A vacation to Mexico City I will never forget...

In July I was lucky enough to go on a vacation I will never forget. My Mom, my SIL Marissa, my brother Armando and I went to Mexico City for a week and we had a BLAST!! The main reason for going was to celebrate my Tia Cristina's "Surprise 80th Birthday Party". The last time I was in Mexico City I was 18 years old...20 YEARS AGO - so I was truly excited to go and visit with family that I had not seen for many years.

Here’s an itinerary with pictures to share with everyone! -- Enjoy!

Friday, July 7th & Saturday, July 8th, 2006 (Day 1 & 2)
- The plane ride to Mexico was not too long not too short and for once we didn’t have to get to LAX @ 6:00am in the morning. Our flight was @ 1:00pm. Woo Hoo!!!
- Just a few hotel pictures and the surrounding area of our hotel.
- Tia Cristina’s Birthday Party was held at a beautiful restaurant in their ballroom area. It was a very emotional party because my Tia never thought that she'd see us ever again...let alone her sister (my mom). We all cried "happy tears" as you can imagine. The afternoon event was very festive. It featured a Local Mariachi and another performing band with singing and dancing. They had a 5-course meal and the food was delicious. (Click here for pictures)

Sunday, July 9th (Day 3)
- We went to Church with my aunt who attends every Sunday. We then walked to an Indoor grocery market and Marissa bought her “Mole” that she wanted.
- That afternoon our family took us to the famous Arroyo Restaurant. The food was absolutely delicious (they’re known for their “barbacoa” and they also had awesome entertainment, singing and dancing. We had a wonderful time!
- We then went back to Tia Cristina’s house and had fun just reacquainting ourselves with everyone. The black and white pictures of me are when I was 11 years old. I was forgetting my “Spanish” and my mom decided to send me to Mexico City and live with my Aunt for 5 months and attend school. So I did and had a wonderful time with my family and I even learned Spanish. (I do have to mention that when I walked into my Tia’s house again…the memories of when I was 11 years old just came rushing through. The smell of her kitchen and her home still looked the same…it was just beautiful to experience that again”. (Click here for pictures)

Monday, July 10th (Day 4)
- Gerardo (Jerry) my cousin was able to take the week off from being the "Awesome Lawyer" that he is and take us sight seeing for the week. He attempted to take us to the National Museum of Anthropology but it was closed on Monday’s…(great our luck…Thanks Jerry…LOL). So he then took us to the Zocalo, which is one of the oldest parts of Mexico. We went to the Government Building and it was a very interesting and beautiful building to walk through and we learned a lot as well.
- He then took us to “The Cathedral”. Most of the pictures are blurry because we were not allowed to use flash inside…so sorry about that…I did my best.
- He then took us to The Museum of Torture…ugh…I had never been to one of these and it was absolutely “GROSS”…to say the least. The things they used to do to people…one word and one word only…UNBELIEVABLE!! Of course we were not allowed to take any pictures but Jerry was able to get a few pictures with his cell phone camera…(I’m still trying to get them from him and a soon as I can I’ll post them).
- Jerry attempted to take us to this delicious place to eat the best Tacos in Town called “Taqueria Susy”…lol funny huh! But they weren’t open yet (they open at 8:00pm) and we were starving. So we ended up eating these amazing “Tortas” instead and they were so delicious.
- We then went to Tia Cristina’s house and met up with my cousin Pablo. We were talking about going to the pyramids the next day because I hadn’t been there since I was a wee little thing and Pablo happens to mention he knew of a better place called Tepoztlan which had a beautiful scenery and a Pyramid on the top of this mountain. Boy, i only we had known exactly what he meant by mountain… yeesh!!! (Click here for pictures)

