water shortages, how you CAN drink the water here, that time I stumbled upon the creepy closet of dismembered dolls in our downstairs bathroom, not telling any of my visitors about the closet and letting them discover it on their own...

... two months of discovering a new culture and place. All I can really say is, if you get the chance to do something like this, DO IT!

Goodbye, Mexico. I had a great time.

Teotihuacan!

Oh, where to start...

Today I got some great pictures, bargained an awesome deal, and saw some awesome pyramids.

About an hour North of Mexico City (the old capital of the Aztec empire) is the 3rd largest pyramid in the world, the Pirámide del Sol (Pyramid of the Sun). It lies in the ruins of the city of Teotihuacan, a house-hold term for those in this area.

Teotihuacan was not Aztec, but a different culture that thrived about a millennium earlier. In the Aztec language, the name roughly means "birthplace of the gods." Really, I could believe that. These things are huge! And pictures cannot capture the sheer size. But of course I took some, several in fact. We got some great pictures that really make it look like we're doing awesome things in the world.

Laura and I. We're friends from Miami.

Climbing the Pyramid of the Sun

The view half-way up. Look at the horizon. Beautiful.

The top. Make this big. It's a really cool picture.

The Pyramid of the Moon from the Pyramid of the Sun.

Look how small those people are on the top. This is perhaps the only picture that accurately portrays it's size.

Forget the ancient city ruins! Check out this orange bug!

Resting. So many stairs.

Ah, what was that bargained deal I mentioned earlier? I know you were wondering this whole time! I saw a nice necklace that a guy wanted for 500 pesos... I bargained him down to 100! Somebody's getting a nice Christmas present this year!

Estrellas en el Cielo

I abruptly woke up this morning after my window rudely decided to shatter itself.

I knew it was going to be a great day. Oddly, the sky was a brilliant blue, which is a very rare day here. White fluffy clouds were blowing by from a strong wind, the same wind which coincidentally drove my window to suicide this morning. It must have been swinging open and shut and shut itself so hard it broke into pieces. The remnants of glass are now duct taped together, so more doesn't fall out. I live on the tenth floor, so if glass falls down to the sidewalk below... bad things can happen. Strangely, I couldn't find any pieces of glass anywhere at all. I'm not sure if they blew away or what.

Anyway, wind does strange things to a smog-ridden city. Tonight was a sight. The sky was painted like the fur of a pinto horse. Sprawling clouds reflected the city light, but cavities of sky gave way to black. And the wind continued, eventually pushing all the clouds away. I just walked home from my friend's house and looked up to see stars... over the Ciudad de México. There's a first for everything I guess.