Visiting one site of the 68 uprising in Mexico City

The student’s uprising before the olympic games in Mexico City are remembered by this monument at the spot were students were shot from the roofs of buildings by soldiers.This is also known as the Tlatelolco massacre.About the 68 uprising in Mexico City

As the last words on this stone say, the media did not mention anything about it. So, this is also a lession from history to do your own media, to be media. 

This is the site were people were shot,soldiers were inside this building:

mexico 68

there is now an exhibition to remember what happened. here are some photos from the exhibition:

About the 68 uprising in Mexico City

About the 68 uprising in Mexico City

About the 68 uprising in Mexico City

while the undercover cop (?) here is holding a gun, one of the students is holding a camera. This picture touched me.

About the 68 uprising in Mexico City

and this is such a depressive picture. but also strong. i read it as: just don’t join the army. grow weed or repair bicycles. but never join the army. army sucks.

oh, and of course, on the photo above with the green and the church etc: this is also a site of world heritage. these ruins are pre-cortes of course: from before the occupation of mexico by europeans.

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2200 meter above sea level

I have always been curious about Mexico City, one of the largest cities on this planet and one with the most polluted air due to its topological character: surrounded by mountains and itself 2200 meters above sea level (leading to 20% less oxygene in the air).

I have not seen much of the city yet due to work and organising the trip. The metro is really cheap: 2 pesos for one passage! 19 pesos are around 1 euro. I guess this is affordable to most people here. 

lunch and muesum

the city has uncountable historical buildings, such as the museum of art above. 

central post office

this is the central post office. the metal at the counters and more of it all around the building has been imported from italy. the building is from mid 18th century.

central post office

 

wandering around the post office, you really get to think: wow, how important communications means must have been (and still are, remember the internet?) for the ruling class that they have built such a temple for it!

lunch and muesum

lunch. 2 euros for soup, rice, and a main dish. and it was good!

 

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Goodbye Seattle

Tomorrow I am leaving for Mexico City. Although without many comments, here are some photos from Seattle:

diverse seattle pictures

We were checking out the self-check out in a supermarket. They let the check out work do their customers now! Another way to reduce labour costs… But as the machine didnt want our beer to be paid, we decided to go to the old fashioned man powerer cash register.diverse seattle pictures

Oh, and Microsoft is operating a huge shuttle bus transportation network to bring their staff from seattle to Redmond. I saw plenty of them.

diverse seattle pictures

Seattle downtown is full of "interesting" architecture. 

diverse seattle pictures

This is the library. Not an UFO.

 

diverse seattle pictures

Hope! There is always hope! 

 

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Relaxing Seattle

A nice sunday trip from downtown Seattle with the Washington State ferry to Bainbridge Island made me forget the multi-million cities my travel is about. Seattle is the smallest city of my trip anyway but Bainbridge Island is real rural.

bainbridge island

this island is rated the second best place for living in the U.S. according to wikipedia. If you ever happen to go there, take a right turn when leaving the ferry (everyone else goes left) and walk for 5 minutes. Then ask a local for public access to the water. You might end up on some beautiful strech at the waterfront completely alone, because the way there is so small and secretly that none of the seattle tourists will find it.

 

Thats the mount rainier in the far back.  With 4390 meters a bigger one, I guess.

4 seattle picsand here is Seattle seen from the ferry. I guess a popular tourist photo.

4 seattle pics

And this is about Obama’s health insurance initiative. From a german perspective it is hard to understand why people are getting so angry about it (well, not all of course. Mostly white and richer people are, i guess). I suggest to file this under ethnography.

 

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Don’t fly Delta Airlines

Never fly with Delta Airlines! Choose any other! With Delta I had these experiences on one single flight:

the baggage drop queue at the airport didnt exist. So what is the point in online check-in? I had to queue up with more than 100 other people. But soon I realised that by that method I would miss my flight, because the progress was like one person per hour…

So I finally convinced a service person to let me my baggage drop at the 1st class counter. 

Next surprise: they not only overbooked the plane, but as well even had one person more than seats in the plane! how can that happen?? It took a while until they settled the issue.

