22 February 2017
I spent the day working and preparing to go to Yolanda’s house on Thursday and then going to Morelia on Friday. My grandparents live in Morelia, Michoacan which is about 4 hours west of Mexico City. This year they are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary so the whole family was making their way to Morelia for the celebrations. The room where I am staying in my aunt Marisa’s house is my cousins room, so when he comes into town I have to move over to share the bed with Marisa, but then when my other aunt Lupita comes into town then I have to sleep on the air mattress. So in order to get out of the way, I decided to stay at Yo’s.
23 February 2017
I packed and got the apartment ready for the next round of guests and headed over to Yo’s. We then grabbed a lunch on the go to meet with Yolanda’s former landlady to get her security deposit back. The ride there took about 50 minutes and the meeting took 40 minutes, and then another 50 minutes on the way back. One of Saniego and Yolanda’s art friends lives in Roma, the neighborhood next to them and she came with us to eat dinner. She had some really interesting things to say about art and Mexico. She is from Texas and is planning a big art exhibition for the fall. She and Saniego also know a lot of the same people.
24 February 2017
We left for Morelia at 6am through a site that is called BlaBlaCar where people can post that they are driving from one place to another for carpooling purposes. The initial idea seems a little sketchy, but Yo and Saniego have done it and I figure that it would be kind of a stretch for someone to kidnap all three of us, plus the driver was driving a newer BMW and together we still couldn’t offer ransom value that would amount to that for a potential kidnapper. These are all the things that ran through my head in the decision making process.
The driver was very friendly and the car was immaculate. We got to Morelia around 10 am and we hung out at a beautiful coffeeshop to wait to check in to the airbnb. We then dropped our stuff off at the airbnb and went downtown. We then went to a lunch at El Sinaloa, which is this hole in the wall, but infamous seafood restaurant. We were there for hours and ate a lot and enjoyed some chelitas. Michelada is a beer with a lot of lime and they usually salt the rim. It was hilarious because Yolanda was telling me that Saniego just attracts all these people to talk to him. So as we were sitting there, this guy at the table next to us kept looking over at us and he started telling us that he was an illegal who lived in LA for a while, but he got deported after he served 7 years in a US prison because he got caught with 15 pounds of cocaine. He was just so happy to speak english with someone! It was a very surreal experience and he bought us each two drinks! So random, but interesting conversation. We sat there a little stunned because basically a drug lord had bought our drinks.
We then made our way downtown to a market where Yo and I bought some boots. We also stopped for an appetizer at a rooftop restaurant. It was fun to experience Morelia in a different way, because normally when we come it is a family affair and we are always running around. This time we took it at a slow pace and enjoyed it. ;)
25 February 2017
This was the day of the party! We had a great time and there was a lot of food and laughing.
26 and 27 February 2017
We spent these days recovering from the party and eating more food. I did get a run in though, through the golf course since the golf course was closed. I felt slow though after all the food had eaten in the weekend!
