October 27, 2009 - 42 Years

Well, I am now officially 42 years old. I can´t believe it.
It was a fabulous birthday and I couldn´t have been in a better place to celebrate. Caroline and Cory really made it special for the entire day they made it all about me. Unfortunately my sweetie Ken wasn´t here with me. Next year we will definitely be together! As it is he will be joining us on Friday. That is only 2.5 days away. I guess I can live with that. It really hit me that I missed him when we first arrived in Guadalajara and I realized that he wouldn´t get to see and experience this amazing city with us. On the other hand, I am certain he and I will come back here at some point and I can show him around...
In any case, yesterday was amazing. I started out the day with coffee, pan dulce (Mexican sweet bread) and delicious yogurt with fruit, all in the comfort of our own home.
We headed out with full tummies for a day of exploring two little towns on the outskirts of the city... Tonala and Tlaquepaque. These two towns are known for handicrafts and excellent shopping. They also happen to be full of beautiful people. Their plazas and walking streets are very inviting. It actually made me want to stay there and skip the city. In any case, we all did very well with some early Christmas shopping and even shopping for a few birthdays coming up. We tried to find a glass blowing factory but didn´t find it due to very hard to read street signs. All the street names are on small tiles on the side of the buildings on the street corners. It is very difficult to spot them in a moving vehicle. If I had it to do over we would have taken a cab to the towns instead. Driving here is difficult at best. On the way back into the city we were stuck in a crazy traffic jam. At the heart of it was a car stuck to the side of a truck´s wheel well. I was just very gratefull that it wasn´t me. It seems that often there two lanes of cars for one physical lane which can create obvious problems!
When we returned to the hotel we were all starving. We cleaned up a little, put sweaters on... did I mention it is cold here, especially at night? ... and made a bee-line to our favorite La Chata. It was amazing again. And this time I had a margarita too! It seems that drinking really doesn´t agree with me. I was ready for bed an hour later. I guess a belly full of booze and good food will do that to a person.

After dinner we got on a horse drawn carriage and had a tour of Guadalajara. The horse, Vicente, was a caramel brown and of slight stature. He was carrying us in a white carriage with red trim and a glass window in the back with an etched image of Jesus. It was beautiful. I was reminded of my ride with my friend Tricia through New Orleans a couple years ago. The guide we had in New Orleans was like an encyclopedia of information on the city. Our ride last night wasn´t quite as exceptional for a few reasons: my Spanish isn´t so good that I would understand everything our driver had to say, and the traffic around us was so loud it was often very hard to hear. I was really impressed with Vicente and his seeming lack of fear. When we were finshed with the ride we all got pictures with Vicente and our driver. Funny I don´t remember his name. I got a little too close to Vicente´s face when he had his eye blinders on and he gave me a little head butt. I deserved it. He was much more gentle without his bridle and eye shades and even gave us a big smile with all of his teeth showing! I think he was really happy to have that thing off!

After a long day of celebrating my 42nd year I was really ready for some deep sleep. Apparently I slept through drag racing outside the hotel and throughout the streets of Guadalajara! That´s me, the deep sleeper. I guess it was screetching, sirens, whooshing down the street... but no crashes??

Now we are getting ready to leave this beautiful city and make our way back to the beach. We have in mind a few very small towns north of Puerto Vallarta.
I will be back with more adventures when I have access to another computer.
Mas tarde amigos.