Yesterday, September 15, is a big day in Mexico.  It’s not Independence Day (like our 4th of July) because that’s today.

The morning started out with a fiesta (party) in our español  class.  Profesor Andres put on a great spread of tostadas and other goodies for the class.

But I wasn’t there.

Because of my pick pocket incident Friday night, I was accompanied to a special police station by my good friends from the restaurante.  Long before my incident, they had told me they were impressed by this office, the manner in which they’d been treated, and the most important fact – the officer spoke excellent English.

They were correct – I too was impressed with how professionally I was treated.  It was efficient – more than what I expected.  It wasn’t long before I had copies of my police report in hand.

I hustled back to the class at the Casa and found everyone still there enjoying the fiesta.  But I knew that the members of that class were vulnerable in their new country and I wanted to show them my new police report and how well I’d just been treated.  This picture represents 4 different countries.

But how do I communicate with people that only know Russian or French?

Simple – Google translate!

So I sat in the middle of those two, typed my English into one side while Russian showed up on the other side and after that person read it, I simply clicked the French tab for the other individual. Worked great!

But the night of the 15th is a big deal for Mexico.  Without going into the history of why – which is a great story – the President of Mexico at 11 pm goes out onto a balcony overlooking the Zocalo, rings a bell and issues great cries for the heroes of Mexico (“el grito de independencia”) to which the crowd yells back “Viva Mexico”!

I had wanted to go into that huge crowd at the Zocalo, but my pick pocket incident was too fresh yet, so we just went up the street and watched a smaller, but still big, celebration with a big fireworks display afterward.

Today (Tuesday) is the true day of independence from Spain and as I was sitting at my desk this morning I was amazed to see several formations of fighters, helicopters and a formation of 15 trainers fly overhead.  Loved it!