It’s best to read about my trip in order so you don’t miss part of the “story”. If you haven’t read the previous posts, go to the sidebar on the right and in the archive section, start at Day 1 in April of 2011.

Tomorrow we leave 🙁 but today is another busy day! While we’re getting ready, our hostess is in the kitchen cutting up more fresh fruit. Today she’s cutting apapaya. It’s afeminine form of the fruit because of the seeds. My brother just HAD to have me take a picture of it – even if I’m half asleep and all:

When we’re ready, we start our day by going to have breakfast at my sister-in-law’s sister’s apartment (the one we went to last night). Her sister and brother-in-lawlive in Texas, and the brother-in-law wanted tomake everyonean American breakfast to thank them for letting them stay with them while they were in Mexico.

On the way there, we stopped at a flower market so that my mom could by thehostess someflowers. This picture shows an action shot of a woman watering the flowers:

When we get to the apartment, I check my email really fast to see if my family got my messages. But first another little background info on me. When I’m on vacation, I could care lessif I have contact with people back home. I could live without the internet and phone service. I don’t understand people who go on vacation and spend the whole time calling their friend’s or sending messages, etc. Well, let’s just say, the rest of the familydoesn’t think like me (with exception to my brother). Back to me checking for a message from my husband. He did get back to me and let’s just say he was EXTREMELY worried by the tone of his message. I know that because when he’sworried, he gets angry. That’s how he’s been for 23 years. He doesn’t know how to show it like normal people. Now I’m upset. More on this later.

We all sit down to a fabulous breakfast. Here’s a picture of it which consists of eggs over-easy, fried potatoes (which were supposedto be hashbrowns, but he couldn’t find a grater – the person’s whose apartment we were at was at work), french toast, fresh fruit, juice, coffee and bacon. Yum! He even went out of his way to look for American ketchup – he said it wasn’t easy.

We visit fora while and make plans to meet up for lunch in downtown Mexico City. We plan to take a double-decker bus tour of the downtown area, but first I want them to keep a promise they made to me the night before. On Day 2 we had seen a really neat sight of colorful houses built up ontothe hillside. I wanted a picture of it. They promised me to try the next best thing. Not far from where we had breakfast, there was an area that is in a valley that has colorful houses. We were told by “Just Two Blocks” that it was just 2 minutes away (Get it? LOL).

I mention this as we walk outside. My sister-in-law say’s no, it’s too far. Over night she got amnesia. I get a little emotional. This happens on every trip we go on. Just like in the UK. I didn’t ask for much. I just wanted to go to Harrod’s to say that I was there. But they said we didn’t have time. This trip, I just wanted to take pictures of the houses on the mountain. Now I’m being told it’s too far even though the night before we were toldit was just 2 minutes away. I wouldn’t say I got hysterical, but I did exchange a few words with my brother saying I never matter. My emotions were compounded because of my husband’s message.

We work things out – their amnesia clears up a little. Two minutes later, we’re at the valley. I took pictures for less than five minutes. Carol (I) wasn’t asking for that much! I’m never that unreasonable. I just want my requests to matter. As a joke my brother said we’d take a trip sometime that would just be places that I want to go to. He said it would be thousands of dollars because we’d have to go to many places, but we’d hit Harrods, the houses on the mountain, etc. Hardy, har, har, har.

When we pull up and get out of the car, this poor little thing immediately lies in the shade of the car:

Here are a few pictures from the valley:

We head back to our hostess’s condo to get our stuff together for a day out. I notice my mom is on the phone – turns out she used their phone to call my sister so she wouldn’t worry. I’m not sure why, we’re to return home the next day. But woa! My mom holds the phone away from her ear and passes a message on that my sister relayed to her, “On behalf of myself and the Dunnigan’s, piss off!” Hmmm. I guess she’s upset too. I get my mom to hang up and then call my husband. After about two minutes of telling him that we were totally fine, having a blast, reminding him that we had no internet or phone (I know – why was I using their phone now?), we had a very nice couple more minutes of conversation where he say’s,”We’re never going to be apart again. We go everywhere together from now on.” I feel better. My day is looking happy again. We head out for the day.

We walk a few blocks. This is the Rain God:

My mom, sister-in-law and hostessare intending to go to a museum of anthropology and my brother and I to walk around and take pictures. Turns out the museum is closedon Monday’s. We get on the double-decker bus and drive around for a while seeing the sights.These were taken from the bus:

This is the girl who was sitting in front of me looking at a map:

Everything is very clean wherever we go. At each stop on the route, this woman is cleaning the bus:

When we get off, it’s lunch time. We head for a beautiful restaurantethat we photograhped a few days before. This is the La Casa de loAzulejos (The House of Tiles) that we have lunch at. It’s actually a chain, but in all different types of buildings. Thisis the most historic building.

Here are a couple of pictures I took from the inside looking out:

And an interior shot where we have four tables set up to hold us and many members of my sister-in-law’s family:

Here’s what my brother and I ate:

I hadtacos dorados

My brother had enchiladas suizas

After lunch, we walk around some more, and we’re joined by the family that lives in Texas. This is Mexico City’sgold district:

When we’re on our walk, I glance off to a street on the right. I see Chinese writing. I ask if that’s a China Town. It is! Who would have thunk it! China Town in Mexico! I know, New York has one, many places have one. It just threw me off. I would have loved to check it out, but we just had too much of the real Mexico to see.

I kind of feellike I’m in Key West with all these characters around:

Too much going on! One minute I’m taking a picture of a beautiful building, the next I turn around and see this, but I don’t want to miss the moment, so I’m stuck with the settings that I used for the building:

My sister-in-law gets a phone call that they have found the last two suitcases and that they’ll be delivering them today! We now visit the Cathedral of Mexico.

Where you do your penance:

They had a bunch of these little chapels, each dedicated to a patron saint:

We walk outside to meet up with the rest of the family that we left behindat the restaurante, and I snap a few more shots off of the area:

Policia Federal

My husband would love the fact that the car’s are American made and not imported from Japan:

We separate from the larger part of the family. Now it’s my brother, sister-in-law, mom, hostess, me, and thecouple from Texas. We pile into two taxi’s and head to another market (still looking for souvenirs). I finally did get the boys some t-shirts. There were a few kids playing around. They were so cute!

And another couple:

The motorcycles make their own lanes:

We jump into another taxi and head to the neighborhood of La Condesa which is my sister-in-law’s favorite neighborhood. We’re heading to Neve Gelato to have some ice cream:

Our group for the evening on our last evening together:

Bad, bad picture, but I just wanted to show you how they have service attendant’s at their gas stations. I was told that you’re unable to pump your own gas …

When we arrive at the condo – yea! The last two suitcases are waiting downstairs for us.

Tomorrow is Day 6 and the day we travel back home. I’ll post a few pictures and tell you about our woe’s when we get back to our airport.