Mis padres were gracious enough to offer that my parents could stay with us, as right now we have an extra room. This couldn’t have worked out better. I even had my first dream (partly) in Spanish the first night after all of the translating!
Thursday – I had one class, and it was only an hour long, so my parents came to la UAQ with me.
After class we walked around a bit and then went back to mi casa. We hung out for a bit, ate, and went downtown to walk around.
Friday – We went to Bernal for the day. We found a hotel, which had a nice little patio with a view of la peña.
Our hotel
We walked around and did some shopping. While mom and I were in a store, dad found some students from the US, one girl was even from a little town within an hour from TC. This time I was in Bernal, I realized that there were a ton of pet birds. We went into a shop with like 5 cages, our hotel had two cages, and we passed a few houses with a lot of cages. Later we walked up to la peña, as there were no taximotos. Mom and I climbed until the sun was setting, and decided to go back down.
The view:
On our way down, we saw that dad had started to climb too. The main reason for staying the night was so that mom and dad could see the light/fountain/music show, but there was no water in the fountain, and about 10 minutes after it was supposed to start, a guy came over and announced there wouldn’t be a show. So we went back to our hotel room and went to bed.
Saturday – We ate some breakfast and did some more shopping. Mis padres came to pick us up (because they are absolutely wonderful) and took us to Tequisquiapan.
The whole group:
Me and mom in Tequis:
There, we did more shopping and then they took us to a restaurant where they served the biggest meal I’ve ever seen in a restaurant. They brought us all a bowl of soup, and then put huge platters of salad, rice, beans, nopales (cactus), and zucchini, along with tortillas. On top of that, you were then supposed to order a main dish. Mom and I did not do this, as we were already full. At the end, they brought dessert too. We came back to mi casa and just hung out for the rest of the night.
Sunday – We took a bus to San Miguel de Allende. When we arrived at the bus station, I asked a taxi driver for a recommendation for thermal waters, and he took us to a really cool spot. It would have been nice to stay there longer, but we had to give the taxi driver a time to return for us, and he told us most people stay two or three hours, so we told him 2 ½. Anyway, there were four pools, and one was back in a cave. It was just my kind of water, really really warm. =)
It was surrounded by gorgeous plants:
We met someone from Ohio and someone else that was born in Cuba but lived in Florida for most of his life. It was probably nice for my parents to find people they could actually talk to, without needing a translator. I'm pretty horrible at pronunciation, but my parents...let's just say that instead of saying "no hablo español" (I don't speak spanish), at one point my dad said "no diablo espandexo" (diablo means devil, and i don't think spanish sounds similar to spandex). =)
After the thermal waters, we went up to the lookout over the city.
El mirador (lookout):
Then we walked through the market and sat in the main plaza. There was some sort of festival going on; we saw part of a parade, and the main plaza was FULL.
Downtown:
We went to a few shops and then walked back to the bus station.
Monday – No school Monday! We started off the day by going to El Pueblito to look at the pyramid. Since it was Monday, it was closed, but at least you can still see it from the gate.
We took a bus downtown, walked through some shops, and looked around.
Then we went on two tours of el centro. I had taken one of them before, but it was a little different this time, so that was kind of cool.
The trolley
Los arcos… short end
It was all in Spanish, so when we’d get to stops where we’d get off the trolley for a bit, I’d have to translate what was said.
One of the stops was Cerro de las Campanas, which means Hill of the Bells. Like I said in one of my previous blogs, it got its name from the rocks that sound like bells:
Tuesday – I had two hours of class on Tuesday, so my parents stayed home to pack. When I got home, we ate lunch, and then mis padres taught my mom how to make a red salsa. Later we went to Walmart, as my dad was pretty excited about seeing the differences between the Walmart here and the Walmarts in the US. That night, mis padres, my parents, mis tíos (aunt and uncle), Kelsey, Laurel, Ali, Luis, and his girlfriend, were all over to celebrate birthdays – Luis’ birthday was the 10th, and we celebrated mine early since my parents were still here. Mi madre made some really delicious appetizers, and I even “broke” lent to eat the delicious cake mi madre made. They sang happy birthday, and then you’re supposed to put a ring over the candle before you make a wish and blow out the candles. It was a lovely night.
Backrow: Ali, Laurel, Frontrow: Me, Luis, Paulina, Kelsey
Wednesday – We had to wake up at 5:45 to get my parents to the airport by 7. I am now very very tired.
New foods – Mamey. It’s a tropical fruit, and it kind of tastes like a sweet potato. I had had it in ice cream, which was good, but I don’t really care for it plain. Strawberry atole. Atole is a drink made with flour, and I had had chocolate atole before, but this week mi madre made strawberry flavored atole. It looked like pepto bismol, but it was ok. Sope. A sope is like a gordita, but instead of the food being inside, it’s on top. It’s basically a really thick tortilla with beans, cheese, and other stuff on top. Mi madre made the tortilla part herself. For the birthday celebration, mi madre made three different kinds of appetizers. They were all made with this special dough. One was ham and pepper rolled in the dough with sesame seeds on top. One was twists of the dough and cheese. And the last one were little mini pie shaped ones with cream cheese on top. Delicioso.
Here’s the photo album from this week: Barold y Paulette en Mexico
No comments:
Post a Comment