Los Piramides de Teotihuacan

So, here begins the photo dump!  One of my biggest highlights of Mexico was going to see the pyramids.  They were incredible!  In fact, the only pyramids larger than these are found in Egypt!  Here is our group approaching the grounds.  We had an awesome tour guide who gave us a really neat perspective.  I learned so much that day.  It was a much more spiritual experience than I was expecting.  It was windy and cold that day!

 

 

Here we are with our tour guide.

 

 

 

This is the Pyramid of the Moon, the second largest pyramid.

 

 Here is a place where the people would gather to listen and be taught by their leaders.  It was incredible how well we could hear from a distance.

 

Here we are coming down one of the smaller pyramids.  Those steps were steep!

 

 

You can see down on the left again how steep the steps were.

There were so many incredible details that have been preserved for a long time. On the right, you see the feathered serpent, that represents the white god who came to visit.

 

Tarantula.  Yikes!

 

We learned so much!  Once again learning from our tour guide.  Love those plants in the background.

 

 

 

 I was so happy Valerie was able to come!

Here is most of our incredible group!  I miss them!

 

Incredible views!  Beauty everywhere!  When can I go back?

 

Love these people!  Both of these girls are getting married!  I can't believe it!

 

Nadia is the one that gets photo credit for most of these great photos.  She is one incredible woman.

 

It was a wonderful day with wonderful people!

Well, this post was pretty long, but considering the length of my emails home on my mission, it shouldn't be surprising.  :) 

So, I have resigned myself to the fact that the final Mexico blog posts serve more of a record keeping purpose than a communication tool.  Valerie's last two days were wonderful and we filled them full.  Monday we had plans to go to Xochimilco, but when we got there, it was completely empty except for a man working the boats and a couple slightly intoxicated men trying to sell us beer.  We didn't really have a good feeling about getting on a boat with this man that we had a weird feeling about, so we snapped a picture in front of a boat and decided to take off.  (I don't have the picture on this computer, so I will have to add it later.)

After we traveled over two hours to get there, turned right around to head back, so we walked a ways to get back to a man street, caught a taxi, a few different metro lines, a bus ride, and made it back to those good safe walls of the MTC.  We were able to hop off the metro to walk through the Zocolo quickly.  Valerie bought a pair of shoes that she loved and we were able to show Valerie the beautiful Bellas Artes.  We went out for tacos that night and then got ready to head to the pyramids the next day!

Sunday in Mexico

Hi, it's Valerie here.  I feel like I should say this is a guest post, but I suppose this is sort of my blog too, though I'm not very good at posting.  

On Sunday we went to a few churches.  We started out in Jen's ward, which was an adventure since I don't speak any Spanish.  I can't say I followed what was going on exactly, but everyone was very nice and friendly.  I certainly tried to understand what was going on though!  I tried my best to pick up on Spanish and communicate.  It was exhausting!  I can sympathize a little more with missionaries now.  

That afternoon we took a bus over to see the basilica, a catholic church.  I expected to see one beautiful old church.  It was much more than I expected.  It was a whole square of beautiful churches.  I may not agree with the doctrine of these churches, but they sure do know how to build beautiful churches.  I was in awe of the beauty of the churches and the grounds.

Straight ahead is the basilica, and to the right is one of my favorite cathedrals.  The city is sinking, which you can see from the slant of the cathedral.

Inside the cathedral

Celebrating the day of the dead

Our lovely group.  Jen's friends were so nice to let me tag along with them.  They are great!

There might be just a bit of a height difference...

We picked the right day to go!  There was a group of people dressed up in costumes that looked like they were from the Aztecs and were playing drums and dancing.  "A group" makes it sound small, but it wasn't.  The entire square was covered with the dancers.  It was ridiculously loud, but awesome to see.  We took a few pictures with the dancers.

This costume was one of my favorites.  There was a jaguar and an eagle on his head.  And his headdress was enormous.  He thought it was pretty cool too, because he would only take pictures with people who paid him.  It was Sunday so we didn't pay him.  I might have sneaked a few pictures when wasn't looking...  Whoops!

The basilica from up above.  We climbed these stairs (as pictured below) past beautiful gardens to a church at the top.  I didn't care so much for the church, but the garden and stairs were incredible.  And the view of the city, magnificent.

This is how I spent my Sunday in Mexico.  Pretty fantastic!  Good people, good food (the MTC there has pretty delicious food), and beautiful sights.  I would call it a success!

Churros!

That Saturday after I finished work, we headed out to a place that I frequented during my time in Mexico.  Churros Rellenos!  We had to get three kinds, so Valerie could sample a few.  On top we have zaramora or blackberry with cream cheese on top, below we have lechera and fresa.  They were so yummy!

Not the most faltering picture, but its all we have.  Dan was sweet enough to come out with us that evening.

The sweet ladies making the churros.  They were so good and remembered our favorites.  They would often sneak in extra little things and our last night there had a little farewell for us.

As you can tell, these weren't the healthiest, but they sure were tasty.  Who wouldn't like something deep fried, covered in cinnamon sugar and then filled and topped with delicious toppings.

We snapped a quick picture and then hurried to put the camera away, because it was late and we we didn't want to get robbed.  The joys of Mexico!  But as a side not, I never really felt in danger and don't think the city is as dangerous as people think.

Next up, Sunday!  Where we make it to both the Mormon and Catholic church.  Jajaja