Tuesday, July 11th (Day 5)
- So Armando, Marissa and I met up with Pablo and he drove about an hour to the city of Tepoztlan. First of all Marissa wore sandals, and we were ALL (except for Pablo of course) completely NOT prepared for what happened on that day. We actually climbed an entire and HUGE MOUNTAIN on this day. It took us about 3 ½ long hours to climb that sucker…it was the hardest thing any of us had ever done. Marissa wanted to give up a couple of times and kept saying “listen guys I’m done and I’m just going to sit and wait right here for you guys” and we kept telling her “no way we wouldn’t leave you here and to please keep going”. So she did…we all did. I was soooooooooooooo darn proud of all of us. On the way up…I kept asking people as they were coming down how much longer to get up there and they said “oh just a little bit more and that the view was just beautiful”. Well…we finally got up there and we found the…”little pyramid” that Pablo had mentioned…gosh it was really, really small but the view of the city was beautiful. We only stayed up there for about a half hour and then decided to go back down because it looked like it was going to start raining. It only took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get down. As you can imagine we were sooooooooooooooooo tired. I considered this “an unexpected but wonderful experience” for me…(I’m sure Marissa would say otherwise…LOL). I did something that day that I had never done before and I was very proud of all of us. We then finished up the day with a delicious dinner in town and drove back to Mexico City.
(Click here for pictures)

Wednesday, July 12th (Day 6)
- Jerry had a client he had to meet to sign some important papers and then he took us to The National Museum of Anthropology….FINALLY!! We spent about 4 hours there and we had a wonderful time reading and learning about our heritage. Marissa and I had a lot of FUN joking around with Jerry and we all took lots of pictures (as usual). We then went back to visit with Tia Cristina and some of my other aunts as well. Oh WOW I almost forgot…we had a very late dinner and we finally ate at the “Taqueria Susy” and had the best Tacos in town…delicious Jerry…Thanks again! (Click here for pictures)

Thursday, July 13th (Day 7)
- Today Jerry took us through the Historical Center and then to the city of Xochimilco. We took a beautiful “Gondola Ride” for about an hour and a half and had the best and relaxing time. It was really neat because there were other boats throughout the entire ride that were timed perfectly that would come up to ours. On the 1st one it had 2 ladies that cooked our lunch and had drinks. The 2nd one had dessert, the 3rd had a band on it that would play music for you and then the last one had souvenirs for you to buy. As usual we took a bunch of pictures and we had a great time.
- Then we went to the Frida Kahlo Museum. One word to describe this place… WOW!!! I had heard a bit about her from my mom in the past and had seen bits and pieces of her movie and then Marissa told me a lot about her as well. We got to see a lot of her beautiful work and then walk though her entire home where she lived all of her life. It was pretty emotional to see what she went through…she had a very hard life after her accident but at the same time she was an extremely gifted woman and it totally showed in her work. I was so happy that Marissa wanted to go to this museum…it was a wonderful experience…”Thanks again Marissa”.
- That night, Armando, Marissa and I took my Tia Cristina, my Mom, Jerry and my cousin Silvia to see the musical “Besame Mucho” for my Tia’s Birthday! Well, I didn’t know what to expect because I usually do not listen to Spanish music (yes shame on me…) BUT I came to find out that I knew about 95% of the music in the whole show. I have my mom to Thank for that –Thanks Mami! It was a beautiful and romantic musical about Love and Romance…my favorite subject (as my blogger header states…I’m a hopeless romantic…lol). We had such a GREAT time…I didn’t want it to end! (Click here for pictures)

Friday, July 14th (Day 8)
On our last day Jerry picked us up and we visited with Tia Cristina for the last time and then he took us to an “Indoor Swapmeet” to do a little shopping. Afterwards he took us to eat those unbelievably delicious “Tortas” one last time. Jerry drove us to the airport and we said our good-byes!

I knew I’d have a good time going to Mexico City to see my family who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years but I do have to mention that it was Jerry who made our trip as wonderful as it was. He’s such a funny guy and just a pleasure to be around and we all just had the Best time with him.
Thank you so much Jerry…you’re the BEST!! (Click here for pictures)

And Thank you Mami, Marissa and Armando for being the wonderful family that you are…I love you all very, very much! This will be a vacation I will never forget.