BootsnAll Travel Network



Disneyland

July 28th, 2007

The Most Expensive Happiest Place on Earth

After 50 weeks and 21000 miles on the road we returned to the in-laws last Saturday July 21st at 5 minutes before midnight. 2 weeks sooner than expected.

First however I need to talk about the leading up to our return. 

A couple of months ago Allison’s parents told us that they wanted to invite us to Disneyland. All we had to do was pick a day. We chose Julian’s birthday and used the time to get the kids excited abut it, since they didn’t know what Disneyland was.  It turns out that Dan (Allison’s dad) and I weren’t all that excited, because we were both very skeptical how much we would enjoy it. I was mainly worried about the culture shock for us, not being able to drink and drive, have to buckle up (even the kids), not being allowed to ride in the back of pickup trucks, but also a lot of stupid rules and regulations out of fear of lawsuits. For example, Julian wasn’t allowed to go one of the safest slides I have seen in the last 11 month, because he wasn’t able to swim from 1 end of the pool to the other. With a waiting parent and at least 3 lifeguards this slide wouldn’t propose any hazard, especially since he has been on slides 3 times the height and speed. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against rules. After all I am German and I think we are the inventers of rules and regulations, but there is also a thing called common sense and another thing called law suites. So yes, I was a little disturbed at first, mainly because I had to keep telling the boys: “Oh no, we are back in America, you can’t do that here!” I must say however that the people enforcing all of those rules did it in a very friendly way. 

Allison & Julian, Allison's Parents and William in the Teacups

 

I was also a bit worried about Disneyland, because I didn’t want to spend 3 days there going on children’s rides and I was not sure if either one of the in-laws would go on the cool rides with me. Luckily it turned out that Dan seemed to enjoy them as much as I did and everyone had a great time. We had such a great time that we didn’t even have any family blow-outs like we did when we met in Costa Rica.

Maybe it was unnecessary to be worried about having a good time there, because after all, it’s “The happiest place on earth!” I was reminded of that when I watched a young mother screaming at her little girl: “Stop being crabby now. This is the happiest place on earth!”  And you must be happy if you are willing to spend 32 dollars on a pizza.  Or 10 dollars on a Big Mac, fries and a coke.  I don’t have any other explanation for those prices. 

Other rules that struck me as odd at Disneyland were: while it’s not allowed for pregnant woman to go on a 4 foot long waterslide, people go out of their way to make every ride as handicapped accessible as possible. And that’s actually a great thing, but that also means hoisting 600+ pound people on and off their electric scooters into a ride that catapults you several hundred feet in the air and freefall down to the ground. I guess it must be safer or a smaller risk of being sued to let the fattest of the fat go on multi g rides than the expected mother on a baby waterslide.

I also couldn’t help but notice that Allison isn’t quite right with her statement that Germans are some of the worst dressed peoples in the western world. While I don’t think she is wrong with this statement and I am certainly not the kind of person who dresses in a way to improve the image of the Germans, I must say, Americans are right up there with the Germans, when it comes to being dressed badly. I have no eye for fashion or style, but anyone who does must get headaches when watching people in Disneyland. 

Despite all that everyone had a great time and after 3 days there and a birthday breakfast for Julian with Goofy were also ready to head on.

The plan was to spend about another 10 days on the road to get from LA to Seattle. There were still a lot of things we wanted to see and 7 or 8 people we wanted to visit. We spent the first night in a State Park at the Pacific near Santa Barbara. We didn’t really like it too much there and decided to speed up the rest of the trip, because we had less and less motivation of packing in and out. So the next day we drove the “Big Sur highway” passing 2 towns we originally wanted to stop in. We made it to Stockton, spent the night in a motel and left early the next morning to hopefully make it to Medford, Oregon or maybe even a bit further.  When the place we wanted to stay was full, we were not in the mood for searching another place and decided to just keep driving. On this day we drove 800 miles. That’s by far the longest time we have spent on the road and almost 3% of our entire trip. Everything went pretty smooth, and we were even greeted by rain and gray skies right after entering into Washington. But with the rain came some car problems. Not only did the heater not work (we didn’t need it in Mexico), but it engine also started acting strange. The car started stuttering and for a while it seemed that we might not make it back that day and have the first serious breakdown after over 21000 miles and less than 100 miles from home. Luckily the stuttering stopped and we made it back at 5 minutes before midnight where the in-laws were very happily awaiting us. It was a great relief for them to see us (especially the grandkids) back home. The kids are also having a great time, because they get so much attention now and are reunited with all of their old toys that they didn’t get to play with for almost 1 year.

