Templo Mayor

Meet at the cactus...

Today we had to walk to school by ourselves for the first time. Our house is about thirty minutes from the school, so we had to leave pretty early. Margarita fed us breakfast (and made me coffee!), and we left at 11 for class at noon. We first stopped by Rhiannon and Kesha's house to meet up with them, but realized we didn't have a way to contact them. The sooner we can get cheap Mexican phones for communicating with our group, the better! We killed time at the pharmacy until we saw them leave the house, and I got some Mexican lotion for my sunburn which has no aloe in it but works like magic. Then we all went to meet at the cactus, which we were supposed to already be at. When we got there, only one of the two girls we were supposed to meet was there. We figured the other girl had left already since we were late, and we went on. We made a few wrong turns and had to consult a map, but we made it on time (barely)!

The other girl who did not show up at the cactus apparently was running even later than us...and got to the school before us. 

Okay, now let's go see it!

We had our first class today. It was at noon, and we had not been told how long it would be. The classroom had fans and open windows whose shutters rattled, but it was still a bit warm. Regardless, the lecture was interesting and we learned about a lot of the gods and myths from Teotihuacan (yesterday). Then she started talking about what we would see later today.

Then, at about 1:30, she suddenly finished talking about what we would see, and, without pausing, said "okay, now let's go see it." She started walking and we all just followed.

Oxxo and Metro

We took the metro. I don't even want to know how the group of us must have looked to all the Mexicans crowding the cars. To give you guys an idea, we stopped at a small convenience store called an Oxxo on the way to buy bottles of water and snacks, and a man lounging against the wall outside just started laughing and said "hey, is Oxxo a tourist spot now?"

Human sacrifice and self mutilation...

We got to Templo Mayor and went in. The catch to today's excursion was that other students in my class had to present on certain topics as we walked by relevant artifacts or architecture. I will be doing the same things on Tuesday. It was very interesting, though I'm not sure the people that had to present would tell you the same. Templo Mayor is part of Tenochtitlan, right in the heart of Mexico City. The water is drained and the only thing left is ruins, but it was absolutely incredible either way.

We kept blocking the other people trying to walk through with our large group, and their reactions were pretty entertaining.

A large serpent statue right near the entrance

Snakes are a big deal so far for the Aztecs. Everything is symbolic, and snakes have more than one symbolism. Quetzalcoatl is represented as a plumed serpent, and snakes represent Ollin, a sort of super important energy of motion.

Maguey, the super sacred cactus we took shots of yesterday,
was growing in Tenochtitlan,

Statues representing human sacrifice on the steps where they
would lay out the hearts or bodies of those sacrificed.

Nopal, the type of cactus in the
Mexican flag.

Did I mention that it was really, really pretty?

Even the altar where they put the heads of the sacrifices was pretty.

We also went through the museum...

Chacmool

The next deity is cool because she had the form of a giant sea monster or serpant, and her body was split in half by Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca to make the earth and the heavens.

Tlatecuhtli

Shows Tlatecuhtli at the bottom with her body forming the tree of life.

...and saw the cathedral.

 My group looking at some excavations

It's mothers day in Mexico too.

Fun fact, Mother's Day in Mexico is always the tenth, so it was Mother's Day here too. We brought Margarita some flowers, which she loved.

Shopping baskets in the US need to step up their game.

We stopped by the supermarket, and the small baskets, the ones you would have to painfully carry over your arm the whole time back home, are not only much bigger, but also have a retractable handle and wheels like a suitcase.

Mandy was quite excited about the whole shopping basket thing.

The mangoes there were perfectly ripe, yellow all over, and as sweet as candy. Margarita showed us how to eat them. You cut off the sides, eat that part with a spoon, then peel the rest of the skin off from the top to eat the rest of the fruit. 

Mexico is delicious.

We've all been doing it wrong.

Tomorrow is my first real day of class, and we're going to a Tortilleria. Yay! But for now, that's all folks.