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Texas

10:42 am Monday, 5 January, 2009

Somewhere in Texas. Alive and well given a lack of sleep and the bus journey from hell. Considering options now.

As I walked out on the streets of Laredo.

6:37 pm Saturday, 3 January, 2009

Okay seen as I’m failing to type at anything lets just go with a bit of a diary for the past few days in Mexico.

So on Monday I met up with Luis (being the singular representative of V Mexico) and his TAW. We in true V style decided that we’d visit a few pubs but ended up sitting in one and drinking for a few hours. It was an excellent evening and it’s always good to get some local info and I tried a few new beers and other such things. Good fun.

Of course the next day was the first and indeed only day where I had to be up early. I was going out to see Teotihuacan. Now it’s probably best that you read up about it in Wikipedia if you want more details but it’s a Pre-Columbian city, no-one knows who built it. The Aztecs did use it as a city but they didn’t build it. It has two main attractions, well it has four but lets face it for the tourists there are only two. The Temple of the Moon and the Temple of the Sun, the “Aztec” Pyramids.

So I have to be at the sister hostel at 9am. No worries though I’m feeling slightly rough. I make it down there and we pile into a van and head off. I find out then that we aren’t just going to Teotihuacan, we are going to several places along the way.

First up is Tlatelolco or the plaza of the three cultures. It’s the ruins of an Aztec temple, alongside a Portuguese Church (built with the stones from the Aztec temples) and of course you can see modern Mexico City around. It’s also the site where a large number of students were massacred just before the opening of the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968. It’s an interesting start to the day.

One of the things that we talk about very quickly is that Mexico City is sinking. It’s built on top of what use to be a lake and and so the base is very very soft. This explains why a number of the buildings are very obviously slanting. Also the city was hit with a 8.1 earthquake in 1985 and there was a lot of damage done there.

The other thing is that Mexico City is built on top of an Aztec city, the city of Tenochtitlan. So pretty much anytime you dig in Mexico city, you find Aztec ruins. The subway extension of course finds ruins pretty much on a daily basis and you can be walking through an interchange in a station, round a corner and have an Aztec temple roped off.

So that’s the first brief really. We spent about an hour wandering around here and it was interesting stuff.

Then we moved onto the Basilica de Guadalupe. Now this is the second most visited Catholic shrine in the world, second only to the Vatican. It’s like Knock or somewhere else where some poor madman hopped up on drugs had a vision and got some fool to believe him. And it’s huge. There’s a sheet upon which a full painting miraculously appeared when some magic roses (which don’t grow here) were placed on top of it. The magic roses came from the vision of course and so the magic sheet has this image upon it. Two interesting things here. First the location, there’s a hill nearby with more churches of course but it gives a nice if smoggy view over the city of Mexico. Not great for photos but still nice to see.

Secondly our guide tries pretty hard to present some sort of a balanced picture and talks about some of the inherent racism within the Catholic church. The madman was of course an Indian but if you look at all of the pictures and statues of him throughout the basilica, well he’s caucasian of course…just like anyone born in the Middle East is caucasian too. It seems that it took an in-ordinate amount of time for him to be canonised. Our guide, handily, seems to be a bit of a skeptic (good man) and this seems quite unusual for Mexico. From what I’ve seen here so far, well I suppose it’s not much to judge on but the people seem highly highly catholic, more than anything I’ve seen before. I never really knew the Catholic Ireland that people go on about but this seems to be pretty close to that.

Anyway after that we move on. We stop off, as usual on something like this, at an obsidian factory where we get the tour of the factory and then ushered into the shop. First though we have some drinks. We have some tequila of course but there’s mescal and pulque and we try some of them. It’s suppose to help you climb the pyramids…

The shop, I must admit is lovely and it’s not expensive. Not even in any context. Now I’m watching the pennies and so there’s no going mad but even 20 or 30 quid here would get you some lovely pieces of work. Then it’s lunch…tortillas with beans and cheese and um cactus. It’s really nice…except for the cactus part. Ugh.

And now onwards and into the city of Teotihuacan. We get a tour for about an hour which is interesting and then we have two hours to wander. You are allowed to climb pretty much anywhere in the ruins and so of course we climb the two temples. It’s interesting and I’d love to take a lot of photos but it’s jam-packed. There are people everywhere and while I get a couple of shots that I like, there are too many damn people around. It’s still an enjoyable afternoon but I find myself bothered by a couple of things. First they let you climb the pyramids. Okay sure I climb them and it’s awesome but it can’t be good for them to have thousands of people tramping up and down them day in and day out. It’s not really a good thing but having climbed them, I guess I shall just live with the hypocrisy.

