Sunday, August 29, 2010

Hola from Mark

Hola everyone.
This is the first time I have ever blogged!!!
I see in the Blog you are getting a good feel for life around Queretaro. It really is a beautiful city but I question if you are really getting a feel for Mexican Life.
Just to give you a little bit of a feel for things I will detail my story form last week. Lynda was up in New york with her mom, and I was alone down in Quertaro.

Wake up Tuesday morning to the sound of my blackberry going off. Note it is pointless to use a normal alarm clock as the power goes out at least once a day. I go in to take my shower ------ Hmmmmm cant seem to get any hot water. Now I am running late, but I am quite awake.

Make a quick cup of coffee and grab a granola bar. Note to self when I get home I have to figure out why I have no hot water. Go to work all day (This really needs to be the subject of a future blog)
Come home starved. Have to make some dinner. Decide on one of my personal favorites, a huge egg fritata. Pop open a beer, Cut up some roast chicken left overs put them in the fry pan , put in some frozen veggies ( Note: only Lynda has learned the proper fresh veggie cleaning technique Mexican style), Chop up some bacon, and some sun dried tomatoes , Get out the cheese, Scramble three eggs in a bowl, Oh this is going to be good, Pop open a beer, go to start cooking, No flame.
Hmm----- I think I now know why I had no hot water NO GAS!!! Oh well, Next note to self , find out how to get gas. Pop open another beer, and figure out what to do for dinner now.

Wed Morning: wake up, take a shower, Oh Yeah ,( note to self definitely have to figure out how you get Gas). Go to work, ask: How do you get gas. Oh it gets delivered, well that sounds easy. Oh but wait you have to actually be there to pay for it as it is delivered. What? I cant just have them bill me for it? Oh no you gringo. No checks either cash only. OK ,how much is it going to cost. Well that depends on how big is your tank and what neighborhood you live in. First of all I have no idea how big my tank is, I don't even know where my tank is, and whats this about the same gas costing more if you live in a nicer neighborhood. Oh my, we need to ensure the communists currently in office don't get wind of this spreading the wealth technique. (I surely will not invite them to read the blog) I am told its easy you just have your maid do it.
Hmm thinking to myself, OK do I let my maid who gets $7 per day know that I have all kinds of cash in the house so she can pay an unknown amount when gas is delivered, do I take a day off from work and wait for the gas to be delivered, or do I tough it out?
Pretty simple answer, Tough it out cold showers ever day and microwaved meals for a week no problem.
Finally Saturday arrives!!! I am home believe it or not they said your gas will be delivered between 6:00AM and 12:00 on a Sat Morning. Ding Dong 6:30 AM goes the door bell the gas man cometh and I was glad!!! Three men come put a step ladder up the side of the house drag this huge hose up to the roof and fill the tank!!! A couple thousand pesos and presto we have hot water. I am in my glory as warmth streams over my body until a sudden shiver hit me.
How do I know when I am running out of Gas again.
So goes the trials of this stranger in a strange land.
Tu Amigo en Mexico
Marcos

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Home

We are back in Cincinnati and will be home for a little time. Mark will leave for Mexico on Monday the 30th and will be back in Cinci for Labor Day weekend through the 14th or so. Lynda will be staying in cinci from now untl mid September. Hope tp see many of you!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Haciend Tues. Aug. 3, 2010



