Seriously?: Mexico City

My parents are currently serving a mission for our church. They live in Mexico City where my dad serves as doctor to all of the missionaries in the MTC and serving throughout Mexico. He is also a branch president in the MTC. My mom does a variety of things at the MTC to help the missionaries.

Usually, when single people go on missions, they go by themselves and don't talk to or see any family members for 2 years, except for a phone call each Christmas and Mother's Day. But the church does things differently for older couples like my parents. For example, my mom was able to go to Utah for a couple weeks in June to help my sister with her new baby. We also can google hangout with my parents pretty much any time they're online.

Another perk is that they can have visitors. So Luke and I took advantage of the long Fourth of July weekend and went to Mexico City to visit them! This was my first time in Mexico ever, and I think it was a different experience than most Americans have in Mexico. My parents live at the MTC, which is in nowhere near anything touristy in the city, so we got a glimpse of the real Mexico.

Of course, we did spend a lot of time having fun seeing the sites around the city. For a variety of reasons, it was not a busy time at all for my parents, so they were pretty free to show me around. We had such a great time with them and loved being able to see them!

Arriving at the airport.

Anthropology Museum. This was the Fourth of July. I think after we walked out of the museum, halfway through the day, we remembered that it was a holiday. I was a little bummed about no fireworks, but it was a great time to go to Mexico to see my parents.

Cool fountain at the museum

One of the Napoleons conquered Mexico in the 1800s and installed a Hapsburg (Maximillian, I think) as the ruler. He built this giant castle on top of a hill in the middle of the city. And it was very European.

This veranda was basically a giant wrap around porch with all of the rooms opening out to it. Pretty cool.

Some monument to those who died during the "North American invasion" in the 1840s.

We took a city bus tour. I really enjoyed it because we got to see a ton of the city without too much walking. As it was, my feet were huge from the swelling at the end of each day. Oh yeah, and Luke wasn't with us this day because a nice senior missionary sister volunteered to babysit him that day for us. As a result, he got to take a couple much needed naps and we were able to move a lot faster.

Eating lunch at an old Spanish hacienda.

There was this huge Aztec temple right in the middle of the city. Cortes razed it and some Spanish dudes built a house on top of it. However, Mexico City is sinking because it was built on a lake and so Cortes didn't destroy the bottom parts of the temple. About 30 years ago, they discovered this temple and excavated it.

And see that giant cathedral in the background? The Spaniards used the bricks from the razed Aztec temple to build it.

Teotihuacan (sp?) about an hour outside the city. This was a whole city that fell into ruins even before the Aztecs came. I'm told that the pyramid behind us is the largest pyramid in the world that you can climb to the top.

And we did. This is a view from the top of the previous temple looking out over another temple and a part of the city.

So, the stairs on these pyramids are steep. Really steep. So steep that you need a chain to get up and down. And this Hispanic chick was wearing a dress. And platform heels. What an idiot.

Cute pic of my Luke and me.

Me buying a blanket and getting swindled. There are several hundred people hawking wares at unsuspecting tourists, promising their goods are "almost free."

Another pyramid. The steps on these things are probably each about a foot and half tall.

At the top of the part you can climb of said pyramid. It's kind of fun to see all the other pyramids in the city. Most of those smaller ones were probably homes for the wealthy residents. All around the city, there are little pyramid shaped hills, that are undoubtedly just unexcavated pyramids.