Secondly and this is something that has been bothering me more and more as I’ve travelled and seen such wonders. There’s a huge amount of restoration, a huge amount. Of course you say, there has to be. These buildings are ancient and we have to preserve them. Well that’s very true but I’m really finding a difference between preserving them and rebuilding them. It’s not quite at the point but it’s getting there that I think sod it, who needs to go to Stonehenge or Newgrange or the Egyptian or Mexican Pyramids, lets just build new ones somewhere a little handier for everyone and we can visit them. Okay I’m going way overboard and seeing these places, restored or not, is amazing but I do feel it’s just a little fake.

I’m not sure I’m explaining that well but there ya go.

So after some wandering it’s back to the van and back into the city.

The next day was December 31st and I’ve covered that already.

So skipping ahead past that. January 1st was quiet. A lot of faffing around online in the hostel and some wandering around the city center and some reading. A quiet one, though I wasn’t anything like as hungover as I should have been.

Yesterday, well I mentioned bus tickets and then after that I went to see Templo Mayor, an ancient Aztec temple in the main square just next to the National Palace and the Cathedral. In fact the Cathedral and the Palace are build over other temples and churches. This temple was found in 1978 while they were working on the Cathedral. It’s interesting and has an excellent museum to go with it so I spend a couple of hours wandering around there.

Being my last night in Mexico City and I have yet to find a Guinness I decide to head to Condesa which has a lot of pubs, Luis compared it to Soho. Now thanks to Luis I know where one international pub is and after a bit of research I find out where there is an Irish pub and I go wandering. I had been in the area a few days before, just really wandering. I knew there were 3 or 4 Irish places around but being guidebook-less and not actually writing the address down (good one Dave), I had not managed to find any. I was annoyed to find that the pub, Celtics, I ended up in last night is a block away from the Starbucks that I stopped in for a cold drink and gave up my search! Anyway not to worry, I get in and I have a Guinness and another and then I order some food (chicken and chips in a cheese sauce - lovely) and then I wander back to the hostel.

I grab a beer and sit down in the corner with my laptop. It’s a quiet night there and I’m trying to type some stuff…and failing as you might have seen. I had left my notebook behind in the hostel before I went out and so I have a napkin from Celtics in my wallet with some notes scribbled out for things I want to talk about - but they aren’t working. I have another beer and then it gets mad.

So the hostel seems to have about two bottles of tequila which are free and for drinking each night. This is normally done by the barman jumping onto the bar and pouring straight into people’s mouths. Or sometimes he just comes up behind you, grabs your head, tilts it back and pours. This is part of why NYE got so drunk so quickly. Anyway the one crazy barman arrives late, around 11 having been at some wrestling and all of a sudden it’s heavy drinking time. There’s a shitload of tequila and the place is kicking off. A couple more drinks and it’s absolutely time for bed.

Now tequila. I am not a fan of tequila. Some of you folks who have spent time in Reston will know the Mexican place in the town center. That’s the first place that I ever had proper tequila a few years ago (with Wendy I believe it was) and it was actually very nice. There’s a massive difference between tequila and the yellow label Jose Cuervo that we get as tequila as standard. I’ve had 5 or 6 different types of tequila since I’ve been here (and also more tequila in a week than I’ve had in my life!) and it’s all been nice. It doesn’t need the lime and salt and it doesn’t go down badly, it’s actually quite nice. I’m somewhat tempted to get a bottle but well that would be silly.

So now it’s just past 10am on Saturday morning. I got up just after 7 this morning mainly because I was awake and I have hopes of sleeping better on the bus tonight if I’m up and out early. So I jumped onto the subway and headed out to see my final tourist sight, the Angel of Independence. It’s just a short ride away and maybe 20 minutes to wander there and around and back but it’s nice and very photogenic! I’m sure I got my 365 for today out of it.

Oh for those that asked, 365 quite simply means taking one photo a day for 2009 and posting it. It’s meant to be a lot of things but for me it’s going to force me to use my camera on a daily basis. I pretty much am these days but I need to get doing that when I settle back in London. I always have a camera on me, taking it out once a day and taking a picture shouldn’t be so hard. Also there’s no cheating, the EXIF has to be for each day so I can’t take 7 photos today and have them do for the next week.

So I have to check out of the hostel at 11. I’m going to head back, collect my bags and clear out of the room. Then I’m gonna hang around there till about 1, posting some photos and probably trying to type again, when I’ll get a taxi to the bus station and I’ll be away to the good ol’ US of A on the 3pm coach.

More there I guess.

10.31 Mexico City Mexico, Saturday January 3rd

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I know now why you cry

4:23 am Saturday, 3 January, 2009

I was out and about this evening, I had dinner and Guinness in Celtics Irish bar (last Guinness of the trip!) and I was reading some of my feeds. I grab whatever comes up on Metafilter but I usually only read through it if I’m bored, sorry MeFi! I was skimming through it this evening and I saw the headline

Matt Harding details the hoax behind “Where the Hell is Matt”.

