you know you´re in mexico when...

(a summary of my day / my recent travels in mexico city)

TODAY:

1. while walking into the centro social to get breakfast, i had to pass a guard holding a very-large-gun (i´d say 3 1/2 - 4 feet long, at least), keeping watch while another guard put money in the ATM. and we´re not just talking holding this gun at his side. he was holding it in a way so that everyone walking past him would know he could use it if necessary. well, good morning to you, too. because that´s not AT ALL scary....

2. i fed bread to my baby duck and laid out in the sun by the pool in between my classes this afternoon.

3. dinner was at a churrería on cholula´s zócalo tonight. we sat outside (with a heater near us, thank goodness, as i was still dressed like it was 1pm!) and ate chapatas (that´s confusing spanish for ¨italian - seasoned sandwich¨) and churros for desert - filled with gooey, melted nutella. oh hey, heaven.

AND MEXICO CITY:

only in mexico can you climb an ancient aztec pyramid and be within eyesight of a mcdonalds and a kentucky fried chicken. two pyramids were involved in our trip (bringing the total number of pyramids i´ve seen / climbed to ... about 59). the first was in the middle of a lava field and dynamite had to be used to fully excavate it. the second - the hill of the star - was at the top of a large hill (mount adams style, only bigger and more forest-y), which we climbed... in flipflops. the last part of the climb involved a vertical rock slope. so basically i rock-climbed in flipflops and it was the highlight of my life. the view from the top was superb. in every direction, you could see the city. i swear that city never ends! they don´t call it the biggest city in the world for nothing. (and if i´m incorrect that it´s the biggest in the world, my apologies. it might just be in the western hemisphere. either way, it´s enormous...)

museums were also visited - including frida kahlo and diego rivera´s studios (yes, feel free to be jealous), frida kahlo and diego rivera´s house, diego rivera´s museum of ancient aztec / mayan / olmec statues and figurines, and el convento del carmen, an old convent (for monks? i don´t ask questions.) that´s been converted into a museum. my favorite part was definitely seeing the mummies in the basement. unfortunately, i don´t remember much else about the museum because i was so excited about the mummies that came at the end. however, it should be noted that the monks living in the convent were forced to sleep on wooden beds with logs as pillows. not so comfy. and back to the mummies - these aren´t wrapped pharoahs, egypt-style that we´re talking about. these are people that were buried normally, but were naturally mummified due to elements present in the soil, and are basically still fully intact. they still had clothes, hair, teeth, and really shriveled skin. one looked exactly like the grim reaper and one even had its tongue sticking out! they´re terrifyingly amazing. i love mummies.

we went to a mall and i bought a shirt. the cashier almost kept my credit card (i´m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume this was an accident), but i´m pretty awesome and negotiated with him in spanish to get it back. we also went to a super-artsy street market and i was promised that there was an indian restaurant nearby, but i couldn´t find it. super huge letdown right there. we went out for dinner in the zona rosa (and i was very cautious, per michael´s advice) - let´s just call it the clifton of mexico city. we ate at a mariachi club and in the middle of the show, the singer welcomed everyone from our group by name. then he came to our table to sing to us! pretty sweet.

all in all, a very good weekend. next weekend we´re headed back to the mexico city area to view teotihuacan and tula, otherwise known as more aztec ruins! we´re climbing more pyramids (LOTS more pyramids) and by the end of this trip i might want to be an archeologist...


before this weekend comes, however, is the UDLA party of the century tomorrow night. apparently the whole campus goes to some bar for a huge all-UDLA party. fun times! i´ll be sure to report on this later...

my new favorite mexican-ism is using the word ¨super¨before everything. only it´s not pronounced the way we normally say it. it´s like ¨sue-pear.¨ if something´s really easy, it´s ¨super-fácil!¨ it´s basically become my favorite word to say, other than incómodo (awkward, literally uncomfortable), which still describes almost every aspect of my life.

and it should also be noted that one of my roommates was a soccer hooligan for four years. yes, the kind you can read about in ¨how soccer explains the world.¨ her team is the pumas, in mexico city, so if you´re a soccer fan, you should check them out. i´m totally becoming a fan! ... and maybe a hooligan...