As for Allison and me, I guess we are sort of happy to be back. We are done with traveling for a while. It’s great to see the in-laws being reunited with the boys and we are looking forward to moving back to our house in Seattle in the middle of August, but it will be hard to get used to a life without the sun. So far I have only seen it once since we are back and we have only been cold. 

Even though we are back in the states, this is not the end of our blog, because we still have a lot of thoughts and stories that we want share and as long as the yodavan is up and running, we will have stories to share.

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New Experience 117

July 12th, 2007

It seems every time I am writing a blog I am whining about not wanting to drive more and not wanting to see many more things, because most likely we have seen it even better on our trip before. We visited over 100 places, had to pack in and out over 100 times as well and it is getting tiring and after the disappointment on the Baja we thought things would get a little easier in the States. Boy where we wrong.

It started at the border. We had to stand in line for about 1 hour at the Tijuana crossing and made it to the US without any problems. Even the US customs officers, who usually make so much drama, were all relaxed. The only problem was that there was no office where we could cancel our Mexican car permit and turn in our tourist cards. That’s a must, because otherwise we wouldn’t be allowed to return to Mexico in the future. So we had to drive back into Mexico, find the office to turn in our permits and stand in line for another hour to get back to the US. Again no drama.

After that we weren’t sure where to go next. All we knew was that we wanted to visit our friends in Vegas (we wrote about them in August 2006 in the blog called “My man Wolf” ) and spend 1 night somewhere between San Diego and Vegas. We stopped at a visitor center near the border and mapped out our route. Everything seemed to be a piece of cake until we noticed that the further away from the coast we got , the hotter it got and despite being at almost 5000 feet (1500 meters) the temperature reached over 100 degrees (38 Celsius) and we were told that it doesn’t cool down a lot at night. We had too many hot and uncomfortable nights in the Yodavan so we decided to drive back to the coast and look for a hotel. We finally found one in San Bernardino, just a few blocks away from the original Mc Donald’s. I must say, that after 11 months on the road this was the first time that I really felt unsafe. Our hotel was clean and had a small pool, but the area around it was not a place I would want to hang out at night. Being back in the States started out very strange.

The next day we started early to make the way through the desert before it would get too hot (Allison’s mom warned us that the temperatures in Vegas are 115 degrees (46 Celsius), but they actually got to 117 degrees (47 Celsius). This was the hottest temperature I ever experienced in my life and I loved it. We had little things lately that we haven’t seen or experienced in the last 11 months, but 117 degrees was definitely a new experience. In this heat you can’t even open the car without burning yourself. In the car it got so hot that some contacts of my stereo melted. The refrigerator in the Yodavan has a little cooling fan that comes on when it runs for a long time. This fan was on even when the fridge was turned off.

Las Vegas Temperature

Despite the extreme heat we had the best time there. When we arrived Daren greeted me with a cold beer to their air-conditioned house with pool. Yes they have upgraded. They had a spectacular house the last time we visited, but this one is ever better. We had 2 bedrooms to ourselves, nice yard, pool, cable and satellite TV, WIFI a fridge full of beer and good food and they even let us use their car with A/C. It was exactly what we needed. We didn’t go to any casinos, no nightlife, and no strip. We just spent time with Lynn and Daren ran some small errands and enjoyed the heat at the pool which we have used 3 times in a day.

Swimming in Las Vegas

I was also able to use the time to visit the Wolf again to fix some small problems with the Yodavan and once again we he did a great job and it runs like new again. So the next time you have car problems in Las Vegas you should go and see the Wolf.

