So about our car...

Over the past year our car had taken a real beating. The curbs in Mexico are uneven height, you have to parallel park almost everywhere and people will hit your car and drive away as a general rule. The bumpers on both ends are scratched up. The hubcaps (especially on the right side for some reason) are beyond description. But the overall body hadn't had much happen to it. Until one day when our neighbor started some work on the water system in the area directly in front of our house. In fact, on the afternoon in question, I exited my front gate to take a walk and I found a ditch in our driveway that completely blocked us from leaving our house by car. No notice. It even seemed a surprise that someone lived there. Luckily I had about 1 hour till I had to pick up the kids from school. They assured me "no problemo". But having heard that enough that I knew I needed to check again when I got back from my walk. The owner was there and again told me it would be ready in a half hour when I needed to leave.

So they filled in the ditch directly in front of the house with enough room for the car to exit on either side of a metal pipe sticking 3 feet out of the ground. I got out and back in safely. Dave was not so lucky. Later in day he left to run an errand and when he got back was driving through the gap when the car slipped on some rocks and slid backward toward the pipe. The pipe scratched a line across 2 panels of the car.

Dave was so upset that it had happened, he looked for a body shop and made an appointment almost immediately.

He wanted to get it fixed in Mexico, if possible, because he knew it would be loads cheaper. It was. The bid was for 1200 pesos, less than $100.

Shortly before the day of our appointment I was trying to parallel park at Milli's school and hit the bumper of another car directly below the scratch. Not our best driving week. Luckily the other driver said "esta bien" and I didn't have to worry about paying him off. And the painter didn't charge us any more because of the new damage.

We scheduled to take it in on a Friday afternoon and pick it up on Saturday afternoon.

As promised, it was done. But it was the wrong color.

So we scheduled again. The weather was too wet.

And again. Not sunny enough.The shop is very unprofessional and is exposed to the elements as you can see.

And again. Not finished. Sanded but not painted.

Keep in mind every time Dave has to take it 30 minutes away to the shop and take a bus back. And then take a bus there again to bring it back home.

Finally we took it in the next Friday afternoon to be finished by 6pm. Dave calls me from the shop says that it is not done but he will leave it overnight to be finished by morning. We had planned to attend the circus that evening. So Laura picked up me and the kids and Dave took the bus and we met at the circus. We were late but we got there. While we were there it started to rain. We were all going to take the bus home, but Laura crammed all 8 of us in her little car and took us home.

Now we get to the day we were going to go to Selva Magica and Guadalajara. We finally get the car back at 4pm after being promised it by morning. It looks good. The right color and cheap, but certainly not worth all the hassle.

Now that we're home...

I guess I should catch up on the last month in Mexico.

The last place on my "places to visit" list that was left to visit was Guadalajara. Sure we've been there any number of times, but only to the airport, mall, and Costco. Not exactly historic. So on our last Saturday we planned to get going at about 10am and head up to Selva Magica and then take a tour of Guadalajara Centro. Unfortunately we had a holdup with some repair work on the car (I'll blog on that later) and didn't get off till about 4pm. No Selva Magica! But we did make it for a late tour of Guadalajara after first getting on the wrong bus, and squeezing in a KFC (yuk) dinner. Unfortunately most of the tour was in the dark and hence no good pictures but here's what we got.
We sat up on the top of the double-decker bus. The kids had fun bus surfing and grabbing leaves off the trees that barely missed our heads: 2 lawsuits waiting to happen in the U.S.

This is a side view of the Cathedral that is featured on almost everything Guadalajara. The 2 spires.

Noisy Mexico

There are many little reasons that I haven't posted in a while. Just not feeling like it, tired, lazy, nothing really exciting going on, and just plain sad we'll be leaving here so soon.

I'm tired for a combination of reasons. Last week started a festival in San Juan Cosala, which means fireworks all hours of the day (the first one's were at 5:15 am right outside our house), parades, and music.

Also elections are on July 5th, which also means more fireworks, parades, and music.

For the past few months these have been common sights.

But lately these are also a daily sight.This is right outside our house.

I've been meaning to ask our mexican friends if mexicans as a whole are more politically involved than us Americans, or if it's just that they like fireworks, parades and music. My suspicion is the later.

It's also been unbearably hot. The kind of hot that zaps your strength and makes you go to bed at 8pm. But that seems to be getting better. That might mean that I'll feel like sitting at a computer to post, but since I have a lot of other excuses, I doubt it.

Mexico City

We took a chance this weekend and went to Mexico City. The flu alert has been dropped and hotels were offering all kinds of deals so we decided to do it. And I'm so glad we did.

We decided a long time ago that if we ever did make it to "Mexico" (mexicans leave off the "City"), we didn't think we wanted to drive while we were there and we were right. The drivers are crazy! So we took an overnight bus on Friday night, arriving about 6am to our hotel downtown near the Zocalo (central plaza). The first class buses here are very nice, with seats that almost fully recline, movies and snacks, almost like an airplane. I can't say I got a full night's sleep, but better than some red-eye flights I've taken.

At about 9am, after breakfast and a little nap, our driver and tour guide met us at the hotel and took us to the pyramids north of the city. These are the most amazing ruins we've seen here, so well worth the trip. There are 2 major pyramids, the pyramid of the moon and the pyramid of the sun. You can't go to the very top of the moon one, but we all (except Charlie) made it up the 268 steps of the sun pyramid. Dave sprinted up it.

I'm loath to show these pictures because they reveal my terrible haircut, but maybe it will help me avoid the same mistake in the future.At the top of the sun pyramid. The pyramid of the moon is in the background.

While Dave waited for the kids and I to return from the top of the sun pyramid, groups of Mexican high school students accosted him to practice thier English for an assignment.

After much souvenior shopping, we headed to the Basilica of the Virgin Guadalupe in downtown Mexico. This is a complex similiar to the Vatican. Or that's what they are going for. It's biggest draw is a piece of the garment of a peasant on which a painting miraculously appeared after he had a visitation from Guadalupe (another name for the Virgin Mary). The garment has also miraculously lasted for almost 500 years.

We returned to the hotel, rested, ate, and then attended a dinosaur exhibit in the Zocolo before an early bedtime.These are the government buildings on the Zocalo where the president of Mexico calls out El Grito on Independance Day.

Our second day started early, the driver picking us up at 8am so we could drive a few hours south to some caves (grutas) in the state of Morelos. They were really amazing. Huge and so beautiful. We walked over a mile into them and weren't even close to the back end. Riley was so impressed by them, he said over and over how cool they were.

We also happened to be able to attend a performance of the Acapulco Symphony in the cave. The sound was unbelievable.

Next our tour guide took us to a nearby town called Taxco. It used to be a silver mining town. No more silver mines now, but hundreds of silversmiths and jewelry stores.These were the cobblestone streets in Taxco. I can't imagine how much work these were.

We walked around a while, ate lunch and looked through the church before setting out on the road again.

Unfortunately we hit end-of-weekend traffic going back into Mexico. It took us 4 hours instead of 2 to get back. But even though our driver was really crazy, I was sure glad Dave and I weren't trying to navigate ourselves through the traffic.

We could have stayed another day in the city to see the more of the historic sites, but it turned out that most of them are closed on Mondays, so we decided to cut our visit short and go home Sunday night on the bus. We let the kids still have Monday off school and they took 4 hour naps to catch up.

This was our last weekend trip here in Mexico and I think it was a good one to end on. I have loved having these experiences with the kids. I hope they remember them thier whole lives, I know I will.