Sunday With the Fam

Ulises Cooking Breakfast

After spending most of yesterday with Ulises's family, we spent all of today with them.  Well, I guess I spent most of the day because I excused myself to go to church, but other than that, it was all day.
In the morning, Mari worked on a skirt for me.  We bought material yesterday to make me a skirt.  Also material to make Ulises a shirt.
After church, my skirt was ready.  I tried it on and showed it off.  It is really comfortable.
Ulises's sister, Mari, made dinner, entomatadas and beans.  I had never had entomatadas before.  Basically it is a corn tortilla covered in a tomato-based sauce and topped with cheese.  We had nothing inside because I didn't have anything to put in them, but Mari says she likes them with chicken.  They were good, though.  While dinner was being made, I played mancala with Ulises's niece.  Then for dessert we had cheesecake!
I guess Mari had wanted only half a piece of cheesecake, and her daughter, who was serving the cheesecake, took that to mean that her father would have the other half.  We all had quite a laugh over it because he was left with a tiny piece.

Playing Mancala

Entomatadas

Mari's cheesecake, Ivan's, and their daughter's

I'm wearing my new skirt

Flat Stanley

Mari cutting fabric for Flat Stanley's clothes

My cousin's son has a project for school.  In this project, he needs to send a paperdoll, named Flat Stanley, to someone living in a different culture.  It appears to be a tool to teach the kids about different cultures/places/people.  Since I live in Mexico, and most of my family lives in the same state, I was selected for the assignment.  Well, I accepted the request.
The nice thing is that Ulises is excited about doing this.  I think he is excited to be able to share his city, his culture with other people.  So, we ropped his sister into helping us.  Today we went to the store and bought some fabric/other supplies to make Flat Stanley some clothes.  He now can now dress as an Indio (indian) or a Mariachi.  We will be taking photos of Flat Stanley at some of the historic sites around town.  It should be fun.

Fitting Flat Stanley

Making the headband for Flat Stanley

El Indio Flat Stanley

Working on his hat

Almost done!

Me "helping"

Ulises "helping"

Ivan "helping"

Mari disgusted by our helping

Mariachi Flat Stanley

Celebration Dinner

Tonight we had a dinner to celebrate my friend's marriage last weekend.  She got married civilly because in the life of a foreign service officer, in order to get the spouse on the orders, you must be married.  So if your spouse is planning on moving with you, there are tons of things that will be necessary, which makes it easier for many to do a civil marriage, and then have the actual wedding later.

My choice this evening

In any event, the wedding will be next year, and I have been asked to be a bridesmaid.  Luckily, they are planning on having the wedding in DC where I will be located for training, so I can committ to being able to go now.
I only have one real comment to make about the dinner.  I don't want people to read this as me being cheap, or complaining.  I just want to state that people think that splitting a bill between everyone when you are in a large group is fair and also easier.  In fact, in my experience, it is not.  I won't say much more than that, because in this case it didn't bother me because I was covering the cost of my friends, but normally this is something I actively speak out against.  Mainly because I don't drink alcohol, and alcohol quickly increases the cost of the bill.  So, generally speaking (is this is talking from experience from the times when people have wanted to do this), if I let someone just split the bill evenly between everyone present, I would end up paying twice as much as what I actually ordered.  I guess people assume that it evens out eventually, but not for someone like me.

Eating my food

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.  We went to Maria Chuchena's, which is a place that Ulises loves.  I got something different this time.  It was better than last time, but I wasn't crazy about it.  I liked the atmosphere more, though, because we were sitting on the terrace.  They also had a mariachi band that played for us.  It was a good evening.

