Mexico City

The next day we took a bus tour of Mexico City, and saw the residential areas, the industrial areas, the skyline areas, and the Zocalo, town centers where there are large open squares. There is one thing that makes Mexico city really unique, and that is that it was originally a lake. There was a little island in the middle where a group of Indians started a village. As there were more and more people, they began filling the lake in from the middle of the island. Finally, when it was conquered by Cortez and the Spanish, the population grew so much that the entire like was filled. Now, there is virtually none of the lake left. This fact gives Mexico City its defining characteristic, which is that it isn’t very tall at all, but is amazingly spread out. The foundations of the ground, because it is basically a lake, are not sturdy enough to really support very large buildings and so it is amazing spread out, even creeping up onto the foothills of the surrounding mountains. In fact, some of the main buildings and churches in the Zocalo are actually slanted because of their poor foundations. Fortunately, Teotihuacan is far enough from the city itself that we don’t have to worry about that sinking.

In the afternoon we went into an anthropological museum, which was cool, although we had already toured one in Vera Cruz. One thing that was pretty neat, was that all the sites that we learned about, such as Monte Alban and Teotihuacan, we had already seen in real life! This morning we went on a boat tour of a local river where people often gather for picnics and social events. Then we went to the house of Frida Kahlo, where we saw a bunch of famous paintings by her and her husband Diego Rivera. We also saw a number of Rivera’s mural throughout Mexico City. I had learned about these painters as a culture component in one of my previous Spanish classes, but I didn’t pay much attention then. Now that I see not only their quality, but also their cultural importance and place in Mexican history, it’s very interesting. I find Diego Rivera’s work especially interesting, as I do the entire muralist movement, because to me, Mexico seems like a country which is still seeking its identity. Conservative or liberal, capitalist or socialist, European or Indigenous, modern or historical; in so many aspects Mexico is filled with dichotomy. Because of this, I think that the muralist movement, especially Rivera’s work, is important because it was extremely important in defining and unifying the Mexican identity.