“when you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. it is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – clifton fadiman

so sometimes i go on vacations for many days and i tell myself that i should blog during the vacation so i don’t have to do it all after the fact because i tend to forget things but then i just get caught up in all the adventures and then i get home and then have a long blog post to write so buckle up because there are sooooo many pictures.
here we go.

we got up bright and early (well not so bright—sun wasn’t even out) on a friday morning and tayte’s dad took us to the airport.
we got on an earlier flight to phoenix so our layover was a little longer, giving us time to grab a bite to eat before flying out to…mexico city!
we had no trouble going through border patrol and then we waited for my parents.
the traffic was bad that day, so they were pretty late, but we all got back to their house fine and dandy.
saturday we woke up early and went to pick up tres and laurie lines (dad’s step-nephew). {they were on mom’s flight to mexico city a couple days before and wanted to go to the pyramids with us.}
we went to teotihuacan to see the 3 pyramids there: temple of the sun, temple of the moon, and the temple of quetzacoatl.


artistic pic of the temple of the sun with the sun behind it. good work, tayte.

so many steps, so little time.

view of the temple of the moon from the tippity top of the temple of the sun

we be so strong. nbd.


temple of the moon

it’s a lot farther away than it looks.

15 minutes later, it still looks this close.


view of the temple of the temple of the sun from the temple of the moon.

there we all be.
after we had enough of those stairs, we got in the car and drove to the final pyramid of the day: the temple of quetzacoatl.

here’s a quetzacoatl (feathered serpent) for ya.

good news: not too many stairs for this puppy.
bad news: we couldn’t get much closer than this.
when we were getting lunch out of our car and getting ready to drive back, we saw some voladores. oh, you don’t know what those are? hope this helps:

so basically the 4 of them sit on top of that extremely tall pole, one of them plays an instrument, then he stands up (on the tippity top of that freakishly large pole) still playing his instrument and starts to stomp his feet, then he ties back in and they start spinning that square thing in a circle, then lean back and they all start swinging in a circle (upside down, mind you), slowly lowering themselves down to the ground.
awesome possum.
great start to our trip.

the next day (sunday) we drove to the ccm (mtc) to drop off some insulin (and some other tasty sugary things and notes) to clatie.
don’t worry, we didn’t see him.
but it was still cool to see that place.

it used to be a school named “benemerito de las americas” (hence the B).

monday we went with mom to help ora hernandez.
ora is a tiny little lady from thailand. every month, on the third monday, she puts together a hot meal for the elderly at one of the catholic churches in the city. costco gives them its expired breads and fruits and ora divides them all up in bags to give to the elderly to take home. costco also provides birthday cakes to help celebrate birthdays. it was such an awesome experience.

dividing up the bread

ora on her stool stirring the stuff in the biggest pot i have ever seen.

the pot tayte is holding is what i consider to be a “big pot.”
the one he’s pouring into is what ora calls a “big pot.”

all the elderly gathered and waiting for their food.

some of the other helpers (ora is the one with the red apron).

these people are so grateful for ora, the mother theresa of mexico city.

the church where this all happened.

puppies on the roof.
nbd.

on tuesday, we went to chapultepec park.
first, we went to the castle of maximillian, the french emperor of mexico many moons ago.

{the castle is in the background}

view from one of the balconies



hallway of stained glass.
cool place.
pretty sure i’d be ok with living there.
then we went to the zoo to see the pandas.
they were sleeping, it was boring.
so naturally we went to see the venomous snakes exhibit.
i have an irrational fear of snakes, which probably started when harry talked to that snake and the glass disappeared and the snake got out.
i swear all the snakes were staring at me.
thankfully, that didn’t last too long.
we made a quick stop to take some important pictures.

yes.
this is a real thing.
the last stop we made was at the national anthropological museum.
it was massive and had lots of cool stuff.

the cool fountain umbrella thing.

itty bitty ball court.

aztec calendar.
we would’ve gotten one, but it’s outdated.
we’re waiting for them to come out with a new one.

montezuma’s head gear.

i’m ok if he just keeps it forever.

olmec head!

tayte was totally ok with this, i promise.

pakah’s (king of palenque) burial attire

the first of many statues of chacmool we’d see.

wednesday we did nothing.
mom got up early and went to visit a sister in her relief society.
tayte and i slept in and barely got dressed in time to go grocery shopping with mamasita that afternoon.
lazy bums.

thursday.

