Hola,
So my day in Ciudad de Mexico did not go as planned. I know what you are thinking ''You're in Mexico... lighten up!'', but I have been light for many a days now and I am done. With 16 weeks with everyone else on Mexican time, I am wanting structure.
It is all because it is the 100th Anniversary of the Revolution on Saturday... here, like Aus, when a Public holiday lands on the weekend they give you another day *the flaw in this system is that I kept working on public holidays e.g. Christmas and Boxing Day, and then people who didn't were getting the larger paychecks for the next monday} anyways, here they celebrate it beforehand.
Which meant in the park I was among thousands of people, which wasn't that bad coz I went at 10am... Mexicans generally do not get moving till about midday, but then my 2 museums I planned to see were both closed. I did not see this one coming! Mainly because Public holidays are when all the tourists are in town, and places just advertise as being closed on Xmas. You may be thinking "It's a public holiday, the museums need to give their staff time off too!'', to that I tell you that all the staff still work. Everyone is in there cleaning and so the guards are all outside guarding the cleaners. This is why I was confused that it was closed ..it looked so open.
Other people from my hostel were there *one texan from US withfluent Spanish and 2 Belgin girls who had just come the night before... don't know how they didn't have jetlag... they are 7 hours diff, like NZ (bar daylight savs) but the other way or something. We went to the zoo in the park, with free entry, that had an incredible selection of animals, although mainly I wanted to see could hardly be seen &(gorilla, panda, cheetah).. most of the animals were sleeping at midday. Many of them had sad conditions, the panda that wasn't on display was in a medium sized plain room with no light...he was sitting at the door trying to open it.
There was also a strong chlorine smell in the park, so I suspect that the water wells of the animals are very strong with it.. their poor skin!
Anyways, after that I headed into town... i didn{t really accomplish much... I think I have many a hour unaccounted for actually, I don{t know where the time went! I know I checked out a few other museos... all closed. I walked around, wasting time until the Light show.. WHICH I WAS TOLD STARTED AT 7pm.... so I was there at 6.15. My back is still store from standing in the same position. My feet a bruised with a cracked heal... you would have thought I had been doing serious farm work. No, just standing. I talked to a Belgiun for a while, he was bored by Mexico City and bolting after 2 days.. I didn´t understand - I think this city is Fantastic! Everyone has different experiences though... we went to the zoo because this guy who had never left his small town in Oregan before this made it sound like the best experience of his life. For a Belguin (spelling?) living in London, having travelled all of South American and Europe, can not find anything exciting. Poff I say! He did make some funny comments like ´´there are a lot of gay people here.. I have nothing against them... I have just never seen one before´´...(he is staying in the same area I am , the Gay district...Zona Rosa..I realised this as I got off the metro with all the boyfriends... it has been confirmed with the clubs and flags etc..LOVE IT) then he told me that he has decided to go to Puerto Vallarta.. staying in Romantic Zone, aka Gay zone, but he doesn{t know that.
These damn staff here! Anyways, So moral of the story is it started at 9pm... so for almost three hours I stood there FREEZING.. didn{t even claim a particularly good spot...
ALTHOUGH, the show was SOOO AMAZING. They really went all out coz of 1810 and 1910 being the most important days in Mex History.
There were dancers, there was video, there was music, there was LIGHT ... lots and lots of light. It was in the town square with lights on the huge old buildings and cathedral. SO COOL.
I took lots of phots of course, so although most of them didn{t come out... you still get the point. I will add them once I am back home.....in 10 days (give or take 2 days-7 for jet lag)...
It was very theatrical.. reminded me of WOW actually, there were THOUSANDS there. On the way home (it was 1 hour and a half) they closed off all the centro metro stations so TRILLIONS of us walked about 10 mins to the one that was opening at 11pm. I felt like I was part of some big event.. a sea of people. After they opened the Metro doors (luckily I had a spare metro ticket, or else I literally would have been walking home, with less than 2 bucks on me), it was a CRAZY display of urgency to get through.. the nice get left behind though. I learnt that early on. People push through, forcing room. They don´t mind about how uncomfortable other people may be. It is like selfishness takes hold, this is why people have been trampled to death. When the lines going through the machines paused for even a second everyone started whistling. Like everyone.. it was ringing in my ears. I felt a definate sense of accomplishment when I passed through those gates.
So another time, I made it home through the metro at night... alive. I was expecting to be scared of this place but I am probably too casual. A man told me on the metro to remove any wallet from my pocket.. not that I had one. I didn{t think I would be able to exit the hostel at all, but all is well. At my school they originally turned me off coming to Mexico, as one girl who goes there tells them horror stories and so eveyone is scared. Remember, there are twice as many people here as there are in NZ.
Yes, I thought that number was incorrect. One staff member told me the show was 7, another said there were 17 MILLION more people in this CITY! I am no longer listening to them.
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