things that are illegal in the usa

so... Mexico's Independence day was amazing, a band sand was set up in the main plaza, fireworks strung across the plaza and the fronts of buildings, even the bufalator cables had hundreds of feet of fireworks hanging from it... The small plaza in front of the Santa Domingo church, about 100 x 100 feet had huge mortars set up , like the ones week have at the fourth but instead of a barge and the coast guard to keep everybody safe there was a few feet of yellow safety ribbon.... The plaza itself is tiny and surrounded by 3 and 4 story buildings... think Ivar's 4th of July display going off from half of westlake plaza... In the main plaza where we were (zacatecas produced 25% of the worlds silver for 250 years, a very rich place, there are many churches and plazas...) a huge burningman sized tower thing had been set up in one corner with a little fence around it, maybe 10 feet from the tower. strings of fireworks hung from the governors palace, the cathedral (built in 1748) and the hotels across the street. The bands played, the people danced and chatted, vendors roamed the crowd selling snacks, more and more people arrived till about 11:30 the mayor came out on the balcony the do the "grito" or cry of freedom, a famous part of the Mexican revolution, by midnight the place was wall to wall people, then the fireworks tower went off... WOW a huge tower of spinning pinwheels and random explosions, things flying off into the crowd, a torrent of wind blown sparks driving all the people that had been crowded around the tower base back into the street, more pinwheels and explosions, it spelled out "Viva Mexico" at one point before the head exploded and the crown spun up into the night sky... Then the stuff hanging from the buildings and bufalator cable went off, huge showers of sparks and debris while the really big stuff in the next plaza started to go, enormous Ivar sized fireworks directly overhead, then a counter barrage started from the top of the cathedral, launched at an angle over the plaza, great except for the ones that hit the steeple and bounce down into the crowd!!! One of the things we love about Mexico is the all ages aspect, kids running around, grandmas sitting on the side lines chatting, babys, adults, all partying like crazy at 1 in the morning...

Late the next day when we got up we walked down the hill into town and hung out people watching, around 8 at night we were in the main plaza and 2 groups of musicians gathered and started to play different songs, kinda competing. we watched for a while and noticed a crowd growing, it turns out to be a strange Zacatecas tradition of almost random street party, groups of musicians gather, then a crowd, then the musicians wander around the city, playing from park to park, plaza to plaza... 3 boys about 14 were wondering around the crowd with 4 liter bottles of tequila, filling little clay cups on Mexican flag colored ribbons that a very well dressed matron was handing out. we were given cups and the boys started filling them every time they where empty as we danced from plaza to plaza with the crowd.... Met some people who told us this particular group was largely a 5 state bowling league celebrating the winning team from Zacatecas!!! They invited us to the awards ceremony in a fancy hotel, more tequila and lots of food, bowling trophy's, a great adventure... Turns out the kids with the tequila where on the soccer team one of our new friends coach's... There parents had been the ones handing out the cups....

A lovely culture, wonderfully different than ours.

Nick