LA REINA DE QUE.............?

Over this past month, I've been going through pictures, saving 2009 photos to external hard drives and DVDs to make room for this year's. I came across some from the fall that reminded me of some funny times I had as a tourist with Marty and Bill when they visited me from California. And I never blogged about them, so here goes........

We spent one day at the very famous Museo de Antropologia. Now Bill and I had both been there before(not together, of course) ..... a long, long time ago. I had been there about 45 years ago with my aunt. So both of us spent about the first hour saying "this doesn't look like I remember it.... are we sure we're in the right place?........ as if, first of all our memories after 45 years had any shred of accuracy, and second as if the museum would have stayed the same over the past 45 years. I felt pretty silly when I finally found the "Aztec calendar" which, incidentaly, is no longer believed to be a calendar.

It is a huge museum and quite spectacular, but we could only see about half of it in the one day we had. As we were walking toward the entrance to leave, suddenly a bunch of reporters and photographers came running towards us, then past us and back into the main sala where the biggest Aztec exhibits are. We asked a young woman who was heading in that direction also what was going on, and she said "The queen is visiting". We of course asked, "The queen of what?", and she said, "Well, I think it's the queen of England." So thinking this was a pretty big deal not to miss, we turned around and walked back into that large section of the museum to wait for the queen. And wait.... and wait..... and wait.

Finally, after about 45 minutes we got tired of waiting and decided to leave again. Just as we reached the door, there came the queen and her entourage. It immediately became clear upon seeing her (very tall) and her outfit (very yellow and very loud) and her purse on her shoulder (not on her arm) that this was NOT the queen of England.

We had waited an hour to see the queen of Norway. Who even know Norway HAD a queen?

FELIZ DIA DEL AMOR

Valentine's Day is as big a deal here as it is in the U.S. Since Friday, I've been seeing people walking around with bunches of flowers, cakes, and wildly elaborate balloons -- balloons are VERY popular here. Fortunately, this weekend I got to talk on the phone or skype with almost all of the people I love back home.

What I did here was my favorite Sunday thing to do: I walked up to Plaza de Armas to hear the midday concert. Today it was a group of 14 men, Estudiantina or Tuna, using traditional instruments: mandolins, guitars, accordians, castenets, tambourines, and their fabulous voices. It's very upbeat, energetic music and the men with tambourines at various times during the concert perform with them, jumping, twirling hitting the tambourine with their feet, knees, elbow, head. It's pretty spectacular. I wish I could post a recording of their performance on this blog because it's very Mexican and very fun.

Then I met Kay, the woman in my spanish class in Burlington who is here for the month, and she and I went for Sunday dinner at Chucho El Roto, a nice restaurant in Plaza de Armas. I had been craving a bowl of their Crema Prehispanica which is cream of huitlacoche soup. Huitlacoche is a black fungus that grows on some corn here -- I know it doesn't sound appetizing, but it actually is quite delicious. I guess it's sort of Mexico's version of French truffles..... but they don't need pigs to look for it.

LLOVIENDO GATOS Y PERROS

I'm back in Queretaro again, and it's been raining and chilly since the day after I got back. Good time to catch up on things inside my relatively warm, dry house.

It's been way too long since I wrote in this blog. .... even after all my resolutions to write more often. So, no more resolutions. My excuse for the past month is that the sun, the salt water and all the cerveza and potato chips I consumed drained me of resolve and softened my brain. In reality, I had guests from the moment I arrived until I got on the plane to return to Queretaro.... quite a change from being alone most of the time since September. I thoroughly enjoyed the company of good woman friends and wanted to soak up every minute of their company. We (Adele, Erica, Mary, Catherine, and I) had a fabulous time drinking and eating and talking and playing Bananagrams (thanks to Erica) and exploring cenotes and ruins and beaches and long dirt roads. But that left very little time, energy or sobriety to compose blog entries.

And the last week, my son, Morgan and his wife, Diana who is 4 month pregnant, came which was truly wonderful. It is a real gift to get to spend time with a son and daughter-in-law away from all the demands of work and home. I had a great time showing them my favorite beach, Xcacel, the best snorkeling at Yaal-Ku Lagoon and Turtle Beach in Akumal, the best restaurants, La Buena Vida, Lol-Ha, and Lucy's Too in Akumal, and exploring a place I hadn't been yet: Aktun-Chen where we toured a dry cave and snorkeled in a big cenote. The rest of the time we played Hearts and Bananagrams, and Diana and I tried our best to challenge Moke at least a little, but he usually won.

It felt good to arrive back "home" here in Queretaro. It felt very familiar to arrive at the bus terminal, take a taxi to Pino Suarez 98 B and turn the key in the door. And things were as I had left them, although the owner, Julie had been here for the month of January. The next day, Sunday, I called Aurora and Javier to let them know I had returned and was invited to have some wine with them in the afternoon. Before that, after unpacking and organizing a bit, I went for a walk because it was a beautiful, clear day. I bought a gordita at my favorite place and went to Plaza de Armas for the Sunday afternoon concert. It was by "Ixchel - Orquesta Tipica de Queretaro": violins, accordian, guitar, base, xylophone, and percussion -- very happy music, and very typically Mexican.

Reconnecting with Aurora and Javier was wonderful -- they have become such good friends. However, I did feel as if my newly acquired Spanish had suffered from being with English speakers for a whole month. But Aurora assures me that it is only "sleeping" and will be waking up now that I'm using it again ------ at least I think that's what she said.