We were sad to leave Vegas toward LA where we will meet Allison’s parents, who invited us to Disney Land. It will be great to see them meet the kids again, but Disney Land can also be a culture shock for us, since we are still used to parks where the rides are hand cranked.

I was (am) a little worried how we will adjust to life in the US after spending a long time in the third world, so staring out with extremes (Las Vegas and Disney Land) is just the shock treatment we need.

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Up the Baja

July 5th, 2007

It was tough to leave Ajijic – we had a great apartment, kids in a good school, a lot of free time and met some nice people to hang out with.  But our next stop was the Baja peninsula and Matthias and I were both looking forward to it very much.  We had heard great things from a lot of different travelers and couldn’t wait to get there.  What a huge disappointment we had awaiting us.

First we had a long drive to Mazatlan.  Mazatlan has the reputation of being another Mexican resort town.  It is true that there is a section of Mazatlan full of tourists and big resorts, but the old part of town is really quite nice and the view from the waterfront is spectacular.  The hardest part of being in Mazatlan was the heat and humidity.  The temperature was in the low 90’s, and the “feels like” temperature was just under 100, but after being in the cool mountains with a great climate, it took me a couple of days to adjust.  We signed up for the car ferry from Mazatlan to La Paz (which is on the southern end of the Baja, about 1500 km from Tijuana).  The ride was 19 hours, and we spent the night in a cabin with 4 beds.  The ferry was brutally expensive (around $400) but I was kind of excited when we first boarded.  There was a lot to explore, and it kind of had a Love Boat feeling with the narrow hallways, dining area, lounge and cabin areas.  After just a bit of exploring we realized that this boat had seen better days (big on the Boat, low on Love) and there wasn’t really anything to do except start out into the Sea of Cortez.  Never the less, we did have a good time and between nap time, dinner, breakfast and movie hour, we found enough stuff to do to keep ourselves busy. 

Sea of Cortes

 

 

We got to La Paz in the morning and everything seemed good.  We’d heard good things about a small town called Todos Santos, so we decided to head out that way.  We thought we’d try a hotel room since it was quite hot, but all the hotels we found were really expensive.  We decided to check out a few camping spots, but the only one in that area was bankrupt and closed down.  Then we noticed we had a flat tire.  At that point Matthias changed the tire and we headed back to La Paz, a friend had given us the names of some good cheap hotel rooms.  When we got back to La Paz the temperature was 42 C, (107 F). 

After 2 nights in La Paz we headed towards Loreto.  At least it was cool enough to camp there, but the beach and town were very disappointing.  Next was Bahia Concepcion, which is supposed to be one of the highlights of the entire Baja.  When we pulled in around 11:00 AM, it was already 102 degrees, and the hottest part of the day had yet to come.  So on we went to the Pacific side, where it was nice and chilly – much better camping weather.  This town was a prime whale watching area, but of course that is only in the right months.  No whales in July.  We continued north, but everything we saw was just not interesting to us or too hot to camp.  We ended up just heading up the peninsula in 3 days. 

I can honestly say that this is the biggest disappointment of our entire trip and an unfortunate end to our time in Mexico.  We’d heard great stories of perfect beaches, great camping spots, wonderful snorkeling.  There were a few sections of the 1000 mile drive that were interesting, but generally it was just mile after mile of dry fields of millions of cardon cacti.  On the other hand we have seen so much amazing stuff in the last 3 years that it really would have been hard to top what we have seen so far.  Maybe it would have been a better idea to start off in Baja when the weather was milder and return on a different route.  In any event, we have made it through the Baja and t is a good thing that we are close to the border now because after all those cacti I’ve got a real hankering for some Taco Time. 

