i saw the sign

there are billboards all over mexico city.

but they are blank.

well,

not totally.

they are covered with phone numbers.


and i'm not quite sure what it is,
but i totally adore them.

look at the hills behind the sign --

mexico city.

this is where the 21 million live. 

insane.

"that's a big old pyramid."

yeah,

rcg and i finally got off our lazy butts

and made our way to teotihuacan. 

teotihuacan was built around 100BC 

and then abandoned.

only to be found later,

by another group,

and resettled.

but the cool thing is the place gets it's name 

from the second group --

teotihuacan means 

"the birthplace of the gods" -- 

because the people who found this city 

centuries after it had been abandoned 

thought it had been built by the gods. 

i mean, 

can you imagine walking over a mountain

and seeing this perfectly planned out city

with this gigantic pyramid in the middle of it?

insane.

another fun fact:

teotihuacan has the world's third largest pyramid.

obviously we climbed to the top.

 

we may have eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich once we got to the top.

and the view was awesome.

we even stuck our finger in the very center of the pyramid.

it is supposed to be a huge source of energy.

or something.

because we figured, 

why not?

fun fact #3:

when the aztecs arrived at teotihuacan

they thought the huge pyramids were tombs,

so the main street is called

calzada de los muertos.

 

 so our tour started with la ciudadela --

 

 

then we walked to the pyramid of the sun.

obviously we played in the tunnels in the walkways.

and we played on top of pyramids.

 

and then we saw it:

THE pyramid.

and as you get closer, 

it just gets bigger.

nothing left to do but climb it.

 

and then it is off to the pyramid of the moon.

and obviously we climbed it. 

holy banana pants batman.

la villa de guadalupe

the virgin of guadalupe.

she is everywhere. 

i think somewhere in my brain 

it must have registered

that all of the paintings or pictures of her look the same.

and maybe somewhere in my brain

i wondered why that was. 

but i certainly wasn't aware any of this was going on.

when rcg and i went to go see

the shroud that was supposedly stained with a picture of the virgin

and then given to juan diego

by the virgin herself

i imagined that it would look like most other religious things. 

i figured it would be something that 

if you squint a little

would look kind of like a lady, 

and of course let's just assume it is the virgin. 

since she was the one who appeared to juan diego,

after all.

i had no idea the shroud that juan diego 

got from the virgin of guadalupe 

would look like it did.

i mean, 

it is a freaking picture

of the virgin.

what???

and it is 500 years old.

and not faded. 

come on. 

it must be a fake, right?

au contraire.

that thing was baller.

and the set up to see it was baller too.

you get on a moving walkway

that passes underneath.

so there are no heinous lines,

and no crowding around,

and no waiting for a million years to see it.

amazing.

why don't other famous things have this system?

i mean, the louvre could really learn a lesson from this.

and there was a whole village

that has been built for the pilgrims of the virgin.