Ron & Julie Visit: Day 6: New Year's Day

Unfortunately, Julie had to take the day off from her vacation and rest today, so Autumn and I walked around the neighborhood and through Chapultepec Park with Ron. After a failed attempt to visit the Chapultepec Castle,due to a ridiculously long line at the ticket window, we decided to go through the history museum instead. It was kind of weird, and was filled with dioramas of scenes from Mexico's history. Particularly awkward was the section on the Mexican-American war and the numerous invasions of Mexico by the US. However, we didn't get too many angry stares from the other visitors, so I guess all was well.

Our attempts to translate the numerous plaques and descriptions for Ron helped lighten the mood with their complete lack of detail and sweeping statements like, "This one is showing some guy getting shot" and "Here's one that is showing a famous battle." I think the dioramas probably told us all a lot more then the signs!

Our day took a much more fun turn when we took a cab over to Arena Mexico to take in an extra-special-super-scandalous LUCHA LIBRE!! (aka Mexican Wrestling).

Lucha babes!
Marcela, Rain and Goya Kong
VS.
Princess Sugehit, Tiffany and Zeuxis!

Highlights from the program:


Round 1: Beginners - Super cheesy beginners - not worth translating!

Round 2: Lady combat - see above

Round 3: Cybernetic Tournament - Kings of the Air 2011!! Featuring:

Delta, Gold Angel, Diamond, Silver Angel, Fire, Comet King, Pegasus and Molotov Cocktail
VS.
Gunpowder, Virus, Raziel, Goalkeeper, Archangel, Puma King, Scorpion and the Tiger Kid!

Round 4: Scandalous Semifinal - Featuring:

Rotoporky, Maximo and Son of the Ghost
VS.
Underworld, Mephistopheles and Hephaestus

Round 5: Grand Combat - Featuring:

Mystic, The Shadow, and Golden Mask
VS.
The Black Pest, Pirate King, Black Houses, and Catman

Ron & Julie Visit: Day 5: Puebla

New Year's Eve! We took advantage of the day off, and drove over to Puebla for the day. Julie was feeling a bit under the weather, so we hopped on the Puebla Turibus with cameras in hand. It was actually a really cool trip. We saw the fort where the battle of Puebla was fought. FYI, Cinco de Mayo is not actually a celebration of beer and tacos, but actually the anniversary of this battle!

Afterward we grabbed lunch at el Mural de los Poblanos, checked out the churches and browsed the markets before heading home. Our trusty GPS knew the way, but me....not so much! After a few wrong turned and few "recalculating...when possible make a u-turn", we were back on the right track.

When we got home, we had some snacks, drinks, and played Trivial Pursuit while we watched the ball drop in New York - LIVE via internet!

...What else floats in water? Bread. Apples. Very small rocks. Cider. Gravy. Cherries. Mud.
Churches!

Inside the tallest church in Mexico.

Turibus time!

Wee!

Town Hall decorated for the holidays!

Unlike the low-hanging tree branch face-slapping of the Turibus of Mexico City...
...the Puebla version utilized tangled nests of high-voltage wires!

View of the volcano from the fort.

Churches...

...Spires!

...and more churches!

Lunch started with the world's tiniest soup!

Talavera peacock!

Ron & Julie Visit: Day 3 & 4

Wednesday R&J took another spin on the Turibus to check out a few more locations and met up with Autumn for lunch at P.F. Chang's.

Thursday, Autumn took the day off and went shopping at the Ciudadela Artesania to browse handicrafts from all around Mexico. Autumn got a cool, new plate and her parents picked up a few souvenirs too. Afterward, they stopped by the office to have street tacos with me, and then continued on their merry way.

Julie and Autumn at the Ciudadela

Barbecue!

After our drive back from Puebla, we barbequed steaks and green onions. The green onions are a thing here that Autumn learned about from her warehouse guys. You just barbeque them until their soft and kind of blackened, and then you just bite the white tips off. They're very sweet and delicious...

