Visit Day 1: San Angel

This week, my mom, Rich, and two of my aunts, Chris and Ruth, came down to visit! They got in around midnight, and were off to bed almost as soon as they arrived.

The next morning, we had a great breakfast as Casa Portuguesa, hit the Saturday market in Lincoln Park and over to Costo to pick up a few necessities (read tequila!). After a quick pit stop at home, we headed down to San Angel for the Bazaar Sabado. We browsed arts and crafts until we had worked up an appetite, so we stopped for some afternoon appetizers and drinks as Fonda San Angel. Once we filled up on melted cheese, guacamole and chalupas, we were all just about ready for a nap, so we hopped into cabs and came back to our apartment for some margaritas before dinner at Villa Maria.

 From chilly Washington on Friday...

...to sunny Mexico on Saturday!

 Mom posing in the market!

 Getting down to business.

 Carlos Slim's personal art museum (next door to Costco!)

Saturday art market in San Angel

 Mom, Rich and Guadalupe!

Eeek!

 Chris and Ruth with my famous margaritas!

Dinner at Villa Maria, complete with churro loops for dessert...yum!

T-Shirt Contest

Here are our latest entries into the ongoing "Battle T-Shirt" with our rivals in the Buj:

Las Vegas, Flamingo

Mexico City, Xochimilco Canals

Last Day in Vegas...

It's our last day in Vegas and we took full advantage.  After some McGriddles (hell yes!) I went and got my haircut for the first time since April...

Ta-da!!  The after is a vast improvement, no??  While I was getting my haircut, Eric won $500!!  What a great day :D

$500!!! on the Wheel of Torture!

Hi Vegas!!

Cesar's Palace...

After a busy morning of winning and walking, it was time for our reward..

 Double-Doubles!!  Yum...

We had a great time shopping, sightseeing, winning and eating in the USA.  Until next time!!

USA Roadtrip - Death Valley Edition

This morning we got up bright and early and headed out into the desert to see Death Valley in all of its dried and salty glory.  We had been looking forward to this for some time both because Death Valley is supposed to be incredible and because we were getting a much missed USA ROADTRIP!!  It was a beautiful day, and we had so much fun exploring the desert!

Bienvenidos al Valle de la Muerte!

First stop: Zabriskie Point, home of these impressive formations.

Our descent begins into the valley...the air feels so thick and good here!

!!!

The descent continues...

Scenic look into the valley.

Death Valley's Artist's Palette.   Que pretty!

More pretty colors from the Artist's Drive.

It's us!!  We're here!!

Dust in the valley.  These cars look pretty spooky!

Salt formations in the Devil's Golf Course.

Salt formation close up.  It's so cool.

The descent is complete!  Here we are at 282 feet below sea level!

 

Badwater Basin, here we come!

This was one of the most amazing things we have ever seen.  These salt flats went as far as you could see.  Incredible!

All of these salt flats were made of these tiny salt fingers.

Salt flats forever!

After the salt flats, we headed back to Vegas.  Here's the moonrise over the desert.

A spectacular sunset.

And we're back to the happiest place on earth & cheap beer.  Aka, Las Vegas :)

 Not a big win, but it made me feel patriotic!!

Viva Las Vegas!

So you know how sometimes you're like, "Man, I really need to go the US for a weekend"?  No?  Well, that's probably because you are already in the US!  For those of us who live outside our home country, sometimes there is just this uncontrollable need to go home for an English-speaking, dollar-spending, hamburger-eating getaway.  So that's how I was feeling a few weeks ago when I booked Eric and I a long weekend in Las Vegas.  Yay, que fun!!

We spent the entire day shopping at such fine establishments as Target (heart), Macy's (double heart) and any other mall/strip mall we could find.  Come night time, though, we hit the strip and had a fantastic dinner at Sushi Samba...yum.

Apparently it's Christmas in Las Vegas until January 9th.  Who knew?

Say cheese...

Our hotel..I wouldn't recommend it.  We got stuck in the elevator twice, and it was pretty low end.  I did like the TV in the bathroom mirror though...

 Hasta mañana!

Happy New Year!

This year we had a very low-key New Years Eve which consisted of relaxing and spending time with friends.

 

First, I completed a 3,000 piece puzzle.  Not all in one day, of course, but I just happened to finish today.

Then there was much relaxing and enjoying.

 This is pretty true for us.  I hope it can come true for all of you this year, too.  :)

Happy New Year!!

Africam Safari...Big Holiday Fun??

So this morning we got up all excited to go on a trip down to Cuernavaca to see the sites, have a nice lunch, etc.  It's a holiday and we want to get out!  Then we came to the startling realization that it was, in fact, a Monday, and on Monday almost all the tourist sites are closed.  BOO!!  So we were flipping through our guidebooks for something else to do, when Eric's eyes lit up ad he whispered, "Africam".

So what is Africam you may ask?  According to the guidebook some rich maniac noticed that the arid, dry area just south of Puebla was the exact same climate as one might find on the Serengeti.  He then imported a bunch of animals and set up a safari park called Africam.  One can drive his car through and spot exotic animals.  Eric had worked himself into a frenzy over Africam before we even arrived in Mexico, and finally a perfect opportunity presented itself to visit!

 The safari begins....with a handy ATM machine located just to the right too!

Here are some giraffes.  I never thought about it before, but I like how they tie the giraffe food to a tree.

Here are some possibly insulting, definitely authentic native tents.

This extremely exotic llama is hamming it up for the camera.  Please don't spit, please don't spit...

I dub this creature the Ratpig!  I do not know what its real name is, but Ratpig works for me.

Best watch yourself.

There he is!  The extremely dangerous Rhino having a very menacing nap!

So zebras are cool to hang out with the Rhino but I'm not?

 Flamingos!!!  Finally, I get to see some flamingos in Mexico!!

 

A vulture, vulting.

Yikes, this animal looks supernaturally scary.

 Yes, that's right folks.  Someone hired a cab to drive him through Africam.  I wonder how that fare negotiation went...

Towards the middle/end Africam got really boring.  We just had to sit and wait in our cars forever because there were about 10,000,000 people there and traffic to get into the vicious animal enclosures was crazy bad.  Eric was heartbroken, having built Africam up in his head over the past year and half.  He looked at me and said, "It's my Xel-Ha."  Aww.

 One last look at a sleepy tiger.

Did we have fun at Africam?  Sort of I guess.  Will we go back?  Probably not.