The Hacienda

Today, Mom and I both packed to head back to the states. My vacation is over and hers is just beginning. We will leave the house around 4am tomorrow to get to the airport, and I will make it to Rochester by about 5pm, IF (and that's a big if!) there are no delays this time around! After buzzing around like busy little bees this morning, Dad picked us up to go to Mexican lunch at the Hacienda. The building basically looks like a castle and you eat in the courtyard. It feels about a million degrees cooler in the shaded courtyard then it did getting out of the car! People are known to start "lunch" here around 2 or 3 and not leave until after 8pm. I can see why! We started with a plate of Carnitas... and by a plate, I mean one plate with meat and guac, another of cilantro and onions, another of limes (YUM!), a bowl of green salsa, a bowl of red slasa, and 2 baskets of tortillas. That alone could make a lunch. Then came the menus. I wanted to be Edith Ann and eat THE WHOLE THING! So, we picked 3 items to share - a sweet chili rellano, enchiladas in a green sauce, and Dad's favorite - Aracherra steak and chorizo sausage. The rellano looked similar to the one in Bernal, but was very different. No cinnamon this time! There were pecans in the sauce, almonds in the stuffing, and the pepper had not been breaded and fried. It was, however, equally delicious. The enchiladas and steak were quite good as well. All the while, Mom and I were sipping on a Margarhita. The first few sips made you go, "BLEACH! TEQUILA!" but, after a few minutes, they had you singing the Tijuana Brass song, Tequila! Dessert, however, was the crowning jewel of the day. We all split a mousse with a name that I don't remember, but it didn't translate to English anyways. It had a white cake bottom, white mousse, white frosting, which I think was really white chocolate, but Mom disagrees, AND a fruit gel layer on top with a hint of dark chocolate hidden inside. The fruit tasted like nectarines mixed with mango and something a little more tropical. Can I just say that it was the best thing I'd ever eaten and leave it at that?! We boxed up what we couldn't eat and rolled ourselves out of the restaurant. Since then, I've been moping around the house not wanting to leave Mexico. It is absolutely gorgeous here, there are amazing sites to see, and did I mention just how delicious the food is?! I'm sure you'll miss Mom's musings while she's in New York and Ohio for a few weeks, and you won't know what to do with yourselves each morning with those extra few minutes back in your life. Might I make a suggestion? Look up flights and plan a trip down!

Heather

pictures of Bernal



Monday August 2, 2010
Delores Hildalgo is a town known for Talavera pottery. It is identified by brightly painted and often very intricate designs. We went there to find water jugs to have in the dining room and on the terrace. We drove to the city and went straight to the center oftown expecting to see this everywhere. We found a small artisans market and a few things. We walked around the center square and noticed there werer more bees ther than we have ever seen any where…odd. I did an internet search on my phone and found out the town is known also for its exotic ice cream flavors. We then noticed all the ice cream vendors handing out tastes. Of course we had to taste. You would not need to buy an ice cream cone after tasting form everyone! There was lime, beer, tequila, whiskey, caramel, chili, mango, cheese, corn, cherries and pecans and pine nuts, and a lot we couldn’t understand. It was so much fun!! The last one is the one Heather got and also a lime one, Mark got chocolate, and another one with caramel and some strange fruit. Lynda had a cherry one with chocolate chips, mixed with a chocolate one, and a lime. The lime was amazing as was so many other flavors!
We were going to go back to the car and go somewhere else, but on a whim I asked someone where the artisans were and it turned out they were only 4 blocks away. So off we tread. The street was definitely under major construction. No problem, just wait for the grader to pass buy and you can walk right through the zone to cross the street, but don’t trip over the string lines to mark where they are laying new sidewalks. The artisans shops were interesting. Very small but crammed with stuff and great prices. Because of the construction, everything was covered in dust as the shops do not have doors, they are just open to the street. We picked up a few items and decided to head out. As we were leaving town we stopped into more pottery spots and picked up a few more items.
This pottery is going to add some color to our house and everything in it is white or black. So today I found 2 planter pots, a basket pot for a table, 2 large water holders with stands, one small bathroom water jug and a square plate. Heather found a few baking dishes for a friend. Success for all
Sunday August 2, 2010
Today we really took an adventure. We drove three hours towards Mexico City to a town called Teotihucan to visit the pyramids. It is believed that they were built in 600BC and at that time, the city was bigger than Rome with an estimated population of almost 200,000. But the population disappeared and the Aztecs later found the site. The Axtecs then believed the city was the city of the gods, due to the pyramids that were there. They believed that some of the structures were a burial site. Modern science had proved that the Aztecs were correct. The pyramid of the sun is the third largest pyramid in the world having nearly the same base dimensions and the Cyclops in Egypt, but not the same height or construction. This pyramid rises more than 20 stories high and is climbable.
WOW, says Heather. We were in awe over the site which has only been being uncovered since 1998, but small efforts had been being done throughout the 20th century. Two hundred and forty eight stairs, oh my gosh, to the top! And we climbed them all. What a gorgeous site from the top. There was amazing landscape and inexplicable site of the ruins.
Mark is sure the creators of Indiana Jones movies got their set designs by visiting this site. We spent all day wandering around, trying to figure out what some of the structures were, climbing, climbing and more climbing. We climbed the pyramid of the sun and the pyramid of the moon and several other littler things.
We touched 3000 year old paint and got the energy from touching the pinnacle of the pyramid of the sun. Heather knew a lot of the history of the people and area as she had taken a class at Geneseo about all of this. She was so excited that she got to see it. And we were glad we were able to take her there.
The drive was uneventful until coming home when we came across a road blockade made by many Federal police with machine guns and bullet proof vests. No problem, they asked where we were from and what we had been doing and waved us on. We think there were looking for drugs as we were so close to Mexico City and saw them searching vehicles that they had pulled over to the side of the highway. We drove through some of the most beautiful country side we had ever seen. Kind of gave me the feeling when we drove by some of the mountains out west, but we seemed to always be surrounded by mountains.
A lovely day had by all.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Playing tourist again

