Day 103: Weekend Overview Part 2

We wake up in anticipation for the day. Get ready, eat breakfast, ride the elevator with the cool buttons that made me feel like a secret agent, the whole deal in order to be ready at the time that the host family we were traveling with said that they would be leaving. At 8, we knocked on the room next to us to see if they were ready. Nope. 30 more minutes... Nope. 30 more minutes after that... Yes! Let's go!

We get going and start the adventure. It begins at the train, which was really a Max, which made me a little homesick. 

No worries though. Ok, worries considering that Mexico City is pretty dangerous, especially for a group of obvious white girls, even when we had a Mexican family to be our guide. We kept a tight hold on all our things and were very careful to stick together. Safety First! While waiting for our train, I actually said a little prayer. Let us be safe. 



We got to the Zocalo without incident (yay!) and were astonished to see the Zocalo of all Zocalos. 

 The pictures don't even quite capture the enormity of the place. It was huge! It was kind of like a Mexican version of New York, New York. 

This picture needs a little explaining I suppose. There are always people who are asking us if we speak English and if they can interview us or take a picture with us. This just happened to be a group of teenage boys who wanted a picture. I figured I'd get a picture too, wishing that I had done this from the start! I'd have many, many more pictures if I had done that. Oh well. 


We looked inside the church...

Honestly, the pictures don't capture the sheer grandness of this church. It was kind of like the one in Puebla or Taxco. Huge and filled with gold covered everything. 

And we were even offered to take mass. The lady was kind of shocked when we said, "No gracias." But she understood when we said that we were LDS. So we didn't stay in the church very long. I kind of wanted to see it though. See how other churches worship. 

Next stop was just around the corner in the Templo Mayor. These were the underground ruins just sitting right in the middle of the city. How cool is that? Actually, I thought the wall was the prettiest thing in that area. Such a cool mural! I love murals, and there are so many of them in Mexico, it's awesome!

There was this cool well that people would throw coins in to try to get it in the hole. I.... totally missed it by a long shot. 

Next to the ruins, there was this huge museum filled with tons of artifacts. Commence photo sequence. 

There were also these lovely guys all over the place. I wanted a picture with one, but we didn't take the time to stop...

At this time, it was around lunchtime, so we searched for street vendors. However, they are much more elusive than in other cities that we've been in. Finally, we found a place that sold... well I honestly don't know what they were called. Basically it was a huge flat crunchy corn tortilla (like the size of a plate) with beans, cactus, cheese, and of course, salsa rojo. I decided to be brave and try the spicy food. My verdict: even after 3 months in a place where everything is spicy, I still don't like spicy food. But gosh darnit, I paid 20 pesos for it and I was going to eat the whole thing! Best part... I couldn't. My mouth was on fire and my stomach was beginning to complain too. Yep. Still don't like spicy food. 

Now, I don't have a whole lot of pictures from the next part of our adventure. Amanda got one though! I should have taken some but it was probably best I didn't take out my nice camera. I'll do my best to describe what transpired next. 

We went shopping in the biggest mercado I've ever seen in my life. The one in San Cristobol de las Casas was pretty big but paled in comparison to this section of the city with streets dedicated to their own theme. One street filled with toys, another just for handbags, another for clothes, another for scarfs and shoes, Christmas decorations, random things, everything! It didn't look like it would end! We would turn corners to find another even bigger section of the mercado. And it was FILLED with people. There were people everywhere! I was glad we had Kaylie's host family there with us because I would've actually been really scared of it all. I still was pretty overwhelmed at the whole thing. 

To get to one side of the mercado, we had to pass through this ally filled with a bunch of guys. These guys were harmless and just threw out the usual cat calls. Kissing noises, "chicas guapas", etc, etc. Then I heard it. From a guy behind me I heard him say, "I love you!" Quick as  a flash, I turned, pointed, and answered, "And I love you too random citizen!" I felt accomplished that I finally got to use my Megamind quote. 

I also learned a pretty funny joke from one of the market vendors. 

"What does carro mean in spanish?"
"Uh.. car?"
"Ok, and what does hombre mean?"
"Man."
"So Carman is a transformer?"

hehehe yay dumb jokes. 

After a little while in the mercado, it was time to head back to the max. Here's where my story hits a sour spot.

To get to the stairs down to the Train, we had to pass through another ally behind the little tents, this one ended up being less friendly. We were in our tight line, Kaylie's host family in the front with the five of us behind them. Me and Kaylie were at the front of the white girls, following closely behind Mario, her host dad. All of the sudden, I see Mario with his hands up in the air, and four guys surrounding him, searching his pockets. They get what they wanted and leave, one of them with a gun in his hand. Too shocked to actually do anything, I froze, waited for them to pass, then walked very quickly with the rest of the family down into the train station, praying that no one else would target us. For the first time in my life, I'd witnessed a gun being used for evil. And it honestly made me so scared, I cried a little. I've seen guns before, even fired off a shotgun, but this incident shattered my trust in people again. I realize now that I have been extremely fortunate to have never had an incident like that here in Mexico until Mexico City. It was definatly an eye opener. My prayer earlier in the day was answered, seeing as no one got hurt, and even more surprising, us white girls were not targeted. Very grateful for prayer, I can tell you that much. 

We get on the train and try to forget the situation ever happened. Looking out the window, I was very excited that we were going home tonight... or so I thought. 

They told us that we were going to stay for one more night. D: To add salt to the wound, they suggested we go see Breaking Dawn: Part 2. :P So they dragged me into seeing it. The only truly awesome thing about the movies was that I got to share a jumbo box of Acarmelitas with Amanda, who also wasn't too thrilled to be seeing the movie. She turned out to be the perfect movie buddy as we laughed at the horrible acting, Kraft Singles cheesy lines, and the oh so charming Kirsten Stuart. At least the popcorn was amazing!

We all squished into a little living room for the night. After this whole day, sleep came quite easily to me. And so ends our second day in the crazy Mexico City. 

Love my crazy, awful, beautiful life like crazy!