Anyway, I forgot to buy charcoal briquettes at the commissary, so I had picked up some Mexican "charcoal," which I've used before, and it's fine...but definitely not the same as it's American counterpart. It's basically just a bag of semi-burnt leaves, sticks and twigs, and it puts on quite a show after you finally get it lit.

Yes, that's about a 10 foot high inferno of sparks and flames shooting out of the chimney starter that we use for lighting the barbecue!

Ron & Julie Visit: Day 2

Autumn's mom and Ron were on their own today, and took the Turibus around town today while we were at work. The highlight of their day was the shenanigans going on in Centro Historico!

With a wonderful disregard for human safety, this "ride" entailed the following:

1.) Place child in giant plastic bubble.
2.) Zip up child in bubble and inflate bubble with gas-powered leaf blower
3.) Deposit bubble-child in an above ground pool
4.) Instruct child to run around like an enormous hamster
5.) Wait 12 minutes or until child passes out!

Ron & Julie Visit: Day 1

Ron and Julie arrived yesterday for a holiday visit. Autumn had to work today, so the three of us drove up to the pyramids at Teotihuacan. It was a great day! Nice and warm. As usual, we were immediately accosted by the unstoppable entrepreneurial spirit of Mexico, and Ron picked up a few items within minutes of arriving. We climbed the pyramids, went to the museum and then had lunch at La Gruta. No big show today, but at least we had mariachis!

For Julie's birthday dinner, we went out to Villa Maria. She wouldn't let us have he mariachis there sing "Happy Birthday," but we still had fun!


View from the Temple of the Moon

Up we went! (My third time!)

Ron & Julie at the top.

Whew!

Taxco

After our week with Carri, we headed out of town with our friend visiting from Ciudad Juarez to the town of Taxco which is famous for its silversmiths and is known as a piece of the Mediterranean in Mexico. The town was built into the side of a hill near silver mines and is filled with super steep, twisting cobblestone streets. All the houses are all white stucco with red tile roofs, and it is very picturesque. So much so that we didn't get a single picture of ourselves, so I guess you'll just have to take our word for it that we actually went there.

Nestled into the hillside

Water anyone? BYO Bucket!
 
Views of town

The church in the main square

After a busy morning of silver shopping, we started looking for someplace to have lunch. Our guidebook recommended "Bertha's Bar" since it is apparently where the margarita was invented, although they call it a bertha...so I wasn't totally convinced of that alleged story. Anyway, we checked it out but it took the term "hole in the wall" a little too literally, and we decided that if the food didn't kill us, the clientele would.

After wandering around looking lost, we were approached by a promotore for one of the rooftop restaurants. He showed us a picture of the restaurant and the food, and we agreed to follow him up about 1,000 flights of stairs, hallways, alleys and sketchy looking "shops" to what turned out to be a really great restaurant with views of the zocalo, church, town and the surrounding mountains. Naturally, we were given English menus and encouraged to get busy with the drinkin' like good Americans!

We thought about getting the hot bbq WIGS,
but thought they might be a bit too hairy..

Then considered the NOODIE soup,
but were nervous about what that might imply...

Although the CHISTORRA sounded delicious,
the lack of translation or explanation caused some apprehension among all three diners...

We settled for a guacamole stegosaurus...rawr...and some enchiladas

Despite it's sign, this was actually a really nice jewelry mall
...although our arrival at 10:30 in the morning beat most of the shopkeepers by at least 3 hours
Ok, I guess I did get one shot of Autumn from the back!

This was on our way back to the "valet" parking where after checking the car in, we were pretty sure we would not be seeing that car again, and would probably just have to ride the bus home. Happily, it was returned to us in perfect condition...a 50 cents well spent!
The drive back down this street was interesting to say the least.

It was so great to hang out with Katie all day, and we all came home with some fabulous silver gifts and treasures.

...And finally, a shout out to Mrs. Winston in the Buj!

You'd be very proud of the locals representin' for your Minnesota Vikings...or maybe they're just regular vikings...you be the judge.

Translation: The Vikings Restaurant: Bar - Cake Shop

That's right...Carnitas Vikingos! in Cuernavaca
I'll take one ludefisk carnita please!