CINCO DE MAYO, 2016

            Here we are in Mexico City for Cinco de Mayo and NOTHING!  Absolutely nothing. They don’t even know it is supposed to be a holiday.  What kind of Mexicans are they!!! So disappointed!!!

           Well, it’s been just over a week since we arrived here in Mexico and it is all one big blur. I’ve decided that going on a mission with your husband is a little bit like learning to ride a tandem bike with him.  It looks easy, but getting your peddling and signals worked out together can be a real challenge and there are often some messy falls.  It’s a blast when you get it worked out, but the first few times are scary.  I think we’re close to getting our peddling together, but we’ve had a few messy falls.

Mexico City is amazing!!!  I am so overwhelmed.  It is a city of over 20,000,000 people and it is wild. It has the wildest architecture I have ever seen.  We live in a nice part of town and the homes and apartments are all smashed together, but every building is unique and different.  There are flowers and trees growing in the middle of everything.  The purple jacarandas and pink, white, and purple bougainvilleas are everywhere.  The homes are square, triangular, Lego like, Hobbitish, round, and with curls and swerves going everywhere.  The big commercial buildings are the same.  No two are alike and  they sport all kinds of colors and shapes.  As we were driving down the freeway yesterday we came around a curve and there was the biggest flag I have ever seen flying above everything.   Jim says it was 100 feet by 100 feet, but I think it was about 100 yards by 100 yards.  Anyway, you get the picture:  it was huge, bigger than any other flag I have ever seen anywhere!

The traffic is epic!  Everyone warned us about it, but I was not prepared.  It is solid cars everywhere.  But everyone is nice.  Yes, they don’t always follow the rules, but if you get your nose in first they give you the space.  The biggest problem is finding your way around.  The GPS makes it look direct, but there are one way streets everywhere, or the roads are blocked by neighborhood markets, or you can’t get off the expressway because of the weird little side streets.  The trick is to have one person do the navigating and then not to get mad when you have to go a half hour out of your way to get to the street that looked so direct on the map.  Always an adventure.  Today we just drove over to the church, which is just a few blocks away.  It was easy to get there, but we were afraid we would never get home.  We were hopelessly lost for ½ an hour.  Finally a very nice police man helped us to find the way.  He helped, but we still ran into a dozen 1 way streets going the wrong way before we finally made it the few blocks home.

The food has been great.  We’ve eaten at Cheesecake Factory, IHOP, Panda Express, and Texas Steakhouse. We’ve had Mexican food about 2 times.  Everyone has been taking us out this week as they show us around and the treat is to go to “at home” restaurants.  I’m actually looking forward to more Mexican food.

I have found the Mexicans to be friendly and delightful.  They hug and kiss you every time you see them.  Something I have to get used to, but very sweet.  The only problem is they all speak Spanish.  Really, shouldn’t they all speak English too.  By the way, they all hate Trump here.  I wonder why?!  So much more to share, but it will have to wait.  We are working hard and are often overwhelmed.  Hopefully things will get a little easier as we go along.  Hasta la vista!