Teotihuacan

Before there was light

Before there was day
When there was still darkness
The gods met in council in Teotihuacan
(Florentine Codex AD 1566)

These pyramids were incredible. Enormous, as you can see. This is the Sun Pyramid.

In this pic we are all standing on the top of the Sun Pyramid, and you can see the Moon Pyramid behind us.

Sun Pyramid

Brianna with her new bow and arrow. She haggled with one of the vendors there and bought the set for 10 pesos, which is less than a dollar!

Mar and Kelly and thier fam.

Maho and ninas with the Moon Pyramid behind.

Benemerito

This is the LDS community right in Mexico City where Maho and his family lived for many years. It is a quiet little haven surrounded by a bustling city. It was so fun to visit. Lots of stories were remembered and told by Maho and his brother Mar. You can see the basketball court ("La Gallinera") where Maho and his friends always played basketball.There is a little patch of sidewalk where Maho wrote his name in the wet cement in about 1982. We found it!

The Big Fat Latin Wedding

We sure are having a blast down south in Mexico. We are getting aquainted with lots of Maho's family still living here: lots of Aunts, Uncles and cousins.

Yesterday we went to his cousins wedding. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. For starters, their wedding day was their first date! I'm not kidding. The guy served his mission here, so knew the family somewhat. Then Maho's cousin (Irais)and him started emailing back and forth when he went home from his mission. He lives a few hours away. I don't know how long the emailing went on, but 2 weeks ago he called up her dad and asked if he could marry his daughter!!

If that's not enough, the dad (Maho's uncle) agrees; but the groom is very poor and only has money to ride the bus here THE DAY OF THE WEDDING. This couple hasn't even held hands, kissed, or been on a date! So as soon as he and his mom and sister step off the bus (which broke down and was late, which set the wedding back), they all head to the courthouse to be married.

Here in Mexico, temple weddings are not recognized as legal and binding. So they have to be married civilly first. We met them at the courthouse. This is not a nice building, like you would expect the courthouse to be. It was a cramped little dirty room where all the wedding guests (About 18 of us) waited around for paperwork to be filled out. The groom and his family were wearing jeans--probably what they stepped off the bus wearing. The guests were more dressed up. Then we went to an even more cramped room--office really--where an official read off the words to marry them. That was followed by hugs and congratulations. Then we all went home to get ready for the reception.

The reception alone was a new experience! It was held in another uncle's backyard, probably because he had a fairly large cement patio. Usually, though, when someone is having a wedding reception in their yard, they go to great lengths to make it look nice. And for all I know, maybe they had! But it was still..... hmmmmm....how do I put this? A mess!! Garbage a junk piled around the edges of the yard. There was a make-shift patio roof they put together by tying a HUGE plastic election banner from a pole on top of the house to trees down in the yard. It was held up in the middle by a long green bamboo pole.

There were 10-12 tables set up under the tarp, covered with white table cloths, and surrounded by old dirty chairs. In the center of each table was some kind of reddish-brownish succulent with a random ribbon around each one.

Something else about the Latin culture that I am trying to become accustomed to is WAITING! So much waiting! In this case, the reception was originally set to begin at 3. We arrived at 4:30 and waited over an hour for the newly weds to arrive. At that point they started bringing around the food. Wow, it was worth the wait. Food is one thing they've got a handle on down here!! First they brought around a soup, which was made from the drippings of the barbacoa (the lambs cooked inside leaves down in the ground). It had rice, veggies and chili peppers in it.

Along with the soup they brought around freshly made corn tortillas, refried beans and salsa. I've never had such delicious corn tortillas in my life. I could have eaten them all day!

The main course was Mexican rice, mole chicken and barbacoa. And the tortillas kept coming. Ooh it was good. Of course we had to wait and wait and wait for the cake. But it was worth the wait--tres leches cake with peaches in the middle. Yum. Oh, I forgot to mention that during the dinner it began to rain. It poured and POURED for about an hour. I was glad those cheesy election candidate smiles were hanging over my head to keep me dry!

The music had been on during dinner, so once the eating died down, tables were pushed back, chairs folded up, and we danced! And the rain just kept coming. Around 8 pm, the rain finally stopped and we were good and ready to go home. But we waited. And waited. And waited. Not sure for what, probably for everyone to finish visiting. It was fun to meet many of Maho's Aunts, Uncles and cousins that I'd never met, or hadn't seen for a very long time.

It was a great party! The newlyweds were beaming and weren't fased in the least by all the things that seemed odd to me. Not even the rain took the gleam out of their eyes. Today they were sealed in the Mexico City Temple. We didn't go to the sealing. Last night after getting home from the wedding, coming home to a household of inlaws and cousins, Maho and I were feeling "familied out." In a good way though. We are enjoying so much being here. It really is a different culture, but so warm and spicy! Hopefully we can bring some warmth and spice back with us!

