― Bob Hope
Friday, Dec 26th - This was a nice and quiet day. We got up, went to the Temple clinic. Dad saw 4-5 missionaries and I worked on my blog and talked to kids on face time! We had a nice visit with the Zapatas and also got to see the Pococks and Smiths! That was fun to see all of them. The Pococks live in the senior missionary couple apartments. About 3 weeks ago, their place had a fire in it and burned the place down. They were on the 4th floor and the fire only got their place. They didn't lose much to the fire only now everything they have smells like smoke! They moved across the hall and life goes on! We then drove downtown to the Ciudadele to pick up some beaded nativity sets we bought and for other couples as well. They are beautiful and I will take a pic when we get ours and get it set up! It is amazing how the lady takes a wax figure and pushes beads into it making all kinds of designs! It's quite amazing actually! We got home around 5 pm and spent the rest of day working on stuff in our little place ( hole actually, not having windows and all). We watched 2 Hallmark Christmas movies. I like those even tho you know how they will turn out!
PS It was interesting to see how my kids have taken down all their Christmas stuff! I am leaving my tree up for who knows how long, maybe until next Christmas! I love the glow of the lights! and the happy feeling it gives me when I see it!!!!
Saturday, Dec 27th - We made a fatal mistake in asking the Olsons to show us some of the interesting things in Mexico City. We got up early and drove to the Tianguis (tee-aun-gees). I bought a little cart that has wheels and a nice bag to put stuff in and pull around when you are shopping. It was so nice to load that up instead of carrying stuff all around. Also, let me explain what it is like to go shopping anywhere here. You go to the store get your bags of food or boxes from Costco. You come back to the hotel, drive down in the pit and park. You get the elevator and unpack all of your food and put it next to the elevator door. Then one person holds the elevator door open and the other person throws all the food or stuff in the elevator! Then you go up to your floor and someone holds the door open while the other person throws all the stuff out of the elevator! Then you take turns carrying the stuff to your place. It is exhausting just to go shopping! Let me tell you!
Anywho, we got back and at noon we left our place with the Olsons and Sandbergs. We walked a few blocks down to a main street and caught a bus. We rode the bus all the way to the end of it's route and got on the metro! We rode it 8 stops and got off to go to the merced which is THE biggest shopping area on earth!!! No one really knows how big it is and you can get lost very easily in there. There is EVERYTHING you could imagine in there. It is divided into sections like all the shoe shops are in this big block, candy in another, every kitchen gadget known to man in another block, silk flowers in another block, electronics in another and on and on. I took a few pics, but I think the pics get lost in the translation. Really there aren't words to describe this scene!
We finally found our way back out of this place, got back on the metro, went to another stop and ended up coming up right next to the National Cathedral! The building was started in 1560 and they finished in 1640 or something. Someone told us today that the people took supplies of some big ruins to build the Cathedral. It is built on top of huge ruins. Another fact about this huge cathedral is that it is sinking. Honestly, you walk around inside and you lean to the left!!! They keep building up the area around the outside of the building but now you walk into the top half of the huge doors! They have big plates of glass showing the ground underneath and where stairs are walking up to the Cathedral. Oh my heck! The inside is filled with tons of gold and who knows what else. It is very ornate. I took some pics I will show you! While here we got to take a bell tower tour. We had to climb up 100 little cement stairs up to the bell tower. The bells are awesome to see and hear! They have only been doing this tour for the past year. You are literally walking on the outside of the domed ceilings! That was my favorite time.
After the Cathedral we walked around the zocolo (which is the main square in a city) They have things set up for New Years Eve. They have a big ice slide there where people can hike up and tube down this ice slide. The line is very long to do this! They also have 2 ice-skating rinks out there full of people! Of course it's full of people - there are only 35 million people that live in the city alone!!!
We walked down a street they have blocked off to cars - because a car couldn't drive there anyway due to all the people! There was a lady standing on a balcony singing O Holy Night out into the crowd. She had an incredible voice and that was cool! We were headed down to the Latin American tower. We wanted to go up to the top to see the city from there. It took us forever to walk down there due to all of the people. Then the line was way too long to wait. We will go back after the holidays are over. Across the street is the "house of tiles" which as been turned into a Sanborns - an eating establishment like an upscale Dennys. It was very beautiful inside. The huge building was built from blue and white tiles and has quite a story! We had the famous enchiladas suisas!
We were all tired because we had walked a very long way. We walked around the corner after dinner to see the big old Post Office. The buildings are very old and amazing to look at! After all that we had to turn around and walk all the way back down that road to the zocolo to catch our metro back home! We had a very sad thing happen to us! Brother Olson had a nice camera he had taken tons of pics with all day. When we were walking down that people filled street he lifted up his camera (I did the same thing) and took a pic of the crowd! We kept walking and walking. Every block or so the police would stop the crowd so cars could go the other way across the street! We got to a place where Brother Olson wanted his picture taken so he reached into his fanny pack that was sitting right in front of him and someone had stolen his camera right out of it! It happened probably while we were waiting for the cars to pass and there was a crowd of people. Brother Sandberg said that those dang mexicans can steal your socks without even taking your shoes off!!! That was so sad because he had some really cool pics of our bell tower tour and such!!! That is the second time he has had his camera stolen. Well the last time was at gun point, but that is another story!!! Brother Olson seemed to take it very well. I would have been so upset! He kept saying well that's how it goes here in Mexico! Stupid people! I guess I shouldn't say that since I'm on a mission, but really, who needs people like that! We got back to the zocolo in time to see the Christmas lights on the buildings and the Cathedral all lit up. That was quite a sight! We found the metro and got home around 8:30! That was one very long day, but a great day to see all of that stuff!
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| First trip on the metro! |
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| K here are the Olsons in the Merced In between them is the isle we walked down! I don't know really how much a zillion is but pretty sure there is that much stuff in this place! We had to walk single file down every ally or walkway! |
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| Just another Merced pic in the shoe department! |
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| One little part of the silk flower dept! |
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| Somehow we were in a human traffic jam! We got pushed and shoved around heading back into the metro station! |
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| When they were digging for the subway they found this big ruin so they built around it!!! |
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| The National Cathedral! |
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| See the stairs in the upper right hand corner! You used to walk up those to get to the Cathedral! They keep building up the area in front of the Cathedral to the entrance! Weird!
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 Greg standing by the staircase leading up to more bells! The whole staircase is carved out of one big tree!  |
| Stairs going up to the bell tower - little and narrow! |
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| The littlest bell they only ring at Easter! |
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| A part of the roof! I like the brick and the door! Not sure where it lead to!
Sunday Dec. 28th - Our last church meetings at this time. The times have been very convenient because english RS starts at 11:00 am. We hang around for an hour and then go to the spanish ward that starts at 1:00. Next year the spanish ward will start at 9:00am so we will be up and going. Then I will have to wait from noon until 3pm to go back to english RS. I really enjoy going to the english RS - maybe because I can understand what is being said and also because the spirit seems to be so strong there every week! The teachers are really good and I like going! That's all there is to that!!
We had our progressive Christmas dinner on Thursday and had tons of leftovers, so we got everyone who could back together after church and had ham, funeral potatoes, broccoli, corn, salad and I made rolls. Sis Olson made a truffle for dessert and we had an enjoyable time on the 2nd go around for dinner!!! I hope dad doesn't get sick and throw up and have you know the other stuff.... tonight like he did on Christmas night! He keep bragging how he never gets sick! He got nailed first! Ha!
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