Venice Beach and Mexico city

Sooooo........

After spending nearly three hours on the computer with beautiful sunshine beckoning me from outside I decided to go out and have a little look around Venice. The beach was absolutely packed and trust me it`s a big beach so that really means something.

I almost Grabbed this without thinking......

Lots of interesting people getting around just doing there thing, all sorts of crazy musicians and street perfomers and a really old guy (he must have been at least 70) riding around on a skateboard like he was surfing and falling off all the time. And also the venice beach freak show:

After that it was back to the hostel after a cheeseburger and fries for some beers with my scottish roommate Billy up on the rooftop balcony, watching the weirdness unfold below. Ended up going out to a club acroos the street for the night which was pretty cool until it closed at 2am, after opening at 11, and we could only get two beers each because the bar was so packed. While we were lining up we could see heaps of cop cars and ambulances down on the beach and a police chopper circling around with it`s spotlight frixed on something, looked pretty exciting.

After that it wasn`t really worth going to bed for two hours before my early flight so we hung out in the common room for some more drinks and some weird little pouches of salty tobacco that you put under your lip. Not the most delicious thing I`ve ever put in my mouth but the guy that had them said they are big in Sweden.

The flight was not fun with no sleep and a hangover but I was strangely impressed with the Pheonix airport that we stopped in halfway, very clean and modern indeed.

Arriving in Mexico city again with no accomodation but this time not really in the mood for adventures other than of the asleep kind I set about finding a place. A really nice surprise to find by far the best and most helpful tourist information set up I`ve ever seen. Got a nicely priced place for the night, info on attractions and sights and directions to the subway and to my Hostel all from the one hotel association booth. No dodgy selling at all, very nice.

The subway was only 30 cents, on time, well signposted (it was in spanish but still made sense) and no hassles at all. That was two ticks for Mexico already.

After a decent sleep (I don´t have a watch but it must have been at least 16 hours) it was up at lunch time for the tourist sightseeing bus around the city. Again I was impressed. This time it was a little more expensive at 11 dollars but it was hop on hop off double decker bus with three different routes, commentary via earphones in english and an open roof on the top deck. Nice.

National Monument

Into the Zocalo

Stopped in the Zocalo central square for a lunch of 7/11 hotdogs (at this stage thats all I`m confident ordering) and a peek in the cathedral and a few other interesting, mostly historical places on the way.

View of Mexico city from the Latin America tower

Feeling like a break from city living so tomorrow I`m off to Palenque (16 hr bus ride) to check out the jungle and ruins.

Adios!

Changed my mind I`m going to Oaxaca