Hola desde México

Well I have officially blown my NaBloPoMo streak to heck over here, haven’t I!

Yesterday (Wednesday) we had an early 6:30 am flight out of Madison.

On a side note, I swear that for someone who travels quite regularly I am literally the worst packer in the world and no matter WHAT I do or how short or long the trip is and how prepared I try to be in advance, I end up rushing around until too late the night before doing a million things. 😑

Anyway. I was so relieved we had ZERO flight issues after all the news coverage of delays/cancellations, etc with the government shutdown. I was so nervous. Everything was perfectly smooth and on time though, for both flights!!

We had a fairly short layover in Chicago O’Hare and then were off to Mexico City. We landed by ~1:00 or so.

We had front row first class tickets on both flights and…. Yeah. I could totally get used to that!!! 😝 It was niiiiiiice!

Ivan’s dad and brother picked us up at the airport. Unfortunately his mom couldn’t come along because she had previously planned to babysit my sister-in-law’s girls! It was too bad but oh well. Ivan parents are actually not coming to this wedding, which is in another state, so this was our only chance to see them quickly.

We headed straight downtown to the Zócalo area as Ivan and I still needed to buy the arras (coins) for the wedding.

There’s an area packed full of jewelry stores that sell these, so we checked out tons of options before finally settling on these:

The jewelry stores were right in the downtown area so we snapped a few pics in the zocalo.

We then stopped for food- I had a potato quesadilla (I love quesadillas de papa!) with habanero salsa plus 2 small molletes with fresh pico de gallo.

We spent the rest of the evening at Ivan’s aunt’s house. She broke her wrist recently and had surgery so Ivan wanted to make sure to stop to see her. Several other cousins etc live either IN that house or right nearby so we got to see a good handful of people.

At 9 pm Ivan’s dad dropped us off at Ivan’s other cousin’s house (the parents of the bride). The mom and bride were already away in anticipation of the wedding. We crashed at their house and would catch a ride to Michoacán with him and his son the next morning.

I was TIRED as I had been up before 4 to get ready for our flight…

Then, this morning (Thursday) we had to get up again at 5 am to hit the road. The drive was pretty long and there were various other reasons too they wanted to go early.

I rode the entire way in the back seat of a car with 2 other people back there (a regular 3 person row, Ivan was up front as co-pilot..) and it was not immensely comfortable, but hey. We didn’t have to rent a car (which wouldn’t have really made sense since we don’t honestly need one now at the wedding venue).

I dozed a little and then mostly just looked out the window for 4 hours. lol.

We made it to Michoacán where we are staying at his cousin’s new house (they just finished building their 2nd house- the one in Mexico City is primary residence but this is their “retirement house” where they’ll move full time in a few years. They have tons of family in this little town and it’s a really nice thing they’ve got going now!)

We have spent most of the day just doing nothing. Haha. I mean, I ate 2 separate rounds of longaniza and steak and fresh guacamole tacos with salsa freshly made in a molcajete and handmade tortillas.

We’ve mostly just been talking and chatting with the novia and novio, her parents, the novio’s mom, other neighbors and family who have been stopping in etc.

Frankly I get a little bored after a while so I sort of pop in and out and take little breaks. 😉 (like right now!). I took a nap this afternoon too for a bit.

Everyone is so nice and it’s been super chill and all good! Tomorrow will be busy as the wedding is tomorrow afternoon!!

We took a short stroll around the (tiny) center plaza and we bought paletas and helado. (I had pistachio ice cream).

Ivan has been “in his happy place”. He totally loves just hanging out and drinking cerveza and shooting the shit with family/friends.

The corn guy came by outside so Ivan got esquites (corn with mayo, lime juice, chile and cheese….). Not to yuck his yum but they are not for me. He (and most Mexicans!) looooove them though.

That’s about all I have to report! This house doesn’t actually have WiFi (yet- they don’t live here full time) and my phone service is spotty here. So I’m kind of getting a moderate yet unplanned “tech break”, too, lol. (Though from my room, where I am now, I seem to get decent cell service sometimes.)

More later! Like I said, tomorrow is the big wedding day so that will occupy most of the day (and night). I have been told to be ready by 3 pm. Okey dokey! I’ll be ready. I don’t have much else to do anyway. 🙂