Which items particularly impressed the spanish

Most of the construction in Tenochtitlan took place during the reigns of four Aztec kings beginning in the s. Built largely upon land reclaimed from Lake Texcoco, the city was laid out on a grid, inspired by the still visible ruins of the ancient city of Teotihuacan of a thousand years earlier.

Its network of streets and canals teemed with canoes that transported people and goods within the city and across the lake to towns on the shore, to which it was linked by three raised causeways. Two aqueducts supplied fresh water. At the heart of Tenochtitlan was the Sacred Precinct, the religious and ceremonial center not just of the city, but of the empire as well.

Surrounded by a masonry wall of serpents, this enclave of about by yards could hold more than 8, people within its precincts. The temples of the most important Aztec gods were here. Adjacent to the Sacred Precinct, sumptuous palaces of the kings and nobles included beautiful gardens, aviaries, and zoos. Administration buildings were there as well. Commoners lived at a distance and were organized into neighborhoods, called calpulli , with their own local temples and markets.

Those populations included laborers and farmers as well as craft specialists such as potters, weavers, sculptors, lapidaries, featherworkers, and soldiers.

On a fateful day in August , life in this magnificent urban center changed forever. Shortly after the fall of Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards razed the already devastated city and built the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain on its ruins. Anyone wanting to blend in in Spain has done their research on how not to look like a guiri. The Spanish will call you out as a guiri for being generally non-Spanish: eating dinner or going out for evening drinks far too early; brandishing extra large maps and cameras on city corners; talking really loudly at monuments or while out sightseeing; wearing denim shorts with flip flops year round; and only ordering sangria.

This is another very commonly-used expression in Spain and earns you extra points for stepping outside the usual list of expressions commonly learned by visitors. For example, if you learned that your friend had ordered 15 tortillas and ten plates of patatas bravas — then proceeded to eat it all.

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