Museum of Anthropology

Today we took advantage of already being in Mexico City, and we went to the Museum of Anthropology. I had been there one time when we were here before, but I think I saw a whole lot more than last time. Best of all, it was free because it's Sunday! It's built in a big rectangle around a central courtyard, half of which is covered by a large roof. The roof is really amazing, though, because it is all held up by one big central column. It's built so that all the rain water from the roof runs toward the center, where the column is, and falls down onto the floor of the courtyard where there are drains. It's really cool.

Speaking of cool, some young adults asked to video tape an interview with me for their English class. While we were talking I mentioned that something was cool, and the guy had no clue what I meant! Anyway, the museum is huge and fascinating. They have exhibits about anthropology in general as well as more specific exhibits about the people in Mexico from all time periods. My personal favorite was the more modern day things, because they had all kinds of stuff on display about indigenous Mexicans from around the present day. Lots of the stuff seemed like it could have come from Oaxaca.

The only bad thing about getting in free was that all the outside areas were closed except for the central courtyard. Still, there was a ton of stuff. They had lots of reproductions of parts of buildings from archeological sites; they had reconstructions of cities; they had lots and lots of sculptures, pottery, and arts/crafts. We stayed for almost four hours I think and we still had to rush through parts of it! After the museum we went to eat with a Mexican family that know the family I'm staying with. Now I'm just relaxing here at the place w're staying. We'll either leave for Oaxaca tonight and stay overnight in Puebla, or we'll leave at 4AM tomorrow morning. :( The reason we would leave so early is because we couldn't drive in Mexico City after 5, and it would probably take almost hour to get out. Depending on the license plate of your vehicle, there is at least one day a week that you can't drive it. Unless you want to get fined a small fortune. And we, being white, would be especially likely to be stopped here in Mexico City, where they stop you for being white, having too much luggage, or anything else they can think of.


First pic: A small part of the museum. Statue in the foreground, and a carving of the Aztec calender on the back wall. I'll post some more pictures later to give you a better idea of what it's like.
Second pic: I intended this to be last, but I can never figure out how Blogger determines what order to put the pictures in. Anyway, it's the stairway coming up to my room here in Mexico City. We're staying at a Wycliff/SIL owned duplex and that staircase goes up two floors to my room. It's very small, and I have to say that I am extremely thankful I'm not clastrauphobic...
Third pic: A fountain thing in front of the entrance to the museum. The white slab in the foreground has the museum's name on it, if you didn't see that at first. Also, if you look in the middle of the picture, just above the roof, you can just see the top of the column holding up the roof in the courtyard. The roof is just below where you can see, and you can see some of the many cables stretched out from the column to hold the roof up.