DF's Historic Center

...Guess who has a camera again? (Thanks, papa!)

With the rainy season ending, and a more open schedule, I'm able to spend much more time outdoors these days. Earlier this week, I walked to the Historic Center of DF to take some pictures of the famous buildings and visit some of the 16th, 17th, and 18th century churches.

Parroquia de San Fernando, a nearly 300-year-old church nestled at the end of a quiet side-street.

Iglesia de San Juan de Dios. This church's construction began over 400 years ago.

Built in the early 1700's, the Parroquia de la Santa Veracruz is in a state of disrepair, and
the building itself is actually crooked due to the church being built on soft ground and years
of earthquakes shifting  the land. The inside of the church is simple in comparison to some
of the other churches, but still has the archways and ceilings adorned in golden decorations.

El Palacio de Correos de Mexico, or the Postal "Palace." It was built not too long
ago, in the early 1900's, and is a fully-functioning (and incredibly fancy) post office.

In the Postal Palace. I've never wanted to work in a post office so bad before. (Yep, those are marble floors).

El Templo y Ex-Convento de Santo Domingo, a church built in 1773 (still older than the USA).

Inside the Santo Domingo church. It's so eerily quiet here, I felt like each footstep would echo throughout the church.

Iglesia de la Profesa--yet another 300-year-old church, off of the pedestrian street Francisco I Madero.

Inside the Iglesia de la Profesa. There are no half-assed churches in DF, not even the smaller ones.

The first Franciscan Temple in Mexico City, the Iglesia de San Francisco, is nearly 500-years-old.

The inside of the Iglesia de San Francisco, complete with the golden apse and huge religious paintings on the walls.

Bellas Artes on a beautiful November day. On the bottom right of the building, see that thing
that looks like a giant spider/nope/nope combination? That's not usually there. Thank God. 

Easily the most iconic Cathedral in Mexico City, the Metropolitan Cathedral is huge! (Probably because
they started building it in 1573 and then spent the next 240 years adding sections on to it). Fun fact: stones
from the ruins of the Templo Mayor, which is directly beside/behind the cathedral, were used to make the
original cathedral way back in 1573. Cortes even made the Aztecs build his cathedral with the ruins of their city.

A section of the inside of the Metropolitan Cathedral. I got in trouble for taking a picture with worshiping people in it...

Another section inside the Metropolitan Cathedral. Wowza!

This walk around the Historic Center ate up several hours of my morning, and then I had to run off to work, but there is much more to this area. I'm sure I'll be heading back there soon enough, as it's one of my favorite areas to go for a walk!

Dia de los Muertos -- Day of the Dead

Happy Halloween and Dia de los Muertos to you! The Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico is a huge cultural holiday, and while it is sometimes reduced to the Mexican version of Halloween, it is really really different. Shortly speaking, it's a two-day celebration to remember loved ones who have passed on. November 1st is to celebrate the children who have passed, and November 2nd is for the older people who have passed. Unexpectedly, it's a really happy day: people aren't mourning their losses, but celebrating lives lived. During these days, it's common to see a lot of "ofrendas" or offerings, "catrinas" or skeleton ladies, sugar/candy skulls, "papel picado" or paper cutout scenes, "cempasúchil" or Mexican marigolds, candles, holiday breads, and drinks. During the nights, people take to the cemeteries, and make offerings to their deceased loved ones using their old favorite foods, flowers, candies, drinks, toys (if it was a child), et cetera. While I am for the moment still camera-less, my awesome roommate let me use the camera on her phone (thanks Anabel!) when we went to see the ofrendas competition at the biggest university in Latin America: UNAM. Here's some of what we saw.

I don't know what these guys were supposed to be, but they were interesting to say the least!

The absolutely gorgeous library at UNAM, where we attended the student offerings competition.

Panoramic picture (rearranged some faces) of the crowd at UNAM.

The corn husks on the ground make me think of tamales, another traditional food...Mmmmmmmmm

A Catrina

That's it for Dia de los Muertos pictures this year! I was super-thankful that I at least got to take some pictures of the celebration. Perhaps next year I'll make the trip to Michoacan, where they're famous for their Day of the Dead festivities.




P.S.

Remember when I first arrived here last year and:

Myself with a catrina (that's actually a man under there) by the Bellas Artes Palace.