I am experimenting with some photo gallery software. I have just installed Gallery on my hosted server and uploaded my pictures from Mexico including pictures taken by the other travellers on the trip to the pyramids.

You can visit the gallery site at http://gallery.8LN.org/. I will probably upload more photos later.

You can also try an experimental map showing where some pictures were taken using GPS coordinates.

Mexico is a federal state, and its capital is located in a special federal district.

They are somewhat short on names: The country, the capital, and one of the states all share the same name: Mexico.

The Mexicans call their capital “Ciudad de Mexico” which translates to English as “Mexico City”.

Many companies here are called something-mex: The phone company Telmex, the bank Banamex and the gas station Pemex.

They use the $ sign to designate Pesos (worth about 10 cents) and sometimes the prices still look reasonable even in US dollars.

They use the letter E to designate Parking.

Mexico’s major international airport in Mexico City is inside the city limits.

And finally, when they say San Francisco here, they refer to the saint, not the city, unless you’re flying there, like I am.

I am sitting now in the botanical garden inside the palace of the president of Mexico. Today I am walking through the historical center of Mexico City. I have seen the city from the top of the Latin America tower, saw some ancient cathedrals, and then arrived at the great central square of Mexico City – the Zokalo (base).

This huge central square is surrounded by important federal buildings. All sides are decorated with the Mexican flag and symbol. One of these buildings is the president’s palace, where I am now sitting after a short guided tour of the impressive frescos in this building.

This following is being written back at the hotel.

After touring the palace I continued to the Templo Mayor – the ruins of the grand temple of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and the associated museum. It was very interesting to learn about the pre-Spanish history and the Spanish invasion.

Afterwards I had a short visit in the museum of culture and then headed back to the hotel through the many street vendors. I even bought some stuff I need.

Tomorrow I have only a short time here as my flight departs at 15:27 and it can take 45 minutes to get to the airport.

Next post will probably be from California unless I get WiFi at MEX.

After landing in Mexico City I took the subway to my hotel (only $0.20 for the ticket!). I put my stuff there and went to the National Museum of Anthropology. The museum had reconstructions of ancient American cultures and original artifacts. I returned to my hotel early because I was tired.

Today I took a tour to the pyramids of Teotihuacan (I pulled that name out of a hat…. I bought the hat there). The site features two great pyramids for the sun and moon and many smaller pyramid-shaped altars. These pyramids were built by the Aztecs on a site where a more ancient civilization once lived.

This ancient civilization built palaces and mined the volcanic obsidian stone. I bought a small souvenir from this stone and a nice pyramid-shaped key chain.

On the way back we ate lunch at a restaurant with a view of the pyramids and now we’re headed back to the hotel.

Our group consisted of four people: A man on business from Venezuela, a couple from Argentina and Texas, and myself. The couple had cameras and took photos for all of us, which they will later e-mail us or post online. I took several pictures with my iPAQ as well, and I plan to post those later.

Tomorrow I will probably walk around the historic center. I’m quite tired now so I will probably rest in this evening.

Yesterday the HP iPAQ I have ordered from eBay has arrived unexpectedly to my office. It was not expected because the US postal service website did not update the details of the delivery.

So, what is this iPAQ you ask. Well, it is a mobile PC slightly larger than a mobile phone. My model includes a full QWERTY keyboard and a touch screen and supports WiFi, cellular, GPS, and bluetooth. It can also hold up to 2GB of flash and be used to surf the web, play music and videos, and to write notes (such as this blog post).

The last day was mostly spent playing with this new toy. The other things I did were send my laptop for warranty service (LCD problems) and pack for my trip to Mexico City. I am writing this post from the Delta crown room in San Francisco airport.

In a previous post I talked about my frequent flyer miles plan for this year, and referred to the topic of a Mileage Run. This weekend I decided to make good on my plans and go on a weekend vacation to Mexico City practically free of charge.

How could I do that? Easy. I started by booking a flight from San Francisco to Mexico city via Atlanta on Delta airlines for $323 including tax and three nights in a hotel for $111 including tax. On the savings side of the equation are four nights in a bay area hotel which costs $220, 12,143 award miles and 6,939 status miles. The award miles are equivalent to half a one-way flight from Tel Aviv to San Francisco. If priced part of a return ticket this is worth about $200. So in all, I pay $434 and save $420. I also save on food due to visits to the airline lounges and on all expenses when I’m in Mexico City.

Anyway, the dates are 27/9 – 1/10/2007. On line updates will be posted.