Road Trip (kind of) Day 10 - 12: Mexico City Wrap Up

We had a great time in Mexico City - a great city with more of a European feel than other areas in Mexico that I have visited.

There were a lot of laughs and it was awesome to have one last long weekend with #kwestiebesties. I think one of my favorite, and blog appropriate stories is the creation of Speel-glish - the new popular "Spanish" language that Chirs started using while in Mexico - anyone can do it, just take an English word and annunciate in a very strange place or add an O.

Here are a few more pics to round out the trip:

View from the castle in Chapultepec park - this was one of our fav places

Chorros and Coffee at El Moro - we walked for 3 hours to find this place! 

It was worth it :)

So many beautiful buildings, we just stumbled upon this one, no clue what it actually is

On top of the Temple of the Sun looking toward the Temple of the Moon

The ruins were amazing - me, Chris, Brad and SK - in between two smaller temples 

The scariest cab ride ever - Katie was a champ in the front seat, you can't really tell but the passenger seat is leaning into the driver and the rearview mirror has a sticker on it that says "Allison"....

Road Trip (kind of) - Day 9: Wedding Bouquet Toss

The wedding also had the most exciting bouquet toss I have ever seen! To sum it up - all the single ladies get a tiny vail and dance around the bride and groom for an entire song. The groom has a bottle of tequila to pour shots (I told you there were lots of shots) for those who dare. When the bride tosses the bouquet its an all out mad dash for the bouquet, there were flowers flying everywhere. This must have been at 3 AM - it was awesome!

Road Trip (kind of) - Day 9: Alejo y Marcela Wedding

 When Alejo told us were were all invited to his wedding, we knew we had to go! As it got closer, we asked him what we should all wear, lets just say that we should have asked Marcela. All of the women were in fancy, floor length dresses and the men in tuxedos or black suits - except us. Chris was dressed in the same outfit as the bathroom attendant, ha! At least there was a whole table of us, so we kind of blended :)

Mexican weddings are so different, in a good way, than what we are used to in the states, I think we should adopt many of their customs - no cake cutting, new food just about every hour, breakfast is served, party goes till 6AM, tequila bottles on the table, amazing! I'll let the pictures tell the story.

There were thousands of candles lining the celling

The flowers and centerpieces where gorgeous! 

Opera singers for dinner

All 700 guests were delivered a personalized note from the bride and groom

The food did not disappoint either

Fireworks lining the building for the first dance - also our 4th of July fireworks

Hand rolled cigars, two bottles of tequila at every table & Chris to the rescue for SK's cigar

Lots of shots - you don't go to the bar, each table has a server who brings you drinks, pours your shots

Our new friend Evan, I think his table ran out of tequilla

More shots

Like I said lots of shots.... 

The aftermath of breakfast....Tecates! Alejo got them just for us, how thoughtful!

Good night - leaving the party at 5:30 AM, the dance floor was still packed

It was an amazing wedding - congrats to the happy couple!

Road Trip (kinda) - Day 7 & 8: Mexico City

We traded in the Jetta for a 747 and traveled the 1,500 miles to Mexico City. I had never really strongly considered going to Mexico City, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. It is a huge city, I was surprised at how clean it was for a city of its size. There is a ton of really cool architecture and cultural things to do - we would find ourselves lost and turn the corner to a beautiful plaza or statue. It was also cold and rainy, which we were not expecting. We did avoid the rain for the most part, on the last day it did get us...

We were shocked when Alejo, the groom, was at the airport to greet us, we almost missed him. I think my last words were, "you ready to get screwed by a taxi driver?" We drove to Roma, which is a really cool neighboorhood that is a bit hipster, but really cool with great cafes and restaurants.

Hipsters everywhere!

We met up with Meng and Max and Alejo took us to the Mueso Nacional de Antropologia. It is huge and really cool. Only 1/5 of the signs are bilingual, so we did a lot of looking, not necessarily understanding what it was or if what we were looking at was original or a replica. Turns out most of it was real.

The Aztec section was massive

This is the 25 ton Aztec sun dial, it was incridible in person

Why not

I mentioned there are amazing cafes and restruants in Roma - great outdoor spaces and laid back feel. Most of the time we could get by on our broken spanish, but I definitely ordered the wrong dinner, oops. In Mexico City lunch is eaten at the earliest 2 PM and dinner around 8:30.  

Two story dinner spot with awesome outdoor seating and a beer garden, it across the street from plaza

Popular brunch spot 

We need these purse/jacket table side holders in the states, I mean in Australia, they were amazing! 

We went downtown on our second day. Here are a few pictures - definitely go to the palace and get a tour guide for the 14 Diego Rivera murals. The murals are really cool, but you appreciate them so much more with an explanation. He basically painted Mexico's entire history in these murals, the building is also beautiful.

One of the churches in the main square

There is soooo much to look at - its all organic materials, no paint

The white color is from milk, the other colors mainly from vegetables and insects 

This is a prostitute, showing her leg for the arm offering. In Aztec time, prostitution and tattoos were reserved only for nobles and high class 

Chris and Max enjoying some street food

See what I mean about beautiful buildings around every corner

Then on the evening of day two, the soon to be bride and groom shocked us agin by joining us for dinner at San Angel Inn. If you are in Mexico City, don't miss this place. Its an old hacienda, the food is excellent, but the hacienda steals the show!

