jueves, 11 de enero de 2007

Como es Monterrey?

Or well, to begin with: where is Monterrey? (that would be donde está Monterrey? in Spanish :) This important industrial town lies in North-East Mexico, in the state of Nuevo León, as we can see from the map below.


As the first weeks have gone by in looking for an apartment, orientation and the first week of school, I haven't had too much time to tour the city. Here are however some pictures from downtown to give you an image of where I'm staying.

I find downtown quite nice, with the old part of town called Barrio Antigua, but elsewhere in Monterrey you can see a lot of American influence such as Walmart, KFC, and many more Amercian food chains. Most of the roads are 2 to 4 laned, and the traffic really isn't that pedestrian friendly.

The Barrio Antigua, or the old town, has great colours, and is maybe 5x5 blocks large.


Barrio Antigua holds a lot of restaurants, and is a quite popular place to go out in the evenings.

There is some construcion work going on in downtown Monterrey. This building Palacio Gobierno next to Macroplaza, an area with parks and state buildings.

I have to admit I don't know yet what this building is, but it's a good example of the fact that downtown Monterrey is quite modern, and the traditional buildings have been replaced by new modern buildings.

The higher buildings are usually offices in the Zona Rosa.

This is a picture from my way from home to the main campus; I really like these colourful houses instead of the grey ones in Finland.


This was taken from a view place with a huge Mexican flag (bandera). Until going up here I had not realized how huge Monterrey is in its area. Attached to Monterrey are other municipalities such as San Pedro, where our courses are.

In the end I think the city is much more appealing than what image I had gotten from for example earlier exchange students' travel reports.

As an endnote I'll tell you what all the Monterrey people (or regiomontanas) tell me: Monterrey is not Mexico. Monterrey is really well developed, and Nuevo Leon is a quite rich state. That's why I'm really looking forward to travelling around, to see the "real" Mexico.

And promise to put online some pictures of people soon!

2 comentarios:

Yann dijo...

Thank you for the post in english and the pictures.
Monterey looks real nice (plus warm weather and sun !) . Have a nice stay there and travels too.

It's rather strange how the city look like a mix of old and new, american and mexican.

Niina dijo...

Exactly, its like you through some Mexican houses into an American city. I guess it's because Monterrey is just so close to the American border, that the influence poors in from the States..