Cardon Cacti on the Baja     At the scorchingly hot Sea of Cortes

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About to Hit the Road Again

June 24th, 2007

Our faithful readers will have noticed that we haven’t been updating our blog very much lately.  We’ve been in Ajijic for nearly 6 weeks and have only posted a few blog entries.  The first week we were here we enrolled William and Julian in a pre-school here and we’ve had every morning (Monday – Friday from 8 AM – 1PM) without William and Julian.  It really hasn’t been for lack of time that we haven’t been writing blog entries – simply laziness.  It had been a long time since we have had so much “free” time and we’ve really enjoyed it.  The main thing we accomplished was to become totally addicted to the TV show House, MD.  We downloaded and watched all 3 seasons in less than 4 weeks.  That is a total of 70 episodes.  If you realize that we have been watching that much TV it is no wonder we have not had any time to write blog entries.  And even if we had gotten around to writing, what would we have written about other than Dr. House?  We haven’t been doing anything else except watching that show?

Traveling for 9 months is hard.  I know no one really has any sympathy for us, but we had heard it from other travelers early on in our trip – most travelers are tired of traveling around 7 or 8 months.  We needed these 6 weeks to decompress and muster up enough Wanderlust to get us through the last stretch (~3000 miles) back to Seattle.  Matthias said he’s not ready yet to hit the road.  I’m almost there, and I think my desire to again be in a familiar, comfortable place is what makes me ready to leave.  We are leaving for sure on Tuesday since we are meeting my parents in Disneyland in 3 weeks.  I think we’ve left ourselves enough time to take a nice leisurely trip up the Baja Peninsula and back into southern California.  The next time we travel like this (which we are definitely planning on doing again) we are thinking we will need to stay longer in fewer places and move around less.

William and Julian have been doing pretty well at their school.  They have definitely picked up a lot more Spanish in those 5 weeks.  They wear uniforms to school and have homework and I think they genuinely enjoy going to school there.  Last week William turned 5 and he celebrated his birthday at school with piñatas and cake. 

William's Birthday at School in Ajijic, Mexico    Pinata Time for William's Birthday

In Seattle full-time daycare costs around $1000/month per child.  Here we paid $170/month for both children.  (It was only half day, but still it is WAY cheaper than in the US.)  We also have a babysitter here who charges $2.00/hour.  By Mexican standards it is very expensive, but it is such a steal for us.  In one of the bars here we heard that a worker earns about ten dollars for a full shift (plus tips of course).  And apparently at this bar they are being paid twice the minimum wage.  When you hear these numbers about salaries here it is no wonder why there are a number of kids that don’t go to school.  Families either can’t afford to send their kids to school (due to the costs of supplies, uniforms and tuition) or they can’t afford to live if their kids don’t work.  Often during those hours when our kids are in school we have been visited by other kids selling stuff – bread, avocados, dried fish, flowers, etc.  Child labor is been commonplace in much of Central America as well.

Overall it has been a really great stay here.  The rainy season has also eventually started and we got to witness some amazing lightning storms and the thunder echoing and rumbling between the mountains around us.  In just a few weeks we’ll be back in the United States and Matthias and I are both very nervous about returning.  I’m starting to formulate some impressions and opinions about the things we’ve seen and experienced over the last 10 months and I have a feeling they will be magnified once we finally return to the US.  I promise that eventually we’ll write about it, but for now we’re still mulling it all over. 

After we leave Mexico we’ll have some time in California.  If you have any good advice about what to do or see in California please e-mail us some suggestions.  Neither of us has seen much of California and so far we are flying without a guide book. 

 

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Guanajuato

June 20th, 2007

The morning we were supposed to go to Guanajuato Matthias was still just tired of traveling and he decided he didn’t want to go.  In the end we decided to split up, he took Julian and William and I were off to Guanajuato.

Riding the bus is very exciting for a 4-year old.  There are lots of buttons and knobs to turn, there was a TV, they gave us free sandwiches, drinks and there was even a bathroom on the bus.  William took a backpack full of books, extra clothes and 3 pairs of shoes (something I didn’t notice until we were unpacking in Guanajuato).  The bus ride was 4 hours, a little too long for both of us, but we still had a great time and it was nice to be able to spend some time just him and I. 

 

In Guanajuato we found a room that was just a short 5 minute walk from the center of town.  It was a quiet neighborhood and the family that ran the place just loved William.  The wife of the family always asked William how he was doing “Como estas?”  And he would always answer “No muy bien” – “Not good!”  She thought that was really funny and asked him how he was every chance she got just to hear his response. 

