Rheana's Travels

Hello,

I just got back from a very tiring trip to Mexico City. It was an amazing weekend!! We left at 5:30am on Friday, piling into a bus for the 4.5 hr trip. I made myself at home on the floor and slept for the majority of the drive. I must say that the roads that we took from Morelia to Mexico D.F. are not the smoothest in the world, and I wish I would have brought a pillow, because my toiletry bag is not the softest substitute.

Mexico (everybody here drops the “D.F” which was confusing when I first got here) is one of the biggest cities in the world, but it was hard to really tell since we were only there for such a short time. What I can tell you though was that I loved the part I saw, a lot. It had such a cool vibe and there was so much to do. Although we were all exhausted by the time “free time” came around at 7pm each night to do much, all the restaurants and places we went were just plain fun.

When we got to our hotel Friday morning we had about ten minutes to move in and change out of our pajamas, then we walked to one of the downtown areas (there are many). There we visited the “Temple Mayor” which was discovered in the 1970’s while trying to build a subway system. Common practice in the years following the conquest was that the Spaniards would build their Cathedrals on top of the Aztec temples, but this was not the case in Mexico City. The Cathedral in the City is a block or two away, and finding the Temple was a big deal to a lot of people, especially anthropologists. After walking through the temple and the museum we traveled up to the 45th story of a building to get a good look of the city. The view is unbelievable! For those of you who haven’t been to D.F. it goes on for what seems like forever. The smog wasn’t really an issue (it had rained that morning) and the city literally stretches to the horizon in all directions. Our next stop was Palacio de Bellas Artes ("Palace of Fine Arts") which was an amazing building. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside (well, we could but had to pay for it and for poor college students those two things mean basically the same thing) but there were gorgeous murals. The Mexican government used murals painted by people like Diego Rivera to unify the country during the 20th Century, and they are way too symbolic for an American like myself to fully understand. I can tell that it is amazing to paint something on that large of a scale.
The next morning was “pyramid day” which is what we had all been looking forward to for weeks. There are two big pyramids about an hour outside the city, honoring the sun and moon god, respectively. We didn’t learn very much about that, but I know that some of the girls were praying to their respective hamstring gods by the end of the climb. The stairs were VERY steep and combined with the wind any of my friends who had any sensitivity to heights were struggling. I raced a couple of my friends to the top, and by “raced” I mean tried to do the whole thing without taking a breather or two. None of us were able to do it without stopping, but we all blamed it on the high altitude. After returning to Mexico DF we went to Frida Kahlo and Diego River’s house, which was an amazing color of blue. They also had the most incredible courtyard and art on their walls.

On Sunday we were able to sleep in a little (til 8:30), packed up our bags and drove to the National Anthropology Museum, which is ginormous (big enough to need the mixing of "giant" and "enormous" to properly be described). I walked through it with Emily (who was my roommate for the weekend), Jessica and Arian, but after about two hours of we got too hungry and went outside to eat. We decided not to return to the museum, and instead started walking around the park that borders it. We ran across the Modern Art Museum, and since nobody has to pay to get in on Sundays, decided to check it out. It was incredible as well. There was some really cool/creative art in there, and we all wished we had more time in there.
 
I have to say that going to Mexico City was the best weekend I’ve had here (though I have crashed since I got back home). It was great to see an other Mexican city besides Morelia. I have to admit that I’m not the biggest fan of Morelia on the whole, though I haven’t regretted coming here for a second. I believe that every person fits a town or city in a different way, and Morelia just isn’t my fit. I cannot wait til I have the opportunity to go back to D.F and be able to spend some quality time there, exploring the city.

Well that’s all for now, sleep has become my top priority.

Love you,

Rheana