Today is Mexico's Independence Day! No class today!! Wippee! Last night was mucho fun! Mexican's love their celebrations so much they start at 12:00 am and will probably last till 11:59 pm tonight, although I doubt I'll see that one.
I've got some videos of the night, but just keep in mind that they don't do it justice.
This year, due to drunken fights that have repeatedly broken out over the years, they had made a few changes. El Grito took place at 11:00 instead of at midnight, and no alcohol was being sold in the area. Our group, arrived to the centro just before 11:00. For the longest time we were just streaming our way through the crowds. I was clear at the end, so had no clue where we were headed, but that was fine as I was too busy looking around to worry about where I was actually going. We arrived to the main area of action just as the clock chimed 11. I started the following video at 11:00:04, so unfortunately the first 4 seconds of el grito are cut off. ("el Grito" translated literally would mean 'the shout'.) The building I'm walking towards is the main government building. The governor of Jalisco and other important people are standing on it's balconey's calling out el grito. You will hear the crowds responding with "Viva!" (p.s. turn your volume all the way up to get as close to what it was really....but that's not possible)
The fireworks were absolutely amazing. Not because they were elite fireworks, but because of their proximity to the crowds. Firework towers were standing in the middle of the crowds, the closest to me about 10m. And the rest being shot off of buildings directly over the crowds. I have two videos of the fireworks, but choose the second because it shows how I had three places to look to watch all the display. The camera kind of jerks back and forth from one spot to the next, sorry about that.
Ok, so neither of the videos uploaded successfully. They were probably too long. This saddens me as I really wanted to share with you a bit of Mexico. :( See pictures in following post.
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