btw, the reason that she is little is very conscious eating and regular exercising 6 days/week. she works hard.
We all had our our rooms…Ely and Rachel shared a very comfortable room with a private bathroom. Spencer, Tyler and I had our own private room…
pastes and empanadas, yes please. my favorite was the pudding/custard filled. we also tried savory potato and onions filling and also apple. yes, we had many empanadas. delish!
this was Tylers first opportunity to practice his Spanish. he was a good sport to go for it as a translator.
We went downtown to Chapultepec Park, the city's most iconic public park, has history back to the Aztec emperors who used the area as a retreat. It houses the city's zoo, several ponds, seven museums including the National Museum of Anthropology, and even an amusement park.
· Museo Nacional de Antropología
o This world-class museum stands in an extension of the Bosque de Chapultepec. Its long, rectangular courtyard is surrounded on three sides by two-level display halls. The 12 ground-floor salas (halls) are dedicated to pre-Hispanic Mexico, while upper-level salas show how Mexico’s indigenous descendants live today, with the contemporary cultures located directly above their ancestral civilizations.
Mexico City is in a huge valley in a high plateaus, altitude 7,350 ft. there used to be a big lake in the valley. Now, the entire lake bed is paved over. a megalopolis of 20 million people. the city takes water from the aquifers more than can be replenished. as a result the spongy clay on which the city is built dries up and compresses, causing it to sink. the ground has fallen 33 feet in the past century. problems with flooding during the rainy season.
(wikipedia and a NYtimes article)
Reconstruction of the entrance to the Hochob temple
o In a clearing about 100m in front of the museum’s entrance, indigenous Totonac people perform their spectacular voladores rite – ‘flying’ from a 20m-high pole – every 30 minutes.
· Castillo de Chapultepec.
o A visible reminder of Mexico’s bygone aristocracy, the ‘castle’ that stands atop Chapultepec Hill was begun in 1785 but not completed until after independence, when it became the national military academy. When Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota arrived in 1864, they refurbished it as their residence.
· Monumento a los Niños Héroes
o Boy Soldiers, were six Mexican teenage military cadets. These cadets died defending Mexico at Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle (then serving as the Mexican Army's military academy) from invading U.S. forces in the 13 September 1847 Battle of Chapultepec, during the Mexican–American War.
· The current coat of arms of Mexico has been an important symbol of Mexican politics and culture for centuries. The coat of arms depicts a Mexican golden eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus devouring a rattlesnake. To the people of Tenochtitlan this would have strong religious connotations, but to the Europeans, it would come to symbolize the triumph of good over evil (with the snake sometimes representative of the serpent in the Garden of Eden).
I love to see beautiful gardens. Grandpa says the workers are manicuring the grounds every time he comes. 
photographer extraordinaire Ely
Ely was thinking that he wanted a reed flute from our souvenir shopping. just in case he didn’t get it on this trip, he wrote a letter to Santa about it. We all looked for a flute for him the whole trip. We found one the last day. 
the older cousins bought several new cubes from the vendors and whizzed through solving them on our drives.
I also love good sculptures and cities that display art. all along this major thoroughfare were decorated soccer balls. :) fun!
the bow tie begs pics.
Abuelita doing lunges. she sees results. 
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