Have had a lovely first day, I REALLY like it here. Walked down the Paseo de Reforma, all the way to Chapultepec Park. There are loads of impressive monuments along the way, commemorating independence from Spain, the last Aztec leader,and, more ambiguously, a naked female hunter named Diana.
The park was nice too, though i got told off for sitting too close to the lake. Didn't mind though, cos they told me off in Spanish and I actually understood what they were saying!!! :)
In fact,my Spanish was so impressive today that i made friends with an archeological man in the anthropological museum, who insisted showing me around the ENTIRE place for FIVE HOURS!!!
I learnt many interesting facts though like:
- The emblem on the Mexican flag is an eagle eating a snake. This is because in 'ancient times' nomadic tribes would pick a spot to settle where they saw an eagle eating a snake. Unfortunately, this led to the Aztecs having to build a city (and connecting roads) to a small, muddy islet in the middle of a lake.
- The equivalent of yin & yang in Central America is the winged, or feathered, serpent. The wings represent birds, which are close to the gods...and the snake represents the underworld (der der deeeer!!!). Apparently this symbol is used to describe the balance between good and evil, love and hate, or the balance between a man and a woman (personally i think the lady is the one chatting away to the gods :)
- High-born Mayan babies got their skulls squished between two wooden plates everyday so that they would grow conical heads
- Duty Free shops in Mexico are called DuFry shops...heehee!
So. Tomorrow I am heading into the centre of town. This may, or may not still exist as a plane crashed into the downtown area 2 days ago....killing all people on board (which interestingly included a minister who had recently been trying to clean up some of the drug gangs in Mexico...), 8 people on the ground and injuring 40 people.
Well done if you got right to the end....i got a bit carried away i think!
Speak soon x
3 comments:
Steph, did you know that when warmed by the heat of the sun or when held in the palm of the hand, the 'Mexican Jumping Bean’ (Frijoles Saltarines) moves violently and sometimes jumps into the air. This particular seed acts as a closed cradle for several species of butterflies and moths. An adult female bores a hole into the skin of the young seed and implants a tiny embyro. As the embryo grows into a caterpillar, it consumes the nutrients of the seed. Finally as an adult caterpillar, it breaks open the seed and emerges to continue its metamorphosis into a butterfly (or moth). However, for some unknown reason, the adult female sometimes seals the seed with a special webbing that does not allow the caterpillar to break out once it is fully grown. It is the efforts of these unfortunate caterpillars to free themselves that cause the seed to move and jump! (Sorry, just trying to add my bit of culture...won't do it again!!).
Hello sweetie
I'm missing you already, I wanted to pick the phone up this afternoon for a chat, so I thought I'd try this method out.
It sounds interesting - your little trip around the museum, sort of thing that I'd like, but I think that 5 hours is going some! Still, you would have learnt a lot, was it all in Spanish or English?
Hope that the food is agreeing with you - are you sure it was cheese, after reading your Dad's comment about jumpingbeans being caterpillars - I wonder!?!
Not got much to report. In fact nothing really - went to Jenny's last night, going to Remembrance Day thing tomorrow.
Hope that you find lots more interesting and fun things to do, and really enjoy yourself. I know that you will take care - you're more sensible than me.
Love you lots and lots
Moumi xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Nice little biological treatise there, Spireite. Reminds me of a day in kindergarten, around Christmas one year, when for some reason all the kids in our class were given a little bag of jumping beans as a holiday gift. After teaching us how to rub them vigorously on our desktops and invoke friction to increase the heat of the beans, and thus, essentially cooking the unfortunate larvae in the beans, leading them to jump desperately in fruitless (no pun intended) attempts to escape, our teacher told us much the same story you just shared. Which revelation led, naturally, to a classroom of kids crying in sympathy, imagining the poor butterflies that would never find their ways out of their premature tombs, and who had just suffered at our hands...woohoo! Tis the season...
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