¡Mexico Lindo!

by Sarah Ann

My day started with me sleeping in. This was much needed because I hadn’t caught up on sleep after arriving in San Luis Potosi late into the night. Not everyone in my family had it so lucky. Poor Taylor woke up and threw up. I think his immune or digestive system isn’t very adaptable because in our last international trip, Taylor got sick in both Turkey and China. My dad has also been feeling off.  New food and cultures is very exciting, but I guess some people’s bodies don’t agree.

My dad left for work, and the rest of us stayed home. Taylor laid in bed, and the rest of us got stuff done. My mom had to do her work, and the rest of us (I was going to say the other kids, but I realized Rachel isn’t a kid anymore!) did math, reading, dishes, and Irish dance auditions. I guess the last one only applies to me. Then we played a few rounds of Exploding Kittens, which is a very fun card game. Claudia, one of the professors here who we have been exploring with, has two daughters that we went to dinner with yesterday. Rachel went to spend the day with them. That left just me, my mom, and Christian ready for adventure. After eating a lunch that contained gluten-free pasta noodles (my dad bought on accident) and leftovers from dinner last night, we were on our way.

Unfortunately, being “on our way” wasn’t that simple. We called Uber to take us to the downtown. As we learned yesterday, some Uber drivers are better than others. Our map said the Uber driver would be there in less than a minute, so we rushed outside the house—only to wait there another half hour until we hired another Uber driver who actually picked us up.

We waited for the Uber driver for so long that the museum we had planned to go to first—the mask museum—had closed. Instead we went to an art museum called Museo Federico Silva. It would have been a really neat art museum - it had tons of really cool sculptures - except for the top floor was closed. Next, we went to Palacio de Gobierno, which translates to, “governor’s palace”. It was a really cool structure where the governor works. It had murals, courtyards, and all. The next stop was Iglesia de San Francisco, which is a beautiful church. It had beautiful paintings, sculptures, stained-glass windows, and even boat chandeliers. It was inside Jardin de San Francisco, which means Saint Francisco garden. The church was a Catholic church. 85% of Mexico is Catholic, which makes it the country with the second highest Catholic population in the world. We wandered around exploring other places near the plaza which I cannot name.

inside the Museo Federico Silva

Iglesia de Francisco

eating pizza in the Plaza del Carmen

By then we were all hungry. My mom had this grand-plan at eating at cute little Mexican street vendors, but we couldn’t find any that worked. Hungry, we went to the only place we could find, a restaurant called “Pizza”. We ordered pizzas that came with chicken nuggets and took them to the top floor of the restaurant, which was like a roof, to eat. It looked over Plaza del Carmen – one of the most famous plazas here. Something funny about all three floors is that there were lots of pigeons! Christian wanted to feed them our pizza, but my mom and I kept having to talk him out of it! Now, after more Uber excitement, we are home, and I am ready for bed.

The name of this blog post, Mexico Lindo, is Spanish for beautiful Mexico. My dad said that lots of people say that. After exploring the downtown, I see why. Mexico is quite gorgeous. It has beautiful mountains and trees. It has beautiful art museums. It has beautiful building structures and churches. It has beautiful cities and parks. It has beautiful food and a beautiful language. It has a beautiful culture. Mexico is a very, very beautiful country.

Tomorrow we are off an an extra exciting adventure to a ghost town in the mountains that you can only get through by driving two miles through a tunnel. I can't wait!