On Sunday morning we were leaving our hotel to go have breakfast when we passed an older couple walking towards our hotel.  They stopped and were so interested in William and kept asking him “Como estas?  Como estas?  No muy bien?”  It turns out these were the parents of the couple that ran the hotel and they had already heard about William.  When they ran into us they knew it was us and just wanted to hear William say “No muy bien.”  After that, every time we saw them in the hotel the old man would jump out of his seat, run over to William and ask him “Como estas?”  Eventually William said his “No muy bien” and this nice man had such a smile on his face. 

The city of Guanajuato is probably the most beautiful city in Mexico.  It is located at the bottom of valley surrounded by mountains.  Most of the houses have been painted bright colors and it is quite a sight.  The streets wind up and around the mountainside on all sides.  There are narrow streets and alley ways all throughout the city.  Many of the buildings have wire balconies and it reminded me of Paris a lot.  It is also a very youthful city and the streets were filled with people well into the night.

Guanajuato from our hotel    Door and Window in Guanajuato

While in Guanajuato we really didn’t do too much.  We went to the famous mummy museum, rode the cable car up the side of the mountain, walked through town, went to a museum with an exhibition on miniatures and had great French toast breakfasts in a small café.  We only spent two nights and the day we left William and I had a long game of soccer in an old fountain (without water of course) while we were waiting for our bus to leave.  I think the best part of our two days there was spending a lot of time with William. 

We had a nice bus ride back to Guadalajara.  We got sandwiches, cookies and drinks in the bus again and had 4 hours of good conversation.  While we were waiting for Matthias and Julian to pick us up from the bus station William started singing at the top of his lungs “Yo soy una ventana!  Yo soy una lampa!”  In English that means “I am a window.  I am a lamp.”  I have no explanation for this other than he is 4 and a lot of fun.

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The Old Riviera

June 8th, 2007

When you drive into Ajijic there is a sign that says “Riviera Alta.”  You might think it means the OLD Riviera since aside from the dozen Mexicans that live in this town all you see here are ex-pat retirees from the US and Canada.  High-water socks, bad Hawaiian shirts draping over big bellies, thick wide black old people glasses, canes, grey hair, etc. are all encountered every time we step out of the apartment.  Really “Riviera Alta” means the high Riviera since the elevation here is over 5000 feet, but I chuckle every time I see that sign since “alt” in German does actually mean “old”. 

 

Our first morning here we decided to go out to breakfast and we even found a Mexican version of Denny’s.  They serve mediocre breakfasts well into the afternoon, weak coffee in thick porcelain coffee mugs and the place is packed with retirees.

Ajijic is actually a very pleasant small town.  We are about 5 blocks from Lake Chapala (the largest lake in Mexico), there is a nice old church, cobblestone streets and the weather has been nice and hot.  Our friends Dave and Terri found us a nice 2 bedroom apartment with a swimming pool and it has been great.  They have given us tips on where the good restaurants are, a good fruit and vegetable stand, they hooked us up with a babysitter that charges $2.00/hour for both of our children and we are no longer strangers in the good gringo bars in town.  The other day I was walking by one of those gringo bars and saw a big white Cadillac parked next to a horse that was tied up to the front of the bar – such an accurate juxtaposition of all things Ajijic.

During the first week in our apartment complex I noticed that we were by far the youngest in our building – by about 30 years.  We watched an older woman come and go – cane, big dark glasses, oversized polo shirts, white retiree/nursing pants.  My first impression honestly was “oh, just another retiree.”  When we actually got to know her we found out she is really an amazing woman.  She has lived in Ajijic for the last 16 years, and referred to her time here as “interim”.  And when we met her she started to tell us about where she was moving to next – Cyprus.  She is flying to Madrid with some family members, will book a cruise around the Mediterranean, they’ll visit some friends she has in Greece and they are eventually planning on finding a new home in Cyprus and settling down.  Now get this – she’s 82 years old!  When I got closer I realized her big dark glasses are a much hipper design and even had Swarovski crystals embedded around the sides.  And later I watched her whip around town with her cane and was impressed with her speed and finesse.  To be so fit and adventurous at 82 is truly amazing and also inspirational.  What I wouldn’t give to be able to take advantage of life like that so long into my life.  We said goodbye to her today and I think she is sitting in a plane right now as I write this. 

