Friday 9 July

July 9

Olga and I got up and got ready. Then Yamel (Earnestina’s daughter and Regina’s mother) picked us up with Regina and we went to breakfast. Again I had huevos a la Mexicana because I knew what they had. The service was kind of slow but we survived. I realize a lot of my habits are going to have to change. Like eating the bread at the table, normally I would so it was hard not to. But we survived. Then Yamel stopped at Oxxo to pick up some candy for Regina.

Then we went to the Bodegas del Molino. We wanted to check the room for the wedding. It was really beautiful. It is a very old building but the main room was very bright with gold and big chandeliers. And I really liked that along the wall there was paintings depicting the apparition of our lady of Guadalupe. I was really enchanted by those. The whole space was very pretty. It is kind of isolated and it is surrounded by green and one side has a river running through it. The cocktail room opens up to a balcony over tons of plants and pretty flowers. The bar is off to the side of the main room and that was cool because it had a lot of mirrors. They showed us the chapel they had there at the bodegas but it was really small and not very pretty. But you had to walk up nice stairs and there was a very pretty statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe at the top in front of the chapel.

We then took a tour of the hotel behind the bodegas. The hotel was nice and very Mexican. But the room they had for the party was not as nice and it was very humid because they had hung fabric from the ceiling. The actual hotel seemed very nice. Olga and I took a tour of the hotel while Yamel and Regina stayed in the lobby, but somehow I ended up carrying Regina’s doll. So I was walking in front of everyone with this pink doll. I got some strange looks. After talking to the manager or whoever it was, we all went to Superama. These allergies make getting pan de dulce no fun. But oh well.

We then went to a different church where Yamel knew the priest. This church was called “El buen Camino” or something like that. I don’t quite remember. It turns out that the priest is Pepe’s cousin. He seemed like a very patient and kind person. We went to ask him if he would be able to say Mass at the old chapel because he is bilingual. But he told us that the parish would not allow him to say Mass anywhere else. And then he went on to say that the Santo Domingo was in bad area, there was no parking, too many people, and thieves. Then he went on to say that the vibes at Bodegas del Molino are very negative. Apparently there was an assassination there like 60 years ago or something and he said that there was bad ghosts there. That was weird because as a Catholic there is no such thing as a ghost right? But I think he just wanted to choose his parish because then he wanted us to see what rooms were around his parish.

We saw the chapel at his church and it was very modern. The styles of the two churched that we saw were just so vastly different. This chapel was dedicated to the Virgen de Guadalupe so there was a very pretty statue of her and Juan Diego. I thought that was a coincidence because the bodegas had the paintings of the apparition.

After that we went to Yamel’s house and ate. I had a really yummy chicken soup with tacos with chile and beans in them. Earnestina ate with us and she had brought crepes of tinga and they looked really delicious but they were made with flour and with cream.

Olga, Earnestina, and I went to Idea a store kind of like Bed, Bath and Beyond. It was very interesting because you would just follow a path through the store to look at the model rooms then it would come to another part where they had the actual products where you could grab them. And it was like that for every room in a house. Olga found some things she was looking for but not all. Then we went to another level to the super Walmart. There she found most of what she was looking for. When we left it was raining really heavy so there was a lot of men with umbrellas looking for tips. I got a bit wet still.

Then we went to Earnestina’s house and I met Efren her husband. He works for the Red Cross and there was going to be a party for the paramedics and 100 year anniversary for the Red Cross in Mexico so he invited me to go with him just to meet new people and a new experience. So we all drove to Olga’s house to pick up our things and we stayed the night at Earnestina’s house. Olga and I shared the guest bedroom. I slept pretty well.