This headline caught my eye this morning, “Mexico Fights Discarded Gum Problem By Telling People to Swallow It”.
Some interesting things in the article are:
- The average square yard of Mexico City sidewalk has 70 blobs of discarded chew.
- Mexico is responding with innovations ranging from expensive sidewalk steam-cleaners to natural chewing gum that breaks down quickly.
- Modern chewing gum was born in the 1860s when Mexican Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna brought some Mexican chicle to U.S. inventor Thomas Adams, who first experimented with it as a possible rubber substitute but later added flavorings and sold it as a treat.
- Mexicans chew an average of 2.6 pounds of gum each year.
- That is half of what Americans chew.
- The Mayans chewed unflavored chicle to clean their teeth.
- Singapore once famously banned chewing gum outright to save its sidewalks, and still requires chewers to register at the pharmacy.
(Source: Fox News); (Image by: 7-how-7 on flickr)
Today is the day that Mexicans commemorate the day in which the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego. Many people make pilgrimages to the Basilica and there are various celebrations. They say to be Mexican is to be Guadalupano (or a follower of Guadalupe).
I wrote a paper called, “The Early Foundations of Mariology” for one of my seminary classes. You can download it here (PDF). It talks about Mary in early church history.
I’ve also visited the Basilica many times. Each time I’m there, I take a some pictures. Here are some pictures I’ve taken, uploaded to Flickr and tagged with Guadalupe.
I’ve read and written many things about the Virgin of Guadalupe. Here are some previous posts I’ve written about this day:
Resources about the Virgin of Guadalupe
Mexico City is home to the largest artificial ice skating rink in the world (Spanish site). The rink, which they built for the first time last year in the zocalo (downtown center square), is back this year. We went yesterday to skate on the gigantic rink.
They have done a great job of making it a very family friendly place. First of all, entrance to the rink is free, so everyone regardless of economic status, can attend. They also have a place where kids can make snowmen and go sledding down an artificial hill.
We arrived downtown at 11, and we got into line so they could give us our bracelets that we needed to go on the ice. Our turn was at 4 in the afternoon! Luckily, we had gone with Jon and Nicolle, so we had help taking care of the kids.
Since we had to wait, we went to McDonald’s, Nathan and I made a snowman (but he was an inch too short to go sledding). Then, in a stroke of genius, someone suggested that we go up to the restaurant at the Majestic Hotel on the corner of the zócalo and got something to drink. The view from the restaurant was incredible. From there, you could see the skating rink and the entire downtown square.
Finally, it was our turn to skate. Nathan made it around once. He had a great time, but he was so tired by the time it was our turn.
Overall, we had a great day. Check out our Flickr set from yesterday.