Home Sick

Ulises working in my backyard

I stayed home from work yesterday and today.  I hate being sick.  The only good thing about being sick is that Ulises came to visit me . . . and he decided to work in my garden.  I'm starting to feel a little better.  I thought I was going to have to go to the doctor.  I hate going to the doctor.  This is the first place I've ever been that I've had to go to the doctor to get over being sick.
In any event, after I woke up this morning, I was able to use the time to work on the book I've been writing about my brother.  It is a photo book and shares memories of Clarence.  I will link it to my facebook page when I'm done.  That will probably be later today.
Oh, there was an owl in my backyard today.  You should have seen Gizmo's reaction!  It was crazy!

Sick and working on my book

Owl in my backyard

Dia de la Independecia Parade

Fire fighters on parade

This morning Ulises and I and some of his family went to see the parade for Mexican Independence.  It started around 10.  They had some interesting floats with depictions from Mexican history.  That was probably my favorite part.  They had other organizations also participating, including the Red Cross, school marching bands, biker groups and people with pimped out cars.  It lasted until about noon.  By the time it was over, I was tired and overheated.  But it was still fun.  So, happy Mexican Independence Day!

Horses!

A church

Traditional costumes

Half-naked little boys

Suffering

More suffering

Different view

Canons

Soldiers

A famous figure

More soldiers

Traditional costumes

More traditional constumes

El Grito de la Independencia

Fireworks

We went to the Grito de la Independencia tonight.  It is the Mexican Independence Cry.  It is shouted every year on the 15th of September and includes calling out the names of heroes from the Mexican Revolution.  It ends with them crying "Viva Mexico" three times.  We arrived just as they were doing the call.  We then saw a long fireworks display.  I was impressed.  I think it was probably the best fireworks program I've ever seen.  The only thing that would have made it better would have been fireworks is specific designs exploding in the sky, like perhaps the shape of Mexico or one of their revolutionary heroes' head.  But it was still good.

Ulises and I

The only thing that was a little annoying was that people kept moving.  Which means we were practically pushed around.  We were able to listen to a few songs of the singer that came on after the fireworks,  but then we headed out.  We figured it was better to leave before we got trampled . . .  Still, since this will be my last September in Mexico, I'm glad to have passed it in this way.  Tomorrow we are going to watch the parade in the morning.

Me with Ulises's sister, brother-in-law and niece

More photos

Crazies in the trees

Setting up my PC and Football

My open computer

It's been about 4 years since the second hard drive on my PC crashed, and about 3 since the first hard drive also bit it.  Since then, I've been promising myself I would buy a replacement hard drive and set up my computer.  But I hadn't done so, until a couple weeks ago.  It arrived literally the day before I went to Chihuahua, and I started to set up my computer earlier this week.  I originally just installed the operating system, but that means that none of the drivers for the hardware were installed.  Yesterday I had to reformat it again and install everything from the beginning.  The good news is that the modem and the sound system are now working and I don't have to manually look for each of those.
In fact, considering that this PC belonged to my brother (meaning it is now over 10 years old), it runs really well.  Hopefully it'll last me for another several years.
Then today Ulises, his cousin, and I went over to my friend's house to watch the Packers vs the 49rs.  My friend is an avid Packers fan.  That is actually an understatement.  I'm not really sure how to explain it.  But lets just say, she was extremely upset when the Packers lost.  Still, the game was enjoyable.  Not because I like football, but just because I like spending time with people, even if the reason behind it is to watch football...

How Ulises was watching the game

Haggling for a Good Price

Ulises with the shirt we bought him
yesterday, and upset that he didn't
get to hear them play the national
anthem

Ulises got up early this morning and went to hear the national anthem . . . again.  But they didn't play it this morning, either.  He was pretty disappointed.  But we got up and went to breakfast with our friends.  The place was really nice.  It was listed in the Lonely Planet Guide as being high end, but the price wasn't very expensive when you think in what it can cost for food in the U.S.  But then again, someone on a normal Mexican salary would never be able to afford living in most cities in the U.S. anyway.
I got a dish that was eggs in a salsa-type with beans on the side.  It was excellent.  Ulises loved his food as well, as did our friends.  One of them ordered ant eggs and longaniza, and we all tried it.  The ant eggs were ok.  They had kind of a spongy texture, but the flavor wasn't disgusting.  I guess you could say that was my first experience eating insects, even if they hadn't hatched yet.  We were really impressed by the service as well, which was a nice change from our experience last night.