Saturday July 31st…Our 28th anniversary! And onwards to Guanajuato.
We thought we were on our way to Oz, but...holy cow, we are not in Kansas anymore. Beautiful scenery and wait, there is a horse out there, no, it is a man plowing between the rows of corn using the old plow and horse method. We are stopped on the highway, mind you, under a no bicycles sign, and along comes a rickshaw type bicycle passing all the traffic, no problem. Soon the reason for the stoppage comes into view.. One mangled station wagon, two mangled bikes and hundreds of bottles of Coke spewed all over the highway….a coke deal gone bad…kind of like Mr. Hawver’s watermelon fiasco. As we pass the man on the bicycle started picking up some of the bottles and put them in his basket. As if this wasn’t enough laughs on a highway, traffic suddenly swerves left revealing an ambulance. It was not just an ambulance driving down the road, it was following a bike race!!! In the right lane of the highway!! Probably the cause of the great Coke bust!
From a bit of research, we knew the streets of Guanjuato were quite curvey and maps never contained all of them. As we were driving down into the town, there were people along side of the road waving and yelling at us. We waved. Then we noticed one of the men was holding a map…Good idea, let’s pick one up…we struck gold! Turns out the guys handing out the maps will get in your car and direct you into town and parking. You could also keep them with you to be a tour guide. Well we screwed up. After he got us to town, we said Thank you and went on our merry way. First, the market..Oh my Gosh Busy, packed, labyrinth, Carnitas totas! And a great leather purse. Onto find the temple that our guide had said would be great to see and so a candy store with 300 kinds! Up the hill we hike. Our map said it would be about a 15 min. walk. After an hour, straight uphill, we asked directions. We were right on track but 1 ½ kilometers away. Up we went. About a half hour later we asked again….3 kilometers more….Finito Bandito, we flagged a bus and went back down into town. So, besides just leaving streets off, maps of Guanajuato are not to scale, at ALL! On our bus ride we cud have walked faster, why… because we were following a semi pulling an over width bulldozer through the narrow winding hilly streets of the town. We made it to where we could easily walk and got of that heated tin can!!
We found a ‘fanicular’, an incline rail car. We boarded and went up to the most gorgeous view of the city/. Somehow we lucked out and got front and center for the view out the window. Too cool. After we were down we decide it was past lunchtime and found a great lunch spot in the shade. We were obviously tourist of the US persuasion and every vendor person stopped by our table to try to sell us things. We even got serenaded by a picture perfect Mexican singer!! It was a great break. We found callenda baso, the kissing street. It is street or alley way that is no more than 24” wide. Legend has it that two lovers who lived in different houses, one on one side of the alley and one on the other, could kiss good night over the balconies. If you go there and kiss it will being you 7 years good luck. If you go and don’t kiss, 7 years bad luck. So we kissed in the alley on our 28th Anniversary!!n We did a bit of shopping and jewelry looking and decide we had best get out of Dodge before dark as we no longer had a driving guide. Tadah!! We were great. Heather sat in the back seat with 4 different maps and I had one in the front. We managed to navigate out of twon without getting lost and then back to the highway! All in all, forgoing to a lace we had never been before, we did superbly!

