Day One in Mexico City

Dear Family and Friends,

Tuesday morning Audrey picked us up at 6:45 am and took us to the Tucson airport.  Our adventure was off to a great start.

Here are Chuck and I waiting for our first flight.

We flew to Los Angeles, which takes no time at all.  There we changed planes and flew direct to Mexico City,   We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel.  We were very tired and the sun was setting so we had our dinner at the hotel and made it an early night.

This morning we took a short walk from our hotel and had a cup of Starbucks to start our day.

The Starbucks here is much the same as in the USA, except for one big difference.  It takes the crew longer to make the order, which causes the lines to be long.

After getting fueled up, we decided to go visit the huge market located in the south of the city.  The market is said to be the largest market in the world.  It covers acres and acres.  We just saw one tiny section, but it made for a fun morning.

Here are some photos.

Nice melons.  These look so fresh, I could almost taste how sweet they are just by looking at them.

Huge amount of dried chilies of every variety there is.

These are colorful small fresh fresh peppers.  I love the sign above them, it says Dinosaur Eggs.

I found a market kitty.  Looks healthy and well feed.

With so many people working at the market they have to eat and there are many very small stalls where people can eat.

He is making tacos.  They sure looked inviting, but we had other plans for lunch.

Here is a couple, I think the man works at the market.  The lady is enjoying some soup and their daughter is sitting safely in a crate behind them.

This happy vendor sells chickens.  Look how large his chicken breasts are.

Large amount of Mexican sausage.  

One last market picture.  This lady is buying the largest wash tub I have ever seen.  Maybe she has a bunch of kids to bath at home.  

 

After a couple of hours we were through with the market.  There was tons more to see but it was getting hot in there so we took a taxi back to our hotel.  

We rested a little at the hotel and then started our afternoon adventure.  

We decided we wanted to try some street food.  They always say don't eat from the street vendors, and we usually don't but the food looks so good we decided to take the chance and try several vendors just to have some real Mexican food.

Our first vendor, Edwardo, was making tortillas out of blue corn meal.  

We ordered one and halved it.  This is mine.  It was very tasty.

Our second vendor, Carlos, made us flautas.  

Here is mine..

and here is Chuck enjoying his.

The third place we went was to a small outdoor vendor who had plastic tables and chairs.  They were extremely busy and offered many items on the menu.  I chose a burrito and Chuck had a soup called pozole.

While we were waiting for our food, these two lovely ladies offered me something that I have never had before.  I had seen them in Thailand but was not brave enough to try them there.  They offered me some fried grasshopper to try.  I accepted the offer and honestly, it was crunchy with a smoked garlic flavor.  It was really good.

This is a gross picture, but I just wanted to show that I did indeed eat a fried grasshopper.

These are the two ladies that shared their grasshoppers with us.  They are Irene and Velna.

Irene said she was eating a Mexican pizza.

Here is my plate with burritos, rice with mole sauce and salad.  Yum, yum.  

Here is Chuck enjoying his meal.

The street food did not make us sick.  It was all very good and unique.  We will certainly do this again.  

After eating we walked around before returning to the hotel.

Here is a picture of the Revolution Memorial reflected in a building.

and here is Chuck posing by a Day of the Dead art piece.

We had a  fun food filled day.  Tomorrow we will have a tour guide and I bet he would never let us do the fun things we did today on our own.

Love you.

Nancy

What have we been up to?

Dear Family and Friends,

I will give you a quick update on what has happened during my absence from this blog and other social media.  

We have been busy even if we have not been putting it out there.

Our intent was to fly from Ecuador to Arizona in mid October.  Our sweet granddaughter, Portia, who was married in Europe during covid, and who we met up with in Ireland, was planning a post covid wedding celebration for her USA friends and relatives who could not attend the wedding.  She had this scheduled for the end of October.

In early September, Audrey contacted us and said that Jim had passed away.  We made arrangements to come to Tucson as soon as possible.  We had a strong need to be near her.  We arranged to be here the second week of September.