Fancy breakfast with hot chocolate

After that, our friends had to get ready and go to the airport because one was leaving around 1.  Our flight wasn't until nearly 6, so Ulises and I decided to go look for souvenirs.  We had wanted to buy a tortillera, and thought about getting something to make huaraches as well.  Last night, I looked online and saw mention of a market called La Merced.  It said it wasn't too far from the Zocalo.  We headed out trying to find it.  Again, we had difficulty when trying to get directions from other people.  They kept telling us vague directions that seemed to conflict.  Finally we found one guy who told us exactly where it was located.  We found it pretty quickly after that.

This is hot chocolate, not tea, but you get the picture :)

On the way, before we knew exactly where the market was, we stopped in a store that looked like it would have what we were looking for, just to price them out.  We found a tortilla press like we wanted, and another device for making the tortillas used in huaraches (which are an oval shape).  The tortilla pressed was 80 pesos (more expensive than we had seen in Ciudad Juarez) and the huarache maker was 40.
La Merced is huge.  It seems like they sections for everything.  It took us awhile to get to the area where they sell kitchen items.  The first place that we went to had the tortilla press marked at 90 pesos (more expensive than the store we had seen) and the huarache maker was 50.  We asked how much they would give them to us if we took the two.  They said that the price was the price.  So we left.  They didn't want to barter.  So we weren't going to give them our business.

Breakfast is served!

The next place we went to, we had much better success.  There the tortilla press was the same price as in the store, 80 pesos, but the huarache maker was only 40.  We figured the price there would be the same as going to the store.  We asked how much it would be if we took the two items.  The guy thought about it a moment and then said, 70 pesos.  We accepted.  We hardly had to barter at all!  It was good.
As we were going along, Ulises saw some dishes and pots made of ceramic.  He wanted some of those for making food because he says that food tastes better in pottery.  I don't know if that's the case.  But it was cheap.  We bought a pot, two plates, and a napkin holder for 50 pesos.  The price was a little higher, like 54 in total.  The lady didn't want to barter either, but she finally accepted 50 pesos for the 4 pieces.

Trying ant eggs

After that, we headed back to the hotel.  The president of elect of Mexico, Pena Nieto, was to be giving a report at the Zocalo, so it was as long a walk back as it was a walk to the market in the first place.  We had to go around all the blockades.  When we arrived, we had about an hour before we needed to catch our taxi to the airport.  My friend had come back from taking her boyfriend to the airport and she wanted to go looking for souvenirs for some friends.
There were some stands near the Zocalo where we stopped first.  They were selling some shirts there like what Ulises and I bought yesterday, but a little more expensive.  They weren't willing to barter at all.  We got annoyed and left.  However, we couldn't really find anywhere else that sold things she wanted to get as a souvenir.  So we went back.  Finally, we got one lady to lower the price, but only when we told her how much Ulises and I bought his shirt for yesterday.
Next it was back to the hotel to get our bags and catch our taxi.  We arrived at the airport within pretty good time, considering that there was quite a bit of traffic.  Then we just had to wait to board our flight and come back to Juarez.

And longaniza.  That one didn't sit so well with me . . .

Ivan and his daughter, Iovis, were waiting for us when we got back.  We went to their house for a bit before finally heading home.  Now I am exhausted.  And I'm not ready to go back to work tomorrow.  I need a real vacation....

Loving his food!

El Mercado La Merced

Meat for sale!

The church in the Zocalo

Waiting at the airport

Mexico City from above

Tired and trying to sleep

Ivan loves his gift!

The kittens trying to get comfortable

This one trying to get comfy in my purse