2nd Day in Mexico City

Unfortunately I haven't had time to write more blog entries because I have been so busy seeing and doing so many amazing things! However, here is a summary of my second day in Mexico City:
The morning was devoted to the national museum of anthropology which is world famous and HUGE...you could spend days there because there are so many incredible things to see and learn. The museum is devoted to the history, art and culture of the many mesoamerican civilizations that existed in Mexico- of course the Aztecs and Mayans, but also lesser known groups and artifacts as well. The sculptures, architecture, pottery, murals etc of these civilizations are beautiful and fascinating and our lovely tour guide Ivan explained a lot of it to us (in spanish!) The museum really inspired me to want to learn more about mexico's history and I also realized how history classes are in the US hardly mention these great civilizations which is really too bad. When when left the museum, we saw a spectacular performance of a traditional Totonac ritual of the "voladores" in which 4 men climb to the top of a 100 ft pole and attach themselves to 4 ropes and then fly upside down (!!!!) from the top of the pole to the ground and each volador rotates around the pole 13 times which in total equals 52 turns which represents the 52 year cycle of mesoamerican calender. I hate heights so I cannot imagine how they do this, but it was amazing to see and must be like flying. I took a video of a part of it that I can show people when I return!
In the afternoon, we went to the top of the hill in Chapultapec Park- which is a huge park somewhat similar to central park only with palm trees and many more vendors selling much more stuff- to visit the historic castle there which was built in the 18th century and became the palace of the french emperor of mexico Maximilian in the 1860s. The castle is now a historic museum, but the restored rooms and gardens of the castile are like rooms of a european castile and the view of the city is incredible!!! In the museum part, there were more murals about the history of mexico by famous artists- its amazing how important murals are in Mexico! We returned to the castle at night to see the performance of the Ballet Folklórico of mexico which was outside and used the castle as the backdrop. The dance performance was incredible- there were about 40 dancers and many, many different dances from all parts of mexico and live traditional music as well. one of the most energizing, fun and beautiful dance performances i have ever seen and the costumes were soooo gorgeous too!