spreading my wings

Friday July 30th,

Big day!! It is finally guaranteed nice weather so we drove Mark to work and finally headed to Bernal to climb la Pena! Amazing ness, we did not get lost and we managed to find parking. In front of us lay a challenge to scale the monolith!! We embarked on our momentous journey at 8:45am with, oh no, the bathrooms were not opened yet. Oh well, we’ll probably dehydrate anyways as we are only carrying 2 bottles of water. Heather was excited and began the climb in a hurry, only to realize in about 15 -20 minutes, that the altitude makes a difference in your breathing. We started at about 7200’ above sea level climbing to 8000 feet. Frequent rests to absorb the vista was the ticket. It didn’t take too long to adjust, maybe ¾ of the way up. The scenery was breathtaking, literally, oh no wait, that was the heighth. The path was rocky, no, bouldery and narrow but fun. When we reached the top, of where you can go without rock climbing gear, it was awesome! 275 degree panoramic views that were absolutely awesome. Heather decided to boulder up another 30-40 feet alone and had a grand time. I stayed back to take pictures of her. We made it don in record time. What took us 2 hours to go up, took about ½ hour to go down. We were almost running. We were feeling awesome, was it the magnetic force of the laPena or the fact we could breathe easily?
It was now time to move the car and embark on our shopping journey. Bernal is known for wool and bread. What an awesome combination. We nicknamed it the sweet town. The bread is light and lace with a sweetened cream cheese mixture with sugar sprinkled on top served warm out front of the bakery. Free tasties! They also cooked these flatter breads on a griddle out front. We tasted and bought them both! The scarves and wraps are beautiful. And the loomed rugs are amazing. I want them for our house but want Mark’s opinion on them and need the sizes. Heather found a couple wraps and bought jewelry from the artist himself. She found a Queretaro opal necklace and another one that was kind of green. He had done some silver wire work to mount the stone. We took the trolley ride to see the sights of the Puebla de Bernal. There was a hotel that looked like a little town with an astounding view of la Pena. We took the trolley so we could end up at the weavers, but ours ended at the church. Later in the day we saw a tour group go into the weavers area and just joined them at t eh back of the line. The looms are very old and worn and they are so fast at their work. There were piles of rugs, blankets, woven artwork and sweaters everywhere. The town is also known for the Gordita wars between the women in town. We thought we’d be brave and go to one of the trashy looking gordita stand to try the fare. We got to where Mark had had one in the past, started to walk in and chickened out. We were scared of the afteraffects to our stomachs and headed to the hotel restaurant that we had spied earlier. The place we ate at had a gorgeous view of the monolith and the food was awesome. Heather had chicken Mole and I had, be jealous here Ed, Chile Rellanos. We voted mine the best. Being the sweet town, it was filled with meat, I think , and mangoes and spices and the sauce on top was Mexican cream with cinnamon, some sweetness and then sprinkled with pomegranate seeds..Oh my was that tastey!! We were very successful and went on our way back to pick up Mark form work. No Problems!
We changed into nicer clothes at Makino and went to Hotel Diamonte to have a cocktail, some chilied peanuts and a view of Queretaro. Well somehow we ordered our Margharits wrong and ended up with tequila, and lime juice on the rocks. Better luck next time. But it was a pretty view and great conversation.