August 8, 2015

We traveled across town to the National Anthropological Museum.  It is world-famous, and for good reason.  It is huge and so beautifully organized and presented.  We went first to a buffet $12 USA for lunch.  We had food we had never tasted, and food we had tasted that was differently prepared.  We had prickly pear (looked like cucumber, had seeds on top, that were sweet, but hard..almost like you couldn't eat them).  We had a wonderful white fish that tasted like lemon, some bananas that were mushy--and red.  We had pork chops that were to die for.  It was lovely.

The museum itself is mind boggling..so big, with multiple museums...one for each period of time in Mexican History.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Neal's favorite was the Aztec Calendar and the Olmec heads.  Mine was the peacock headdress, and I loved, loved, the Oaxaca embroidered clothing.  We walked a million miles.  It took us 1 hr and 40 minutes to get home...we are learning...our GPS didn't work well....everything looks the same to me still here....It was a GREAT day, and we loved it!  We came home to a hard experience with one of the elders we are really attached to.  Neal has especially been so busy lately.  He had 3 calls yesterday and has had missionaries all day today (it is Saturday).

 We saw so many things…..I forgot to mention when we went to the Miners’ Hospital Museum in Real del Monte 2 weeks ago, we saw a ton of pictures displayed of nude men in miner’s hats and goggles.  We couldn’t figure out why!  Carlos explained that sometimes when people go on strike in Mexico, they do so in the buff to show that they are not being paid enough to clothe themselves.  Interesting phenomenon.  “That isn’t just in the early days, nor is it just men, or just miners,” he said.  It is a modern day custom as well.