The weather....

2006-02-02T19:32:00.000-06:00

Mexico City has very strange seasons. We officially have winter, spring, summer and fall, but they aren't our real seasons.

December and early January are cold...at least for us. It gets down to single digits (Centigrade) at night and around 18-23 during the day. We are in the mountains. It wouldn't be bad, but no houses are heated and insullation is unknown. Windows don't close tightly and you can see light under the doors...so we put on more and more clothes.

February is crazy (Febrero loco).... It could be hot, cold, windy, dusty, rainy...or? Anything gives. We used to have really bad dust storms with the dust blowing off the dry lakes...but now the lakes are covered with houses and it isn't as dusty.

Marzo is also crazy (Marzo otro poco)... similar to February, but a little less.

April-June---hot and dry. It gets warmer every day as we get to June and it starts getting humid. The highs can be in the 30s. It starts getting cloudy every afternoon, but no rain....

June-October-- The rainy season. The old folks say it used to rain at 4 in the afternoon every day. Now it just rains in the afternoon or evening. Sometimes very, very hard. Some areas flood. The whole city used to flood since much is built on lakes ("the land doesn't forget it was once a lake." The mornings are crisp and clear. Sunny all day and sometimes hot (high 20s). It starts to cloud over around 2 and rains in the afternoon. It's my favorite season...

October - December-- It starts drying out and getting colder. It's nice though, since everything is green...

Well, that's our year here. Very predictable....

My City...Mexico City

2006-01-21T14:07:00.000-06:00

As I started working on this last Saturday, I realized I didn't have any digital photos of my city. So...what did I do? Did I run out and take beautiful shots of my house, my neighborhood, my favorite spots, our best tourist attractions? No! I went to my Google Earth! Why leave the computer when the world is at my fingertips. So...thanks to Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/ --free!)..

Here is my apartment complex. My building is the first X on the right behind an H type building. You can also see the "country" club across the street. I'm not a member.

I live very near the National University (UNAM). You can see the stadium on the left. We go there every two weeks to our soccer teams home game (Goya! Goya! Pumas!). This isn't the complete university. It's the largest in Latin America. My husband (an astronomer) works there and my son (a matematician-computer geek) studies there. I got my MA there ages ago.

On weekends we go to our "weekend retreat"...no, it isn't out of town, it's downtown. We built a small house in my husband's family "complex" where his sister and her husband, mother and two aunts have houses. That way we're with them and don't have to travel so much. It is a great way to relax since I don't associate it with "work". We have a patio, terrace and even a "solarium".
However, I really prefer the south of the city....

This is the center of Coyoacan...a colonial city that was absorbed by Mexico City. It's not far from my house. You can see the gardens and the church. Here the Spanish Conqueror Hernan Cortes and many of his fellow "conquistadores" built houses to live in while Tenochitlan was cleaned up (lots of dead bodies....). Cortes even built a house for his wife (the Spanish one, not the Indian one), nearby...but not too nearby.

This is the pyramid of Cuicuilco. It isn't far from my house (by car). It is a very old pyramid and the only circular pyramid in Mexico. It was covered by lava when the nearby volcano, Xitle, erupted (around 300AD). Supposedly the inhabitants of this area moved north and soon after their arrival the civilzation in Teotihuacan (the BIG pyramids) picked up.

Just to finish up, here are two other "jewels" in Mexico City. They aren't really near my house and, typically, I only visit them when we have international travelers to show around.

This is the Anthropology Museum in Chapultepec Park. In the little round area in front, the "Voladores de Papantla" jump off a high pole and, to the sound of flute and drums, float down to the earth, like around a maypole.

This is the Zocalo. The heart of the city. The cathedral is to the left and the National Palace is to its right, both at the top of the plaza. They were built on the ruins of the Aztec city of Tenochitlan (which was a city built on a lake). Both of these buildings are sinking into the earth since ground water has been drawn out for many years. Modern engineering is trying to save them.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little tour.

Room20: Blogging Class

The weather....

My City...Mexico City