I just landed in my hometown of Monterrey, Mexico to a giant surprise: homemade mohn strudel baked by none other than Olga. I immediately proceeded to eat a lot of it.
The bread is on the thinner side. The filling not overly sweet – just the way I like it. A bit crumbly. What a delicious surprise! Thank you.
This summer we flew to the city of Oaxaca for a week to celebrate my parents’ 50th Anniversary. Incredible milestone! It was also my first time there.
Here’s photos making chocolate, rugs, and their famous black clay, painting alebrijes.
In a mezcalería doing some tasting, and in the beautiful springs of Hierve el Agua.
The Zapotec city of Monte Albán.
Some of the beautiful sights and most importantly insane food. I love mole and this is their thing. I ate so much mole. It was so good.
Something I wanted to see since I was a kid: El árbol del Tule, an ancient and massive cypress tree claimed to have the widest trunk of its species. It’s massive and beautiful and not in the middle of a forest like I always pictured.
And this is the beautiful color-coordinated family, missing just my favorite nephew who we named official photographer for the trip thus does not appear in any of the pictures.
We went to Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica for a family vacation earlier this month. Manuel Antonio is a small tourist town near Quepos, about a 3 hour drive away from San José. It’s on the beach by the rain forest.
We stayed at a small hotel. It was far from fancy, but unlike most of the hotels in town, it had direct access to the beach, a huge advantage. It also had monkeys everywhere, including many loudly jumping on the roof at night.
We had a very full schedule of outdoor water activities and extreme sports and my adrenaline-addicted children loved it. A few of the things:
We took a quick trip to Las Vegas with the kids last month. We heard a lot about Omega Mart being a good place to visit. I was a bit shocked at the prices ($50+ per person) but we went ahead with it.
It’s really cool and unique and worth the admission; and it’s better if you know less about it when you visit. So if you think you may go anytime soon then stop reading.
What is it? You start out in a fake supermarket, playing the part of a new employee going over orientation. As you start looking closely, you will see things get progressively weirded. Eventually you find secret entrances to the back – where you are in the corporate offices but also in some sort of other dimension. It’s huge and super well made.
Your goal is to find clues and figure out what the heck is going on, it’s like being inside a giant interactive Black Mirror. We stayed there for almost 3 hours and couldn’t get to the bottom of it but made lots of progress. Maybe with older kids that don’t get cranky when hungry?
Recommended.
Last match of the trip, and one would have thought best match of the first round. At the end it was a 1-1 tie in which Spain deserved to win.
Before the match, we went to The Pearl, the artificial island full of fancy things.
The main event. The match with the highest demand for tickets out of all 64 matches including the Final.
We stopped at Lusail Mall before the game.
This was one of the most attractive games for us. It was a good game but unfortunately not very spectacular: 0-0. Al Bayt is both the farthest (about 1 hour drive) and the most beautiful stadium we’ve visited. It’s made to look like a Bedouin tent, impressive.
Another incredible building. It was built around the old palace which still stands and can be visited.
We stayed to eat lunch at Jiwan, the restaurant at the museum. Both the view and the food were amazing so here go some food photos.
Brazil looked very, very strong. After seeing them it’s clear it won’t be easy to knock them out.
Located next to the Khalifa Stadium, this is a brand new and very impressive museum. Like many other things – it was eerily deserted – but is a definite recommendation.
Next stop: Mexico vs Poland.
