The center of México is the heart of our country, meaning, the daily México: schools and job schedules, family lunch and coffee by the evenings, church and parks on Sundays, religious parties, soccer and free-style box matches, bars. It is a cheered-up México, full of colors and contrasts. A México that is ours and one we are proud of; a México that we always want to show off and share.
Mexicans usually wake up every morning to go to work or school, in the mid-afternoon there's lunch with the family and then having coffee, spending time with friends in a bar or going to a plaza or park to hang out. Some visitors have praised Mexican mood, they like the brightness and warmness, they enjoy partying. Mexicans like to sing, scream and party for everything. The patriotic and religious parties are even on the streets: decoration of the streetlights, set up food stands and light the night with fireworks. We are happy to live here and we feel different and proud about our traditions. We like visitors, and what we like the most is showing them our stuff.
In the center of México there is a wide gastronomic offer that varies in each state, or even in every town or city.
Nevertheless, we do share some general features. For breakfast we like eggs in the regular way, but also in the Mexican style: “rancheros”, divorced, with beans, tortillas, ham, cheese or sausage. In the mid-afternoon we have a heavy meal and we eat a lot of things, among these we find the so famous “enchiladas” that can also be served in endless styles: Swiss, queretanas, miner, potosinas. And the eating list goes on: tortilla soup, chicken consommé, tacos, pambazos, quesadillas, sincronizadas, etc. At dinner, we have something light, coffee or chocolate with a piece of sweet bread, which also comes in different presentations: Donnuts, conchas, orejas, mantecadas, garibaldis, polvorones, campechanas. When going out to party, it is very common to stop in one of the many taco stands before arriving home.
There are many parties that Mexicans have every year, but maybe the most important are four. On the first place, the Holly Week, between the months of March and April and organized in many cities with a via crucis, which is a theatrical representation of Jesus Christ's Calvary right on the streets. On September 15th, we celebrate the Mexican Independence: the President, the Governor or the Mayor of the place goes out to the balcony of the government palace to ring the bells of liberty and to remember the calling that the priest Miguel Hidalgo made in 1810. After this, there are stands with typical food, firework shows and musical groups. November 1st and 2nd we celebrate the Day of the Dead. We build altars for our dead relatives, and sometimes organize competitions to decide which one is the best. Families go to the graveyards with flowers for their relatives and all the country dresses in orange like the cempasúchil flower. As a souvenir, people give each other little skulls made of sugar and chocolate with their names on. For Christmas we set up cribs, have bazaars and markets with decorations and toys. On January 6th all children receive a gift from the Three Magic Kings.
The same as with gastronomy, handicraft counts with endless forms throughout the region. The center of México is a fan full of colors, forms and diverse styles emerged from the ingenious and the imagination of Mexican hands. Our native people are the main artistic genius of a world of animals, creatures, toys and characters that show a great variety of materials. We find the little can cars from Mexico City, its wooden toys, the obsidian objects of Teotihuacan, the little Otomí dolls from Queretaro, the wool of Bernal, the opals of Tequisquiapan, the totemic animals of the Huicholes from San Luis Potosí, the silver in Guanajuato and Zacatecas, the delicate carpentry of the wood from Michoacán. The options seem never to end, and sometimes they end up in an almost magic delirium where choosing could turn out to be a difficult task.
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