Fietsa tonight

There is a party on tonight outside of the city "en el campo" (in the countryside)
Its called Forest Frequencies and Swedes Son Kite, Ticon and Minilogue will be playing, and also Sensient from Australia. Have to leave soon to get a minibus from El Monumento de la Revolucion.
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A Day of Culture

Mexico city has some smells that make you want to eat and some smells that make you not want to eat (or worse) Unfortunately they are often in close proximity to each other.
I have been having fun trying to remember that toilet paper generally cant go down the toilet here . There are bins next to every toilet to put it in. I have had some nice moments fishing it out of the toilet with my hands. The new soap which I unwrapped came prepackaged with some thick, dark hairs on it. Must have been an accident at the soap factory...



Today I went for a walk around Bosque de Chapultepec (Forest of Chapultepec) I think it is the second largest urban park in the world. It was originally the private grounds of the Royal Mexica families that ruled Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) before the Spaniards sacked the city. It has an impressive castle (Castillo de Chapultepec)which was used by the Spanish Colonial Monarchy that ruled the country before the revolution. You can truely get lost strolling through the trees, the sun filters down through the slightly smokey air and makes shafts of light. Police seem to stroll the park in packs of either 10 or 20, power through numbers I guess. Above is a photo of one of the cute little squirril type creatures that thrive here on a diet of tourist peanuts.



Within the grounds I visited El Museo de Arte Moderno and El Museo Nacional de Antropologia. The are some great contemporary Mexican artists being exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, and also some stuff that had me scratching my head. The Anthropology Musem is world renowned and had an overwhelming amount of exhibitiions tracing the development of meso-american culture from neanderthals through to the multitude of pre-hispanic civilizations such as the Mexica, Zapotecs, Mixtecs and Mayan. I dont want to play favourites, but the Maya were like totally the coolest. Can't beat that mathematically precise sexigesimal calendar (By the way, the world might end in 2012 so make sure you make the most of it). The photo below is actually of a Mexica Sun Stone at the Museum




The smog that hangs permenantly over the city is truely terrible. Thats whats happens when you have a city with millions of cars which is surrounded by mountains (Same problem in L.A and Athens I guess) Mexico City is the largest city in the world and there are about 20 million cars, trucks and buses chugging around belching out deisel fumes and gritty shit that forms a thick, dirty blanket over the whole city. I have felt slightly sick from it since I got here but its hard not to love the city. It's like being in a relationship that can be painfull but which also makes you all these other good feelings too. Okay that was really bad..