Wednesday-Thursday: Metepec, and my birthday in Mexico!!

Day 4: Wednesday, October 16th

Picking back up…

Wednesday morning I’m not really sure what we did. I think we were just mostly around the house- maybe Ivan and his brother ran a couple errands?

Anyway, nothing too exciting happened in the a.m.

In the afternoon, we (just me, Ivan, Ethan, Asher, Kaly and Ivan’s brother) headed to Metepec. It’s a nearby pueblo magico (anyone know how to make accent marks in WordPress?? There’s supposed to be an accent over the “a” in magico…) which is very cute.

Due to upcoming Dia de los muertos, there was also a big market set up.

On the way through, we saw a man selling chapulines. These are…. roasted grasshopper. Yep, like, grasshopper grasshoppers. They are a SNACK, served as you can see, with salsa valentina and lime.

We’ve all tried them in the past, but my nephew Kaly was a first-timer. haha.

The brave soul that he is, he was willing to give them a go!

I was cool with not having a second go-round on these. I mean, they honestly aren’t bad, but it’s more of a mental game than anything. Kind of a “try once and done” thing for me…

We wandered through the market, and then headed up to the hilltop church.

Lots of steps on the way up. It’s a really beautiful spot. We were here once before in 2020 (right before the pandemic!).

From the top there are lovely views over the town of Metepec, with larger Toluca expanding around behind it.

The boys taking a group selfie 🙂

We got some nice group shots too!

Being a Wednesday afternoon, it was really quiet everywhere. We stopped in to look at the beautiful church.

Then we mostly just wandered around the town for another ~1 hour or so. The boys all got paletas (homemade popsicles, basically, made of fruit, or in my case, pistachio).

There’s a city center area with a big mermaid statue. A woman selling things at the market told me to make sure to check out the “mermaid” as it’s “what the town is known for”, but I guess I forgot to ask her specifically what the significance of the mermaid is! This is nowhere near the ocean, so that can’t be it. I don’t know! I’ll have to find out.

I ended up buying these adorable/ spooky Dia de los Muertos decorations! I was looking all over for a “catrina” (the female skeleton) but ended up actually finding this couple- even better! So cute. I really like them and think they’ll make me smile every year when I pull them out, in memory of our October Mexico trip.

I also bought a calavera, or skeleton head. Mine is exactly like the bigger bright green one, except bright orange. Unfortunately, I handed it to the lady to wrap up before I took a picture.

By this point it was later afternoon, so we drove from Metepec to downtown Toluca to meet up with Ivan’s dad to eat. (He works downtown and was able to slip away from work to meet us.)

Ivan and I split a sopa azteca and some chilaquiles. Full disclosure, I drank Coke in Mexico…. I figure, a) it’s another country, so does anything really count? b) it’s real sugar vs high fructose corn syrup and c) I just wanted to, so there. 😜

After our meal (late lunch? early dinner? I don’t know. Their meal times are weird in Mexico. This was the “comida”, or main meal, at ~4:00 pm), Ivan’s brother wanted to go to this local arcade at a nearby mall.

They spent a long time figuring out purchasing a couple of multi-player cards while I sat on a bench and fiddled around on my phone, lol, and then we spent a good hour probably letting the boys play. It was a great arcade! Large and with a big variety of games.

Ivan and I joined in on the fun. I thoroughly enjoyed losing not once, but twice, to Ivan on the motorcycle racing game. 😭

We finally headed back to the house! Can’t remember what exactly we did the rest of the evening. I think it was pushing 7:30-8 pm by the time we got back, and I was a bit tired from the whole afternoon out. Pretty sure we just kind of lounged around and eventually had a snack/tea/ coffee before bed.

Day 5: Thursday, October 17- My 41st Birthday!!

Thursday was my birthday!

I did not have any big plans for my birthday. I’m not a huge “birthday person” exactly. I mean, I like my birthday, but I’m also not really special about it. Like, I don’t necessarily take off work for my b-day (in fact I think I usually don’t?), and I’m generally fine just doing whatever.

Besides, Ivan had already said he really wanted to go to Mexico City Thursday for the mercado, which is only on Thursdays. Sure, sounds good.

We also had to be back and at the quinceanera rehearsal by 5:00. So, that was pretty much our day!

Heading out around ~9:30 a.m…..

Here’s something you won’t see in the U.S: a “pilgrimage” bike ride of literally dozens and dozens and dozens of bikers (I thought the line would never end!!), just casually riding down….the freeway. Um, ok….I see nothing potentially dangerous about this plan. LOL.

In Mexico City, we parked near one of his cousin’s house. View out to the more “downtown” area of el distrito federal.

I had never been to this cousin’s house before. It was, let’s just say, VERY different! We stopped in to use the bathroom. View from upstairs balcony:

From here it was walking distance to the market.

We met up with his aunt, uncle and some others, and got a table. I blogged about this market last time, but for anyone new, they sell all sorts of stuff (fruit, veggies, clothes, misc.), including a hot food area.

Ivan always wants the mixiotes, this certain meat dish. We also like the fried fish, and I LOOOOOOVE the shrimp cocktail.

The boys wandered around the market. Ethan bought a jacket.

We also got a fresh cantaloupe after a guy Ethan handed a sample and he loved it. Haha.

From the market, we drove over to Ivan’s godmother’s house for a little bit. We didn’t have too long, but they have a son Asher’s age, so the boys all hung out for a while and we chatted.

On the way out of town we swung by this panaderia where his cousin said they have the BEST conchas, or Mexican sweet bread, which Ethan is literally obsessed with and ate so many on this trip that he may or may not have returned with diabetes. hahaha.

Then the drive back to Toluca… took well over an hour with traffic. We had just enough time to drop the boys off and then race off to the quinceanera venue to meet up with his sister, girls and mom.

You can see our niece practicing her dance in the background, wearing her skirt hoop over her jeans! ha.

We didn’t have to do too much here besides get the lay of the land. I was instructed on my part as the “madrina de zapatillas”, or the “godmother of the shoes”, I guess would be an awkward translation.

Basically, at a certain point in the evening, I’d need to walk out onto the dance floor, accompanied by her chambelan (her male dance partner, who would act as my assistant and would carry the shoes on a fancy white pillow) and I would then bend down and change my niece’s shoes from her “little girl shoes” to her “woman’s shoes”, symbolizing her transition from child to adult.

Seemed simple enough. This was also when I learned that there would be the option for the godmother (and parents or grandparents) to give a little speech. Oh. Ummm. Wasn’t really planning on that….But, also, did I want to be the wimp who couldn’t say a few nice words on her goddaughter’s special day? 😩

The rest of the evening we were just at home. I spent some time holed up in my room with a notebook sketching out what I might say in my speech! 😬 Fun fact, I’ve never been anyone’s maid of honor, nor have I ever given a wedding speech, nor have I ever presented at a conference, or anything of the sort.

At about 10 pm we were downstairs having tea/coffee/hanging out, when they pulled out a birthday cake! Ivan had secretly bought it on the way home from the party hall. He had pulled over to run into a store, but I honestly didn’t even pay attention to what he had stopped for! Haha. We had just stayed in the car, so I didn’t even notice when he stuck it in the trunk. Lol! What a nice surprise.

And just like that, the week was flying by. Friday would be the quinceanera already! Stay tuned for my final recap of Friday- Saturday, before we’d fly home on Sunday.