We woke up to another beautiful day in Ciudad De México! Heading down to the local bakery, La Speiga, I picked up some fresh baked bread, some croissants, and also a danish. The air is crisp and the the sun is nice and warm. Today we are going to head out to the Museo de Anthrolopogia (Anthropology Museum). Keep in mind that we are in the heart of Aztec M;éxico and the potential for anthropology is amazing. Unfortunately as we were walking around the city, I tried to take a picture, and the camera opened but didn't load, and then would not close, and then broke!! oh man! Right at the beginning of our trip, our camera brakes!! We walked to the market, bought some bananas, Maracuja (passion fruit), and then headed to a local restaurant, where we bought the Comida Corrida (Plate of the Day) for 40 Pesos (3.50$US about). The food here is soo good! I got the Pollo tacos Dorado, but the meal comes with sopa de cameron(shrimp soup), then Tallerines de crema (noodles with cream and cheese), and then Pollo Tacos con Salsa verde(chicken tacos with tomatillo salsa), as well as a giant pitcher of juice, and then bananas in sweetened condensed milk for postre(dessert). That's a lot of food for 40 pesos. After our almuerzo(lunch), we headed to a local Spanish language school to see if that is where we want to attend for our two months here. The school seemed nice, however, it was not quite what we wanted.
After checking out the school, we split up with Bronson, and we headed to the museum. Like I said before, the subway system here in México city is so extremely easy to use, and so cheap that you can travel clear across town switching lines three times, and get to where you are going, many miles away, for 24 cents, and almost no confusion! Getting out of the subway, we headed to the museum. Approaching the museum is amazing, for about 5 minutes of walking before the museum there are many ruins that you can see, since the museum itself is many many acres large. there are big buildings, temples and other cool looking things. Once we got into the museum, we went to all the different exhibits, our favorite being the aztec exhibit, and then the lowland Yucatán exhibit. The Aztec exhibit, right in the center has a huge circular stone, which many deep engravings. the stone was originally thought be a calendar, but then was finally discovered to be a stone a huge significance! IT is huge, and very big. I believe that when it was used, it was laid down flat and warriors fought to the death on it, and were sacrificed to the sun god. The rest of the museum was very interesting including a small to scale representation of the old city of Tenochtitlan.
While we were at the museum, the wind picked up and the closed off the outside section of the park. When we were walking from one exhibit to another i realized that the wind really picked up and I was surprised at the sound of the gust, it sounded really strong. Walking back to the house, there were leaves and twigs and big branches that fell down everywhere. We jumped on the subway, and headed back to the house to see what our couch-surfing friends were up to. Getting to the house, we noticed that the whole block was dark, however loaded with people, and that traffic was at a standstill! Then i noticed the traffic lights were not working, and that everyone was beeping like crazy. We walked through the hamburger place, and up the stairs to the apartment. we were greeted by the two lovely cats, and then noticed that the power was out in out place! it didn't last long at this point, but we realized that this side of town has had no power for most of the day. After watching the news, we heard that the winds were very powerful and 80 trees got knocked down in the city, and 17 people got hurt. We headed out and our friends want to take us to the local Mescaleria! We head a few blocks behind the apartment, is an extremely beautiful area called Parqué México, lots of trees, sort of neo-bohemian, with lots of kids our age, and beautiful old buildings. Once we got to the mescaleria, we got some Victoria Cervesa, and we each picked out a different Mescal to try. Once, I had my first sip, I realized that Mescal is not what i expected it to be(i expected it to taste like tequila). Mescal is distinctly different, it has a smokey flavor and is quite stout. I definitely added it to my list of new things that i like, and tasted everyone else´s. At our mescaleria, there were over 30 types of mescal you can try including ones that taste like goat and ones that taste like chicken. However as you may or may not expect we tried to order the goat flavor, but they were out, and we got the chicken flavored mescal. Another big discovery I made was that Tequila is a type of mescal, like Merlot is a type of wine. Tequila:Mescal as Merlot:Wine. Get it?
After another round of Victoria, and a few more tastings we headed back to the apartment. Man it is not that warm here! at night it drops into the 40s! We need to go somewhere warmer! Our last day in México City, we spent packing visiting local cafés and buying some groceries for our bus ride to our next destination, Oaxaca! In the morning, we say a sad goodbye to our new friends, who we will definitely see on our return trip before our flight home, catch the subway to the bus station, and get on out bus out of town!
Hasta Luego, Ciudad de México!! A new favorite city!
