Mi Viaje a La Ciudad de Mexico

This past weekend, my group and I went to Mexico City. We left Cuernavaca around 8 on Saturday morning and got to the city at 9:30. We took a bus (which is always an experience in itself) to Frida Kahlo´s house, La casa azul. If you don´t know who Frida is she is an incredible painter and is world famous. When she was young she was in a bus accident where a pole went through her abdomen, leaving her bedridden for months at a time. That was when she started painting. She ended up marrying the womanizer Diego Rivera, a famous painter that is known for his controversial paintings. They lived a very hard life together. But I think that is why she is such a great painter, because she painted what she knows and what she understands and sees. It was such a great experience! The last picture is of my roommate, Claire and I at Frida's house.
Then from there we went on the Subway, if you have been reading my blogs you can understand why I was a little nervous for that, but it turned out to be fine. Suposedly on the weekends the subway is less crowded, Thank God for that! From there we went to our hostel which was my first experience ever staying in a Hostel, but it was great! Seriously the place was so nice, not what I expected at all. It was located right in the middle of the city, near the grand Cathedral (which is the fourth picture, the view from our window), the National Palace and the Templo Mayor. After checking in we went to the National Palace, which is free with a student ID, AWESOME!!! It was incredible. It housed many murals, a lot of Diego Riveras. The concept of such controvercial murals, with communisitic messages and many political figures, in the National Palace is so strange to me, but they were incredible. The third picture is an examplt of one of Diego's incredible murals. Then we went to the Templo Mayor, which get this, is an indigenous ruin that they just discovered not that long ago that is right in the middle of the city. Basically what happened, as years went on the templo started to be covered up with dirt and stuff like that, then they started to build buildings on top of it without even knowing that something so grand and precious to their culture was right under their feet, literally. Then we went to the Cathedral, which was my favorite part. This cathedral was HUGE! The best part was that we took a tour on the roof of the Cathedral to see the bell tower. It was absolutely incredible. And we picked the perfect time to do it cause the sun was starting to set. I loved it! The second picture is of the Cathedral! Isn't it incredible. The first picture is from the top of the Cathedral!
The next day we went to more and more museums. It was great. First we started out at the Anthropology museum, which I went to before with my dad, but it was still great. That place it huge and we difinitely did not have enough time to check everything out. Then we went to another musuem, that I can´t remember the name of, but it was a museum of modern art. I loved it there. Sadly we couldn´t take pictures inside, but it was a great experience. They housed some huge and incredible murals of artists like Diego Rivera and other famous Mexican painters. After that, we took another bus ride, which was scarey and funny at the same time cause our bus driver was a maniac, to Xochimilco. Which was definitely an experience. Basically it use to be a lake, but now there are man made islands, and there are tons of little boats that you can take around the canals. They are all brightly colored with fun names. But the best part is that they are other boats with Mariachi bands that you can pay to come onto your boat and sing to you. Also there are other boats that sell food and drinks and random things. So for an hour you just hangout on a boat listening to mariachi music. It was great. Then we headed home.
It was a great weekend. Mexico City definitely has some good parts and some bad, but so does every city, you just have to know what to do and where to go. Tonight we are leaving for the beach! It is this little town called Marquelia, kind of near Alcopulo. I am super excited to be able to just relax and soak up the sun! I hope you are all doing well and are enjoying the cold weather, I miss it!