About a week after we got to Arizona, I flew up to see kids and grandkids in Richland, WA.

We had a terrific time together.  I hope we can have this reunion on a yearly basis from now on.  

I am happy to share that although Jim is missed more than we know, Audrey is doing as well as can be expected.  She is making plans and is living life. The first part of October she joined us in a quick trip to Laughlin, Nevada.  This trip turned out to be a chance for me to leave money in the casinos.  I'm just going to have to go back later and win it back!

On our way back to Tucson, we stopped in Kingman, AZ for breakfast and a few hours of thrift shopping.  We had a wonderful few days.

Audrey also went with us to Minnesota to celebrate the wedding of Portia and Ilir.

It was a little unusual as costumes were requested.  I did my best, as you can see from yesterday's post, but Audrey and Carol had outstanding costumes.

Here are Portia and Illir.

So, we have been busy.  Just quietly.

We will soon be on our way to Mexico. I decided that I want to take pictures and share our trip with you.  We will start our trip in Mexico City.  We will be meeting our friend, Bob Cox, in Puebla.  After that we will go to Oaxaca for a few days.  I am especially excited about Oaxaca because I have never been there before.

So this has been a capsule version of what we have been up to these last couple of months.  

We are looking forward to more travel and the holidays ahead.  

Hoping that you all are doing well.  

Love you,

Nancy

Will I know when it is time to close this blog?

Dear Family and Friends,

Hello my friends.  It has been a long time since I have contributed anything to this blog.  The other day I was about ready to write a final goodbye post and put this blog to rest.  Then I remembered we have an upcoming trip to Mexico.  I also remembered why I created this blog in the first place, back in 2007.  The reason I created this blog, when we first moved to Ecuador, was because I wanted a way to share the pictures I was taking with my family and friends.  

For those of you who are as ancient as me, you will remember back in the old days when taking photos involved using a film camera and in order to see our photos we had to have them developed.  We ended up with an envelope of photos of an event or a trip.  We loved showing them to our friends.  We didn't just hand them the envelope and say look at these photos of my trip or whatever.  Well, at least I didn't, I stood right there as they looked through the photos telling the story behind each picture.  (who, what and where).

When we first went to Ecuador I was so excited about all the new and wonderful things we were encountering, that I wanted to share the photos I was taking.  Not only share the pictures, but share the stories behind the pictures.  

Chuck encouraged me to write a blog so I could share not only my photos but share what the pictures were about, etc.  With his help I got it up and running. This blog is now about fourteen years old.  I was pretty faithful about sharing our lives and travels until the Covid lockdown.  I have talked about this in the past so I won't rehash that.  I did enjoy posting this year when we returned to the U.S. for a very special wedding, a graduation and taking Matt to Minnesota for his vacation and also when we went to Peru and to Ireland.  

After we returned from these trips we settled down in Cuenca to be homebodies until mid-October.  

This brings me back around to our Mexico trip.  As I said, I had been thinking of posting a goodbye post and closing the blog.  But when I thought about traveling to Mexico and not having a venue to post photos and tell all about our trip, I realized that I need this blog.  I may not be consistent about posting, but when the enthusiasm to share floods out of me, I am so thankful I have a place to share all about our trip with you, pictures and story.  

Since I have not been on Facebook or any other social media for a few months, I want to share what is going on in our lives, but this is for tomorrow.  For now, I've talked enough, don't want to bore you.  

Love you,

Nancy

PS:  Here is a recent photo.  

 

Never felt more Positive about being Negative!

 

Dear Family and Friends,

Chuck and I both tested NEGATIVE this morning to Covid.  This means we can leave the condo and get out into the world.

We both feel great and are so thankful that we have no after effects.

Love,

Nancy

Health Update and some Fancy Irish Dancing

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been a week since I learned that I have Covid.  I am getting better every day.  I am going to get tested on Thursday.  If I test negative then life will be back to normal.  As I feel better, being quarantined is more frustrating.

Here is a short video I made while we were in Dublin.  I hope you enjoy.

Love,

Nancy