we stopped by the angel de la independencia.
i loved this thing.
then we went to the zocalo, the town square.
usually it’s wide open with throngs of people everywhere.
but there just happened to be some rioting the whole time we were in mexico, and they had set up camp in the zocalo—literally.


we had to walk through their tents, under their tarps to get to the zocalo.

this was as close as we could get to the national palace.
we really wanted to go in, but those dang tents ruined it.

thankfully we were able to go into the cathedral.

way way chido.
then we went to el templo mayor.

the templo mayor ruins are right behind us and the back of the cathedral is farther back.

we saw these everywhere. tayte thought they indicated good places to take pictures. i thought they were gathering places in case you got separated from a group.
we were pretty close.
they’re puntos de seguridad. in there’s an earthquake, you’re supposed to run to one of those.

this is chacmool in his original coloring. a while back, my mom saw some archeologists blowing some stuff on him, and she thought they were spray painting him. they were just being all scientific and bringing out his natural coloring. pretty nifty.

an eagle warrior and a statue.
tayte really liked this guy.

closer view of the back of the cathedral.

that white steeple on the right is definitely leanin’
so after templo mayor, we made another quick stop:

el palacio de bellas artes
this was literally my favorite building, even though we were in it for less than 10 minutes.
so beautiful.

the last stop we made was at the basilica de la virgen de guadalupe.
this is the place where the image of the virgin guadalupe appeared on the poncho of juan diego.


yes, that building is also leanin’

church was going on at the time. on the back wall, you can see where the poncho (below) is hanging. this is the poncho where the image of the virgin guadalupe appeared.

we got this picture by going a floor below the main floor and going on a short moving sidewalk that was placed between this wall and the back of the stage.
this was a pretty long day, with lots of sleeping in the car.
but it was a good one for sure.

on friday my mom had a relief society luncheon that we all went to (well, she, tayte, and i).
we picked up dad from work and went to have dinner at a little taco joint.
we had al pastor for the first time—and it was pretty tasty!

on saturday we woke up early and started driving to a town called taxco.
tayte, the navigator, accidentally directed us through a bunch of small towns instead of just having us stay on the highway. but it was so cool to see those small towns and the people in them.
taxco used to be a mining town, but is still known for its silver.

it was a pretty cool town.

mom and i went there to get some rings.

after taxco, we stopped at xochicalco.
it’s the ruins of the ancient city where the people from teotihuacan went to after teotihuacan fell.

ball court!

there's a sweet observatory.
light comes in through a shaft and it was lined up so that on certain days, light would come in and light up the whole room. the rest of the time, it was just a circle on the floor.

xochicalco was tayte’s favorite place.
after climbing up stairs and getting all sweaty, we stopped to eat at las mananitas, in cuernavaca.
they took you out to these tables in the lawn so you can order drinks and eat some appetizers.

they had birds everywhere, peacocks walking around and in the trees, obnoxious macaws in cages behind us that kept saying “hola.”

the peacocks would come right up to your table and eat the nuts straight out of your bowl.
we’d throw the babies our cherries but the mom’s would just eat them.
rude.
then there was this massive rain storm with thunder like i’ve never heard and we got soaked.

on sunday we just went to church and babysat some kids.
all in all, it was a pretty great day.

on monday we did some last minute shopping for some mexican treats we could bring home with us.
we also went to the mall that’s right next to where my parents live and had lunch there.
yum yum!

tuesday was our last day.
since the temple is so close to the airport and so not close to where my parents live, we saved the temple for the last day.
it was my first time doing a session in spanish, and i was pretty nervous.
then, to top it all off, they asked us to be the witness couple!
that was the first time we’d ever been the witness couple, so that only added to my anxiety.
i had some issues (aka i stopped thinking and forgot what i was supposed to do) but it really was a great experience!

after the session, we went straight to the airport and had an uneventful trip home.
(well, except for the time when tayte went to the next terminal over during our short layover just so he could get me mcdonald’s and while we were eating, people kept making comments about it and i’m pretty sure that had we looked away for a second, our food would have mysteriously disappeared)

i was sad that dad wasn’t able to spend more time with us, but we had such a great time exploring mexico city with mamasita.
we created some great memories and i’m so glad we were able to go!

and, because no trip is complete without some photo booth action:

i have literally never laughed like i did for these 15 minutes of straight photo-boothing.

thanks for letting us come visit parents! it was the best trip ever!!

ok i’m done. it’s over. i probably won’t blog for a month (not that that’s abnormal for me…)