Mexico City Day 2

Today we went to the Museo Nacional de Antropología. I wanted to see this museum ever since I first heard about it in January, and it did not disappoint me. The museum is enormous and full of archaeological treasures. The downstairs is devoted to Mesoamerican civilizations, and upstairs are exhibits about current Mexican culture. Here are some highlights!

I think this guy looks like a hysterical ballet dancer with the tail of a scorpion. 

This is the awesome Aztec calendar representing the four worlds that existed before our own. Incidentally, does it remind you of something?

The cursed gold from "Pirates of the Carribean" (picture not mine!)

This is the Tree of Life, or World Tree. My picture does not do it justice.

These sneakers have a mermaid on them! I'm not sure why, but I want them. A lot.

Then, we walked around the park next to the museum, and we saw los voladores. In Sarah's words, ¡No puedo imaginarlo (I can't imagine it)! This is pretty self explanatory, and I bet you could guess that volador means flyer.

Before flying.

This looks like fun, except all the blood rush to my head. Still, I kind of want to do this.

Finally, we visited el Castillo de Chapultapec. The castle was constructed in 1785, but Maximillian and Carlota (of the Hapsburgs) had the whole place remodeled in the neoclassical style when they moved in, around 1864. Porfirio Díaz (dictator extraordinaire) also lived in Chapultapec. Now the castle houses the Museo Nacional de Historia, where one can see murals by Orozco and O'Gorman, paintings of key figures in Mexican history, and the furniture of Maximillian and Carlota and Díaz. Fun fact: "Chapultapec" is a Nahuatl (an Aztec language) word for "At grasshopper's hill." There are pictures of grasshoppers everywhere. Today there was also a squirrel which I thought was rather small and mangy, but it attracted quite a crowd. In fact I think people took more pictures of the squirrel than of Porfirio's throne. Una ardilla famosa (famous squirrel). 

Word of the day:  perros callejeros. It means, dogs who live on the street. Stray dogs. And our monitora told us that the word callejero can be used to joke about a person who is never home; i.e., they spend all their time on the street. Even though she assured me that it's not considered rude to call a friend callejero, I don't think I'll be using that word much. I really don't want anyone to think I just called them a street-walking bum!