Mexico City is always a happening place, but today took the cake for sure.

This morning, Avenida Reforma was the stage for back-to-back celebrations: the first, a presentation of the British polo team, in town for the 8th International Polo Championship, and the second, a parade complete with floats and marching bands, celebrating the Day of the Child. I missed the horses but saw the kids, and then tested my public transportation skills by taking the Metro to the last stop, dodging my way through a sketchy market, and managing to find the exact 45 cent colectivo van that would stop at the convention center, where I spent the afternoon at the FEMACO art fair. As the colectivo bounced down Avenida Conscripto, tossing me into the lap of another passenger, the 60-something driver hummed along to a Daddy Yankee tune and then offered us a ripping good version of the chorus of "Let's Get It Started" by the Black Eyed Peas. All in all, the day was a quintessential Mexico City experience: the old and the new, the classy and the crass, the cheerful and the cranky, all rolled into one.

Threading my way back along the same route I'd taken, I decided to stop at the Zocalo, where, I'd read in the paper, Mexico would be trying to set a world record for the number of girls celebrating their quinceaneras simultaneously. The number? 282. I surfaced from the Metro just as the emcee was asking the crowd to identify themselves by pueblo; they roared and raised their arms in response, and the entire square erupted into applause as the emcee announced that the muchachas were en camino, and would be arriving at any minute. Just when I decided the spectacle wasn't really worth the wait, four double-decker turibuses rolled up exactly where I was standing, and the 282 15-year old girls emerged with all the color and buzz of bees from a hive. Fat girls, skinny girls, light-skinned, dark-skinned. Long hair, short hair, perfectly aligned teeth, gapped teeth. Homemade dresses, haute couture dresses... they were all the same, at least for this one night, equally bright stars on the stage of their country's capital city. They pouted when they realized the hems of their dresses were already dusty. They smoothed their hair and fussed flowers back into place in their bouquets. They pulled tight the strings of each other's corsets one last time. They took a breath, claimed their places in line, and stepped onto the stage, together.