I am bummed the pic came out this way, but they are seriously the cutest. Marcela left right after diner for her beauty rest

The whole gang, minus Marcela - Max, Meng, SK, Brad, Alejo, Chris, me, Katie and Jessie.

Dark and raining, but you get the idea of how cool this place was! The power did go out at dinner, apparently it happens a lot, but always come back on in a minute

Next up the wedding!  

Road Trip: Day 6 - Skyline Drive and visit with Tom

Our friends Alejo and Marcela are getting married on July 4^th in Mexico City. Since we would be about a week into our road trip, we found the cheapest airport in the part of the country we planned to be in. We were both surprised it was Charlotte, NC. It’s a really nice airport, the bathroom attendants are a bit random, I feel like I should be in a club dancing.

We had a short 4 hour drive for the day so we decided to drive through Shenandoah National Park on the Skyline drive. The drive was really pretty and we found the Delaware license plate on a speed racing PT cruiser. We saw maybe 10 cars on the entire drive, a few motorcycles and 3 really hardcore cyclists on their uphill ascent.

The route took us directly though Lexington, VA where Tom, a former boss, SAE and mentor of Chris’ lives. In a sense we wouldn’t be headed to Australia without Tom – he encouraged Chris to go back to school. It was great to catch up with Tom, even though the visit was short. Tom also gave us a nice driving tour of Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee - its a beautiful area! 

Once we got to Charlotte we wanted to try the Bar-B-Q King fried chicken, but the king had other plans, closed for the entire week. Price Chicken Coup was also closed, womp, womp. So we found an upscale biker bar with a great patio that had excellent BBQ! 

I’m writing this on the plane, by now we are exploring Mexico City with Katie, Jessie, Meng, Max, Brad and SK. It’s like KWEST Bike Germany all over again! #PiscaFOMO

Bucket List: Last Cubs Game (until we went to another last cubs game)

Once you know you are leaving for a really, really long time, the bucket list starts growing. Obviously the cubs made the list - when we lived next to Wrigley we frequented games on a weekly basis.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (FBDO) is a tradition at Kellogg. There are no classes on Wednesday at Kellogg, well almost no classes, so the whole school plays hookie, kind of, and goes to a cubs game in April. Nothing like 800 of your closest friends taking over Wrigley.  

Last greasy spoon breakfast at salt and pepper - I had two orders of pancakes, obviously.

Chris, the first base coach

It was also freezing, so most of our time was spent on the back deck rather than actually watching the game. This is a must hang out place before the game with all the old timers, if you are catching a game! I have never seen it this crowded, ever.  

 

The most Crossfit-esk photo Chris has ever taken

Jules also had Beth in from Sydney - we will definitely see more of her in OZ.  She got the real kellogg experience!

After the games lots of 50 cent beers were consumed at Vines. One of my all time favorite patios before and after a game. And no cubs game is complete without a stop to Sluggers. Sadly, there is no photo documentation. 

Road Trip: Day 5 - Uncle Raymond and Aunt Susan's

Today we packed up the car and left my cousin Layla and Jeff's place headed for Ray and Susan's in Virginia, near Harrisonburg - its about 5 miles from the West Virginia border, way out there. It is out there - like no cell service 4 miles from their house out there!

But not before a 5 AM workout....I slept in the car later

I was really excited to visit Ray and Susan. I haven't spent a lot of time with Ray and Susan but they are some of my favorites in Chris' extended family. They never disappoint with entertaining banter, new experiences and just a general good time. I have a soft spot for people who march to the beat of their own drum and they fit the bill. I got to thinking on the drive there about this soft spot of mine and wondering where it comes from, I'm still not sure, but it lead me down a funny internal thought process that I will try to share. I consider myself pretty normal, whatever that means, then I realized I am probably not that normal. After all, I am moving to a country across the world that I have never been to, definitly not normal. Anyway, we knew we wanted to visit Ray and Susan as soon as we started planning the road trip!

Since we had the whole day and only a 3 hour drive we took a detour. We stopped off in Charlottesville to check out UVA. It is a beautiful campus!

The room where Kappa Sigma was founded off the lawn at UVA - they were my sororities neighboors at Arizona

Ian's favorite bar, but sadly it was closed :(

Once we got to Ray and Susan's, we grilled out - can't beat steak and potatoes and then took a tour of the property.

So peaceful and green! 

And then comes the new experience part, Ray is a very talented blacksmith. He just fired up the gas forge and started making something out of a 16 penny horse shoe nail. 

The forge

Uncle Ray hammering the nail into something

Clamping the hot metal and pounding into something cool 

The end result on the anvil, a heart that got turned into a necklace!  

We had a great time! It was great to see Susan and Ray! Now off to Charlotte, NC to fly to Mexico city on Wednesday for Alejo and Marcella's wedding with 6 Kellogg friends!