Day Thirty-Two- Mexico City, D.F. (July 28, 2010)

Day four in D.F. was better than day three, but not by much…my stomach still didn’t feel well. However, I decided to attend all the day’s activities, so as not to miss out on anything else. We drove to downtown Mexico City and stayed in the area all day. As we were driving towards the city center, I wasn’t paying too much attention and when I looked out the window, I thought I saw the Empire State Building…haha! I guess I was feeling a little homesick, although the building really did look similar to the famous New York structure!


Once we arrived downtown, we started walking towards the Palacio Nacional. On our walk, we passed by a house made mostly out of Talavera (the inside too!) and a huge Sears store, about nine floors high! It was busy when we got down to the main political area…it looks like there was a celebration for the children’s Olympic games. We took a few minutes to walk around the National Palace, once a residence for the President of Mexico, but not any more. One of the more interesting parts of the palace was the huge Diego Rivera mural by the main staircase…WOW…talk about elaborate!

When we left the Palacio Nacional, we walked one block to the Templo Mayor, the pyramids built by the late Aztec ruler Montezuma. The amazing part of the Templo Mayor is that Mexico City was completely built around it and the ruins were only excavated in the mid-1970s. It was cool to walk around a temple and Aztec ruins in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world.

After lunch (which I didn’t really eat at), we walked around the city to do some last minute shopping (panic shopping, as I like to call it). I bought a few things and then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the Ballet Folklorico. I have only one word for the Ballet – AMAZING! The costumes were beautiful, the dancing was fantastic, and the music sounded great! I took a few pictures and videos, and was super excited when the song “Adelita” was played! This past school year, my students sang the song, so it was cool to hear a familiar tune. After two hours at the Ballet, I still wanted more! This is definitely something I would come back and see again and again.