16th and 17th/12/09 Mexcio City Exploring

16th-
Started the day off at a reasonable hour of 10am with huge cheap mochas and waffles, we then walked to the national auditorium of Mexico to wait for the Turibus to explore the city.

We had many encounters with Australians also waiting for the bus which is always a shock when in a strange place, an hour and a half later the bus, which was running on Mexico time appeared despite its scheduled 30 minute depatures.

We drove through all the suburbs of varying wealth and history, next to Chapultapec park and zoo with its huge castle, past heaps of museums and art galleries, down the main street of Mexico with numerous monuments and the most important the statue of independencia!!!

After many slaps by low hanging trees on the top deck of the bus we decided a nice stop would be the Zocalo, which is the main square of ther city and holds the houses of goverment.

We visited churches, and Mcdonalds for a toilet stop before returning to the bus for more exploring. After travelling the whole turibus route we got off at hard rock cafe where we ate our body weight in greasy American food and some pina coladas.

Our night began with a trip to one of Javier's friends houses where we had nibbles and played with chihuahuas.
We then drove down the main drive of Mexico at night where all the trees where lit up with fairy lights and the largest christmas tree in the world was in full show!!

We then drove to the Condesa (a suburb) where we went for some drinks at Javier's friends bar called the T-Gallery, some awesome music was playing. That led to more drinking, some dancing and then passing out at home.

17th-
This is a relatively boring day with many failed plans for the morning but eventually reaching our destination in the afternoon, the markets of cuidadela.
After hours of walking through souveneir shops we returned home and began getting ready for a night of partying.

Our first party destination was Paulina's house for pre drinks, after purchasing ridiculously cheap alcohol we consumed it all!!! Belinda was in very fine form and forgot for the whole evening that she was Australian as she aquired a mexican accent!!! this brought much hillarity to the evening.

After pre drinks and Belinda's swift move into drunkedness we drove to the first party in a large chouvered car. Arriving in style unfortunatley did not make the bunch of rowdy bachelors any more respectful. Little did they know that Kathetrine could understand all the lovely things that they were saying about us in spanish....... A few good stories came from that party. The house was owned by a bunch of young artists and Belinda made a discovery in the shower of many beautiful canvases which she proceded to pose with for 20 minutes with her photographer Danni-elle. Belinda also thought it would be a nice idea to borrow a sheep from the elaborate nativity scene inside the house. A nice gesture as Javier collects sheep but probably inappropriate for the week before christmas. A few stern words from Katherine led to the return of the sheep by tiff into its rightful place.

On return to our chouvered car, we drove another 40 minutes to Santa Fe where we were invited to a posada which is a christmas celebration. A different family will hold one of these celebrations for each 12 days of christmas. We stayed for approximatley 5 minutes and then went home for 3:30am.

The night did not end on our return to the "safe" suburb of polanco. We were dropped on the corner of our street when a young policeman thought he might have a crack at getting us all into his car..... Luckily one person in the group knew that policeman in Mexcio cannot be trusted and a swift run alllllllll the way down the street led us to safety despite much yelling and whislting from the men behind us.

our hearts beating out of our chests but we had a good sleep!!