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.
Here we go again, voting for a President, although this time it’s Mexico’s. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the whole thing was. Let’s hope I’m pleasantly surprised at the results too.
After 3 and 0.25 years (respectively) I’ve finally taken action and ensured that my poor two little kids have a team to root for in the upcoming World Cup.
Last Friday we went to the Mexican Consulate to finalize the process for making them Mexican Citizens. ¡Felicidades!
Ilán puts his fingerprint on his naturalization certificate.
Ari was a little bit more suspicious of the process.
I am quite certain that this is the best family photo we have so far. It’s hard to get everyone to look at a camera at the same time.
I flew to Mexico City last weekend. Here are some highlights:
Galia
The main reason of my lightning trip to Mexico City was to meet my new niece Galia, who also happens to be Ilan’s baby cousin. Lots of hair an big blue eyes as you can see in the picture. On the baby as well! She’s a cutie.
Galia and favorite uncle.
Galia and favorite uncle playing the stare game. She blinked first, I’m still the champion.
Xochimilco
Jacobo and family, my mom, and I went to Xochimilco. People complain it’s dirty and not worth it. They are wrong, it’s great. We got there “early” (Mexico City standards) at around 10 AM and were the only people there. We made the strategic mistake of eating breakfast at the hotel which sucked because the food looked amazing there. On the other hand, the food was amazing at the hotel.
With the little gringos.
Mexican hotel breakfast is the best.
It used to be that after a shot of tequila, you’d shake your head. Nowadays you spin upside down from a pole hanging from your feet. The after-effect is magnified.
Left: My brother Jacobo Right: A guy in a sweater photo bombing us.
Estadio Azteca
On our way back from Xochimilco we passed the legendary Estadio Azteca, where Pelé (1970) and Maradona (1986) both raised the FIFA Cup. We decided to stop and check if they have tours. It happens that they do.
In the tunnel where the players head out to the pitch. On the left, signs for every team to ever visit the stadium – except, they explained – Pumas and Guadalajara. On the right, photos of memorable moments. In the middle, a couple of tourists who aren’t very good at playing soccer.
On this field Mexican players won the U17 World Cup in 2011. The players were less than half my current age. Damn!
At the press briefing room. Yes, the trophy is fake. And nobody from the press showed up.
Pujol
My brother was in a foodie mood for his birthday. We went to a fancy schmancy restaurant in Polanco called Pujol “ranked 17th best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine in 2013″ according to Wikipedia. And Wikipedia never lies, right?
A plate of mole, and nothing else, at Pujol.
We had a seven-course dinner that involved everything from mezcal to ants, all in tiny portions. The highlight of the night, in my opinion was the “Mole madre, mole nuevo” which is a little scoop of mole that has been cooking for (I shit you not) 562 days with an even smaller scoop of mole of a more recent vintage. You get a few handmade tortillas to scoop it up and that’s it. It was as good as you’d expect from something that had taken 562 days to prepare. I told the waiter that it was good and he can now bring me the full portion. He didn’t get the joke.
A few hours ago, Mexico won the Gold Medal in the London 2012 Olympics after convincingly beating Brazil 2-1. Next championship: Brazil 2014 World Cup.
Oribe Peralta scored twice. What a year for “Cepillo” Peralta.
On the podium.
Update: Some readers point out that apparently there are other sporting events in the Olympics besides soccer. A small minority even cares about them. Congratulations to whatever countries won other medals on whatever sports.