Next surprise: I dont expect good food from an US-american Airline. But at least some food. With Delta you have to pay for it, also on a flight from NYC to Seattle (around 5h). So far so bad. But they had food for only half the passengers. How can that happen??

And finally: My Backpack didnt arrive in Seattle. It is a strange feeling to stand at this transportation band and you are almost the only person left and then it stops. This is the moment you realize something went wrong.

Well, the delivered it the next day to the house I am staying in. I had paid 15 Dollars for the transportation extra – and then they wouldnt put it in the same plane.

 

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Good bye NYC

Time goes by fast and i head to Seattle tomorrow already. This is sad, because I started to get a feeling for NY and understand why things are how they are. Today I made it to brighton beach for one hour before heading back all the way up to midtown Manhattan for a meeting. NYC is made up out of very different areas and it I guess there is not one and only typical item. Nonetheless, of course, Manhattan’s towers are very wide recognised as representing NYC. 

But this here is also NYC:

staten island

This is on Staten Island in a green paradise, 5 Minutes busrides from the ferry terminal. While this:

ny impression

this here is in the financial district and just across the tallest towers in the city. 

So, there are always islands of calm and peace one can find. And as the days are very hectical and energy sucking, I stop at those places as often as possible and make a rest. Temperature today again was around 33 Celsius. But in midtown Manhattan it is much hotter.

humans not permitted

this is something for the mobile media freaks: the small says: use mobile or code reader to access. seems that if you are using one of those, you are not considered human anymore 😉

 

ny impression

another example of lego city manhattan. here like a cut through different ages. i wonder if anyone ever counted these vertical living castles…

so, after a good week here i have to admit that i would choose Brooklyn for living. But of course, I havent seen all and of course, Brooklyn is huge. 

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short message from NYC

Alright, after a comfortable flight from Sao Paulo – I ended up in the upper deck of the aircraft, lots of space. Don’t know how that happened – NYC welcomed me with a hot and dry summer day.That was on thursday. By now (sunday) i already cycled the city a lot with the friends here.

NYC is like a universe of and in itself. Like the planet condensed. All kinds of people are trying to  survive here, which is not that easy as the rents are very high – not only in Manhattan – and if you are not a skilled and highly educated person, you need to work a lot to pay rents from 1000$ a month. Given that you earn around 10$ per hour in the service sector, I imagine that most people here work and sleep. And not much more.

 view from brooklyn bridge

 

the view from Brooklyn bridge towards Manhattan. Rather a classic tourist photo. 

On saturday, one street in Manhattan was not available for cars. A nice opportunity to start cycling here.

 

 Cycling without cars doesnt necessarily mean that there is more space 😉

 

The golden telescope - an essential item.

what everyone definitely needs, especially when you live in NYC and your neighbours have it already: a golden-silver plated telescope. An essential tool for a high cultural living here.

 

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graffiti at night and a tree

graffitiatnight

there are  not so many graffitis in sao paulo. this wall is in a tunnel at the end of paulista, the main business street. 

tree

this tree i only know from offices in germany in a much smaller size, named there "gummibaum".

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collectors and a view

there is not enough time for me to report frequently as my work is taking almost all my time.nonetheless here are some photos that give impressions of what sao paulo is made of…papervan

the collectors of carton and paper are heavily working day and night. it is a tough job and not well paid. their work is a big contribution to recycling and they know a lot about the darkside of the city when they go through the remnants of a citizen’s household.

view from top of building with plants

the view from a balcony of a friend living on the 26th floor. but even for sao paulo standards this is extraspecial great…

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Horkheimer and Adorno are scanned

Books are not cheap here. The editions are nice and appealing, but pocket books are not available. This makes culture and education a class issue. This edition of Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectics costs much more than the usual german edition. dialectic of enlightment by adorno and horkheimer is scanned.

The book is scanned by a barcode scanner. This is the common way to get to know the prize.

But in general, this bookshop is great and people are also simply sitting and reading. Hanging around here.

bookshop

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