Alon's Blog

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.