The Center of the Universe

by Taylor

June 22, 2018

Today we spent the day in the center of  Mexico City - known as Zocolo. It is the largest city square in Latin America.

 the giant Mexican flag in the Zocolo

 In front of Zocolo (the letters stand for Cuidad de Mexico - Mexico City)

We decided to hire a random tour guide that was walking around to do a 4 hour tour of the center for us. First, we walked around the square and he told us things about the history of the area. This was the center of the Aztec kingdom and they believed it was the center of the universe. The Spanish during the 1500s came to mexico and the Mexicas (or Aztecs - they usually call them Mexicas - which become the name of Mexico later) let them in and welcomed them as white gods. But then once the Spanish knew who they were and what they were like they destroyed the city and took over. The Spanish killed 40,000 Mexicas in about two months. The Spanish destroyed a whole civilization and left barely anything. 

This Diego Rivera painting shows Moctezuma, the Aztec leader, receiving Cortez, the Spaniard. It is in the exact spot that this really happened. 

We went to the Templo Mayor. This is a the ruins of the Aztecs or the Mexicas. It's right in the center square. There are a lot more ruins under the square that they haven't unearthed. The Templo Mayor was filled with sculptures of gods. The Mexicas had almost 500 gods that they believed in. They would also do sacrifices to worship their gods. One of the sacrifices they would do is they would cut out someone's heart and give it to the rain god. There is this one story of this one Mexican god who tried to kill her mother so her brother cut her up in pieces. There are tons of carvings of her showing her cut into pieces. After the ruins, we went into a museum for the Templo Mayor. The museums had lots of skulls and stuff. We were starving and tired by that time. 

This is the rain god in the Templo Mayor. He is holding a bucket. We thought it was to catch rain but it's really to catch human hearts.

This shows the god who tried to kill her mother cut into pieces. 

The Aztecs liked to decorate their buildings with human skulls.

There were also Aztec dancers all over in the Zocolo. They were burning this smelly stuff. You could pay money to have them cleanse your soul - but we didn't do that.

After we saw the Templo mayor we went and quickly saw the Cathedral in the Zocolo. It was huge. We finished the tour and walked down one of the main streets - Madera. I really wanted to eat pizza so we found somewhere with pizza - except the pizza was not very good. 

the huge Cathedral

We walked a little more to Alameda Central - a big park. There, we played in some fountains. Then we went up the tallest building in all of Mexico City - Torre Latinoamericana. It was really cool. The view was amazing. The only downside was that there was tons of couples making out. In Mexico pda is more acceptable. Then we went and peeked our heads in the postal museum and went to the park again. This time Sarah Ann fell in the fountain and got all wet. 

The view of Zocolo from Torrelatinoamericana

inside the Post Office

playing in the fountain in Alameda Central - right before Sarah Ann fell in

After that we tried some of the corn. Everywhere the street vendors are selling this corn on the cob like in nacho libre. It was really good. Speaking of Nacho Libre, we went and saw lucha libre but first we went and saw the mercado. After the mercado, we ate dinner and went and saw lucha libre. It was awesome. It's all acting and completely fake. Christian didn't like it. He thought it was too loud so my mom took him and Sarah Ann home after 30 minutes. (My mom didn't like it either.) A little while after they left, a guy came and asked us where we were from. When we told him we were from los Estados Unidos he asked us if he could interview us. Since neither Rachel or I was confident enough to talk in Spanish on TV, my dad did all the talking. He just had to say that we were excited to be here in Spanish and in English. So yeah.... we were on Mexican tv. I'm glad that nobody in Mexico knows me... 

at Centro De Artensanias la Cuidadela, the market

Sarah Ann has Severs so her heels were really hurting by the end of the day. I offered to give her a piggyback ride.

Tomorrow is the big soccer game against South Korea. We are really excited!