Now first of all, if you don’t know who Matt Harding is, well that’s alright but if you don’t know what “Where the Hell is Matt?” is, you need to go to this link and you need to watch the video. Seriously please. If you have not seen it, go and click on the link and take 5 minutes. Trust me. There is something wrong with you if you don’t have something in your eye by the time it’s finished.

So I’m sat there and I read this headline and I’m thinking, it can’t be a hoax, there isn’t CGI good enough to have faked that video, there just isn’t. A little part of me ~~I think~~ would just shrivel up and die if the video turned out to have been faked.

So I watch the video. As it turns out, it’s a very badly titled FPP and not a hoax (of course it’s not, how could it have been?) but you know what, even if it was a hoax the last 90 seconds of the video would still make me smile…and wonder if I have something in my eye…

“I’d like to ask you folks, c’mon up on stage.”

Glorious, just glorious.

Matt Harding, you are my hero!

The Metafilter posting

Where The Hell Is Matt?

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Houston, we have a problem!

8:24 pm Friday, 2 January, 2009

Alright so.

I did have a chat with my roommate whom I interrupted by shockingly going into my own dorm room on new years eve. He was most amused by my drunken state and the great offense that I took when his girl asked me what part of Australia I was from… They found somewhere else anyway so he wasn’t too put out - note the lack of a pun here.

I have started 365, photo 1 is up and I’ve been keeping an eye out for photo 2 so far today but nothing. It has been a busy morning with lots of running around doing stuff.

I am leaving Mexico tomorrow and taking a bus (well two) to Houston in Texas. I went to the bus station and booked my ticket entirely in Spanish - yay me! It’s about 24 hours on a bus but with a few stops and of course the border crossing. Not so much looking forward to the bus trip but I am very much looking forward to being back in the USA. I’m not entirely sure where I’m going to stay on Houston, it appears to have a single hostel which isn’t open for most of the day and has extremely bad reviews. I guess I shall go and look for a motel 8 or a hojo for a couple of nights and then I dunno.

I’d like to go to New Orleans and then up to DC but that starts to be a whole lot of hours on coaches and with Sterling doing so badly with the dollar it’s all starting to be very expensive. Lots of hostels in NO though and of course people to stay with in DC so it’s just the getting around really. There is the option to fly to DC from Houston for about $150 which is getting quite appealing if I’m honest. I shall perhaps visit a travel agent (how very ’80s) when I get to Houston.

Right well today I’m going to do a bit more tourist stuff now and then I’m going to find a pub and have a pint and then it’ll be tomorrow.

14.02 Mexico City, Mexico. Friday January 2nd

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It ripples our reflections

9:51 pm Thursday, 1 January, 2009

So before there was stupid amounts of tequila last night, I had a quiet day. I went to the cinema and saw Australia. I was vaguely interested but most importantly it was in English. I enjoyed it, quite a bit more than I expected to. I usually can’t stand Nicole Kidman but she wasn’t bad in this. Hugh Jackman I thought was kind of bland though. There was some awful CGI throughout, a surprise for an epic movie in this day and age with that kind of budget. The mystic powers of the Aborigines and some perhaps some underlying racism throughout was somewhat annoying but as I say I enjoyed it.

Then I came back to the hostel, probably around 8pm and faffed. I headed down to join the party later on and proceeded to get very drunk very quickly. No, you’ll note that I make no reference to dinner yesterday, why do you ask? It was good fun and there was some beers, some tequila, some random green cocktails and some banter and some very loud music. I was glad I had dug out my earplugs.

This morning I slept till about 9 which was nice and then took a brief wander around. Other than that I have been again faffing, mainly on t’internet.

Now I’m thinking that as today is January 1st and I’m looking to really do something with my photography over the next year should I jump into 365? I’d like to but then I know that I’ll miss a day somewhere down the line and then I’ll be annoyed at myself. Hmm, then again I really like the idea of forcing myself to take something each and every day and try and make it in someway interesting. I have some ideas for photos that I want to dive into back when I’m settled down, they might do nicely for a day here and there…

Hmmm, alright lets give it a try. I’ve just jumped into a few of the groups and I’m going to take a wander and have a think about a photo. I may just use the one I took late last night, it seems like an appropriate start but I wonder if that’s cheating? Then again I shall see what I can spot on my wandering. Hmm see now I’m getting all excited and thinking of more ideas of stuff I want to take. Alright so lets see if I can actually use this.

Now combine that wander with perhaps some food and I might be in a good place.

Right time to go.

15.49 Mexico City, Mexico January 1st

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