The Parrot in San Miguel De Allende

Mummies Exhibit in Guanajuato

I don't know much about these mummies. What I did understand is that the minerals here in this particular town are very rich in some kind of preservative. So when all these bodies were found they were preserved way beyond what they would have been normally. It seemed disrespectful and irreverent to me to have them on display like this. But apparently it's a huge attraction for the city. Hey... we went!

San Miguel de Allende

Right next to the place we ate lunch (inside a mercado), there was a mask shop. Ellie turned into Donkey! Bahaha!

This is a cathedral built in 1564. The inside architecture is as beautiful as the outside. Very cool. And the weather couldn't have been better. It rained almost the entire ride there, and stopped just before we arrive. It was overcast and felt like 65-70 degrees. Shweeet!Dos locas at the mercado. We're taking the first steps of teaching them Spanish--donning the sombreros!


Here's the parrot in the garden at our hotel (read below). This was a kick in the pants!

These ficus trees are trimmed so beautifully! Mom would really "dig" the gardens here! Lots of flowers, fountains, and neatly trimmed hedges, too. You can see Abuelitos in this pic.

Here we are walking around.

Today has to be the best day so far! We brought Abuelitos with us and met up with Mar (Maho's brother) and Kelly and family (who drove here from Michigan). They have 5 kids almost all the same ages as ours (and we all have a blast together). We went to a place North about 3 hours from Tula to a place called San Miguel de Allende. Wonderful little place!! I LOVE it! It's a small colonial village with cobblestone and brick streets, Spanish architecture (reminds me so much of Madrid), beautiful gardens, and an old world Latin flavor! It's simply charming and adorable. In fact, Maho and the ninas and I are staying in a hotel here tonight. It, too, is beyond charming. It is also surrounded by a lovely garden, in the middle of which is a talking parrot!!

When we arrived at the hotel we kept hearing someone whistling as if at a pretty girl. Later we realized it was a parrot in a cage in the garden! We got right up close to him, and he started talking to us, "Hola," he kept saying. We got a kick out of that and starting laughing. Then the parrot started laughing, mimicking us! It was hilarious!! Between "Hola," his cat call whistling, and laughing, the parrot was a riot. I took photos of it but I'm having serious camera problems. All the photos I'm posting today were taken on Maho's Blackberry. How can I be here without a camera?!?

Tonight we went to a cafe owned by a famous Mexican actress named Margarita Gralia. We'd never heard of her, but she showed up there and was signing autographs and letting people take photos with her. We were more excited about our churros and European-style hot chocolate! Yum! Even when trying to avoid sugar, one must make some exceptions. Hot chocolate and churros in San Miguel de Allende is an exceptional place to make that exception! =)

As we walked back to the hotel (a few cobblestone blocks away), there was a taco stand that Maho couldn't pass up. While he and some of the girls stood at the stand and ate some outstanding tacos, Tessy and Ellie and I danced to the music of a guitarist closeby that I spoke to. When he realized we were from the U.S. he played some Beatles music for us! Then we got to chatting. I told him we are from Utah and asked if he had heard of our state. "Si!" he said. "Utah Jazz!"

I could spend a week or more here! Makes me want to buy a place to rent out and vacation at. Another nice thing here is, since a tourist-y area, the bathroom accomodations are much nicer: you don't have to pay 30 pesos to go; there is always toilet paper, and the toilets have seats! Things we really take for granted in the states!

Tomorrow we are off to Guanjuato, which we are told is much like this place. It is about 30 min from here.

Jehovah's Witnesses and Scorpions

I don't have any photos today. We cleaned this morning, weeded Abuelitos' little garden, and helped Abuelita make yummy enchiladas for lunch.

We found a couple scorpions in the house today! I don't think the ninas had ever seen one! Laurel found one while she was sweeping the kitchen. Then I found one on the stairs that I had just swept an hour before! We don't know how they got in, but we are all wearing our shoes inside the house now!

Guess what I got to do today--I spoke to some Jehovah Witnesses in Spanish! They came and rang the doorbell, but neither Abuelito nor Abuelita were home. I ran down and looked through the peek hole in the gate. I figured it was Abuelita's visiting teachers. I opened the door and soon realized who they were. Two very sweet women. Both their names were "Irma." We chatted for a little while about Jesus Christ. They gave me a pamphlet that they said went along with the Bible. I asked if they had heard of the Book of Mormon and offered them one (we brought several in Spanish). I'm not sure what they said, but they weren't jumping at the opportunity. But they were very nice. After they left I was wishing I'd have taken a photo of me with them! =) That's something you don't get to do everyday--chat with JW's in Espanol!