Through our friends Dave and Terri we also met a man who now has two sons in college but when they were young, his wife and him took their sons and traveled around Asia for 6 months.  He understands how great traveling like this can be – especially with your children when they are young.  He told us how important it was to be able to spend that time with his kids when they were young.  It seemed to him that just being together at that age was the right thing to do, even if all you were doing at the time was walking down the street holding hands.  There aren’t too many people traveling with children like we are, and it is so neat to meet other people who have done it and reinforce the fact that we will wont regret what we are doing.

One of the things we are looking forward to here is the change from the dry season to the rainy season.  Some people in this part of the world call it the change from the dusty season to the muddy season.  Typically during the rainy season you get rain every day for a couple of hours, often around the same time every day.  I think that change might have happened last night.  About 9:30 PM the thunder and lightning storm started and it started to rain.  The lake is surrounded by mountains so the thunder just rumbled and echoed for hours around us.  The rains weren’t super strong, but it was a good solid rain – much more of a rain than you would usually see in Seattle.  Most of the land around us has been crispy and brown since we started heading back north from Costa Rica, and doesn’t look so great.  But once the rainy season really starts, everything should turn lush and green within about a week or two. 

This weekend we are going on a little road-trip.  Guanajuato is a small town a couple of hours from here.  It is supposed to be one of the most colorful towns in all of Mexico and there is a famous mummy museum.  We’ll post some pictures on the blog when we get back.

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More Pictures and Slideshows

May 28th, 2007

One of Matthias’ hobbies is creating slide shows on the computer set to music.  He has 2 slideshows that he loaded onto You Tube.  One is of our trip to the San Blas islands in Panama, and the other is a slideshow of our entire trip so far.  You can find the slideshows here:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=lotzbay

We’ve also put up a few more pictures on our flickr site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebays/

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Champion 2007!

May 20th, 2007

As probably all of our readers already know this weekend the greatest soccer team of all time (VfB Stuttgart) won the German Bundesliga for the first time in 15 years. It was totally unexpected and therefore it is even sweeter now.

During our travels this year Stuttgart was televised several times and every time we got to see them play they won and captured first place. After a few ups and downs this season we watched them again last weekend and they were again in first place on the last day of the season. The last and most important game was also televised in Mexico and we couldn’t wait to watch the game, but then a catastrophe happened. Our landlord didn’t pay the cable bill and cable was turned off for the most important soccer game of the last 15 years. You can imagine how frustrated I was.

In a previous post we mentioned a friend of ours who we referred to as Dave the Prick.  That actually wasn’t our own name for him.  He’s well known in Seattle under that name.  But we take it all back.  Most people who know Dave probably wouldn’t even dare to ask if they could come over to his house at 8:15 in the morning to watch a soccer game that he didn’t really care about.  No one really would expect any answer from him other than “F—, no!”  But luckily we got his life-partner Terri on the phone the night before and she agreed that Dave would be up and would let us in. 

Thanks Dave and Terri and thanks to the greatest soccer team on earth, who has the chance to also win the German Trophy next weekend.  So if you missed them becoming German Champion don’t forget to watch them win the trophy next weekend.

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Congratulations Oma

May 19th, 2007

Allison’s mom, Oma Joyce, who has been the subject of several blog entries retired last week.  We would like to congratulate her and say thank you for all her help and support she has given us, even despite the fact that she isn’t the greatest supporter of out trip. 

We hope she will enjoy her retirement.  Our first retirement gift to her is this: we’ll loan Joyce and Dan the Yodavan anytime they want so they can start their own adventure. 

Buen Viaje!

Oma Joyce and Opa Dan in Costa Rica

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Mexico City

May 19th, 2007

Wow, what a city!

