puebla

I think Google is a little mixed up today. A message just popped up that says "This page is in Indonesian. Translate it using Google toolbar? Learn more. Not in Indonesian? Help us improve." Um... yeah. That one. May I mention, also, that the site was in English? Not even Spanish.

Anyway, now this post is really about our weekend in Puebla - not my laments about missing the 4th of July or Google's language-recognition problems. It really was a wonderful weekend - our last 'group visit' weekend and my favorite by far. Below is what I think is a cool picture of the Cathedral in Puebla at night - I didn't know where else to put it, so I put it here.

On the way to Puebla on Friday morning I called my family to let them know that, well, we were on our way to Puebla. I learned not to attempt to explain weekend plans involving the names of Mexican towns to 7-year-olds. Addie answered the phone. This is how the conversation went.

Addie: "Hello Waibel's, this is Addie."

Me: "Hi Addie, this is Hannah. How are you?"

Addie: "Good."

Me: "What are you up to?"

Addie: "Nothing. Leah and Seth are doing their 4-H projects."

Me: "Oh, sounds like fun. So nothing exciting going on?"

Addie: "No, we have to take the pool down." (oh. apparently the softener salt bag didn't work.)

Me: "Oh bummer. Well hey, I was just calling to let you guys know that we're on our way to Puebla for the weekend."

Addie: "Where?"

Me: "Puebla, it's a town."
Addie: "Where?"

Me: "Puebla. Here, I'll spell it for you."

Addie: "What?"
Me: "I'm going to spell it for you. Ready?"

Addie: "Ok."

Me: "P..."

Addie: "What?"

Me: "P..."

Addie: "Ok."

Me: "U..."

Addie: "Ok."

Me: "E..."

Addie: "What?"

Me: "E... B..."

Addie: "What?"

Me: "B, as in Brian, like Dad's name."

Addie: "Ok."

Me: "L... A..."

Addie: "What?"

Me: "hey, Addie, can I talk to Mom?"

You get the picture. Later in the weekend she told me "adios" at the end of our conversation - she's been trained well. :)

Anyway, Puebla is a really neat town. We got there at about noon on Friday and the first thing we did was head to the center of town and tour the Cathedral. Eventually, they all start looking the same, but the architecture is always amazing.

After the Cathedral we got some lunch at Vips, a Panera-type place, and then went to the Palacio Municipal, the government seat. It was here wherein I was wandering aimlessly down some marble stairs only to find myself suddenly seated and tumbling down them. It hurt a lot. My only explanation for my concerned but greatly humored companions was that we don't have marble steps at our house, so I don't get a lot of practice walking down them. Anyway, I still have bruises. Below is a photo of me in the Palacio Municipal before falling down the steps.

The Palacio Municipal is a neat building though. Also, somewhere near it that we toured this library, which was apparently the first public library in the Americas. It is a really neat room and has lots of old books in it. I could have spent all day in there probably, but they made us go through quickly and wouldn't let us take pictures. So I had to quick draw it instead. There are three stories looking down into this one open room where there are tables and chairs, and I just thought it was really cool. It was probably my favorite place we've visited so far, both for the way it was built and for the fact that it contains books.

After that we had free time for the rest of the evening, so we went out and walked the streets of Puebla. We went to some shops and watched part of this performance of kids performing traditional Mexican dances, and it was fun to see too. We had a late supper at this Pizzeria with really great pizza that was really close to our hotel.

On Saturday, we started off the day with about an hour bus ride to another church. Puebla is apparently a lot bigger than I thought. We went to see this church because of it's architecture as representative of the time period - the outside has a lot of painted tiles on it, which Puebla is famous for - and the inside is completely covered, absolutely covered, in what can best be described as stuff. There is not a single blank wall, all of it is covered in white three-dimensional swirls made from a mixture of sand and straw, and full of indigenous and religious symbolism, which is a very strange combination. You couldn't take pictures of the inside, but I wish we could have because it was almost overwhelming.

Anyway, on our way back into town from this church, we stopped at the "Fuerte de Guadalupe", a fort, which was essential to the famous Cinco de Mayo battle in May of 1862 (they beat the French). I really like places like this, and it was neat to explore and learn about the history here.

On Saturday afternoon we also went to a museum that was basically a walk-through of an old house in Puebla. That was really cool too - it was kind of like the Mexican Victorian era, if that exists, and also had the tiles that I talked about earlier. We were going to go to another museum too, but it was 'closed for remodeling' when we got there. We got over this change of events remarkably quickly and headed for the Artesan Market, which was, like many of the other things I have talked about so far, really cool. Almost everything is handmade and fairly cheap, so it was fun to look around and see what all there was. We spent a long time there. After a little rest at a hotel, we headed out for supper to this little taqueria where they had cheap, hot, and spicy food and non-alcoholic sangria! It was definitely worth all the wandering around we did to find a place to eat.

On Sunday morning, we went out for breakfast to The Italian Coffee Company (yes, that is what it is called - they don't even have it in Spanish!). I really enjoyed sitting in the town square drinking a mokachino on a quiet Sunday morning.

We went to another little market after breakfast and then, like I said yesterday, I headed back to the hotel to call in for church services before we left at 1 p.m. By the way, our hotel was quite charming as well - a little colonial place on a side street. All the rooms are different and decorated with the tiles that I talked about before, and it's just a very cute place. The picture below is us in front of the hotel with all our bags, getting ready to leave.

We drove back to Taxco on Sunday afternoon with a stop at a mall food court in Cuernavaca for our 4 p.m. meal (whatever you call that - here they call it lunch). Here, I had my first fast-food in over a month and had the excellent experience of ordering a Subway sandwhich in Spanish. They don't have $5 footlongs or banana peppers (not like I would know how to say that even if they did have them), but I did order a Club and learned that Parmesan Oregano bread is very good.

Puebla overall is a very neat colonial town with beautiful buildings! The streets are lined with buildings of every color, with balconies and big, old doors. I really like old doors, for some reason - they're unique and classy, and you have to stop and think about how many people have gone in and out over the course of history...

We got back to Taxco around 6:30 and I went for a short run because it was such a nice temperature out! And today I started my second-to-last full week of school for the summer. :)