When we started our trip a lot of people warned us not to go to Mexico City, because it’s dirty, chaotic, polluted and dangerous and we decided not to go. Then again we have been warned of almost any place we visited that it’s too dangerous, so statistically speaking, the odds of getting hurt in Mexico City are slightly higher than in Seattle, but not as great as in Detroit.

Street Side Scene Under our Room in Mexico City  

 

This city is really mind-boggling. I thought it was the biggest city in the world, but after doing some research I think it’s only #2 behind Tokyo and every 4th Mexican lives there. I heard all kinds of numbers when it comes to its inhabitants. It must be between 20 and 40 millions, but if it’s “only” 20 millions inhabitants it’s still 40 times more than Seattle. It has 350 neighborhoods and one of the most modern subway systems that transports 4.5 million people every day. It’s also the cheapest subway system (20 cents per person) in the world.

The University of Mexico City has 260.000 Students and 31.000 teachers. The pollution wasn’t as bad as expected. We were told that a lot of people are wearing masks, but we haven’t seen any. There are very strict rules in place which cars are allowed to drive on which days to keep pollution under control and that seems to work for the most part. It wasn’t until taking a shower that we realized how much dirt and dust is in the air.

There also wasn’t as much chaos as we were told. We had to drive to the entire city twice and had almost no problems. Yes, people drive a bit more aggressive than what I have been used to lately, but having driven in almost every Central American capital it wasn’t too hard to get used to. I would however still recommend leaving the car at home if possible. Especially since the public transportation system is first class.

What surprised the most where many of the beautiful neighborhoods in Mexico City that rival any city in Europe in beauty and diversity. I have also never seen a city with as many parks and green spaces.  Maximilian of Habsburg, who ruled Mexico for 3 years before being killed, has done a superb job in bringing European big city elements to Mexico City and other city planners followed in his footsteps, creating beautiful avenues and neighborhoods. Today Mexico City has a great mix of historic and super modern buildings, great museums and in between beautiful mansions.

All of this however is only a small part of Mexico City. There are also areas tourists don’t get to see and we haven’t either, but that’s also just like any other big city in the world.

Other neat things about this city are the small installations they have scattered throughout the city.  When walking through the yellow line of the subway there was a series of pictures on astronomy, animals, embryos, plants, etc.  Along one of the boulevards there was a fabulous photography exhibit on pictures from the Mexico City.  It is those unexpected pieces of culture spattered around that you just happen to stumble upon that make it fun to explore.  What is also great about urban cities is you see the chicest, most well-dressed people, the drunkest, most homeless, plus you see everything in between.

We only spent 3 days there, and it would have been nice to have a bit more time without the kids.  Allison was able to visit a couple of art museums and I took William to the anthropology museum.  All together we went to a bunch of the parks in the city, looked at the Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio Nacional, checked out a few different neighborhoods and took a long double-decker bus ride around the city (great fun for William and Julian). 

Diego Rivera Mural in Mexico City     Appreciating Diego Rivera Murals in Mexico City

After we left Mexico City our next destination was Ajijic (which is near Guadalajara), where our friends Dave and Teri from Seattle live.  They found an apartment for us and we are planning on staying there for a while.  It is roughly 600 kilometers from Mexico City to Ajijic.  We decided to make the long trip in one day on the toll roads.  It took us a frustrating 2.5 hours to get through Mexico City, but the rest of the drive went smoothly, that is until we were 10 kilometers from Ajijic.  After such a long day of driving, about 6 miles from our destination the fan belt broke and the engine started to get really hot.  Allison was driving and noticed a bunch of lights on the dash board went on.  We started to smell a funny engine smell, stopped the car and figured out what had happened.  Within a few minutes the police had stopped and called us a mechanic.  Two guys came with just the right tools to change the belt.  I had a spare belt, but my tools weren’t ideal for the job since you had to take some other covers off, remove the alternator, etc, to get to the belt.  Within 90 minutes we were back on the road, and the little episode of road-side assistance, including a tip for the police, cost us less than $15.00. 

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