Sandra & Guanajuato

I returned to Guanajuato. As I said in my previous post, it's simply the best place to go in Mexico. This time it was for a romantic trip with Sandra. Remember this plaza in my previous post? Well we stayed in an AirBnB off of this plaza which was simultaneously unprofessional and elegant. It was unprofessional because there was no reception, no one to greet you, the room had extra mattresses, and when you came back at night, any time after 7 pm, you had to bang on the door until someone let you in (even when we got back at midnight, which would require us banging loud enough to wake someone up). 

But, at the same time the building was AMAZING. It was recently remodeled house with super high ceilings and a view of all of Guanajuato including Pipila, the University, and various churches. Plus the location was a 2 minute walk to Jardin Union. Ground zero for Guanajuato. They also had Yoga classes and Hindi classes. One morning we woke up to the sound of a didgerirdoo. There were also about 4 churches within a .5 km radius from our hotel, so it was difficult to sleep in as the bells would ring every 15 minutes starting at 8 a.m. 

The purple building behind is our Hindi B&B / Yoga Studio AirBnB. We are in Plaza Baratillo:

When my mom and sister came we ate at La Trattoria upon the recommendation of a friend from Guanajuato. It was amazing. Naturally when I went with Sandra we repeated with the award winning lasanga, goat cheese pear walnut salad, salmon, and a bottle of wine for good measure. We were on a little terrace so we could watch the various groups of estudiantiles, or groups of musicians in tunics, that would start their tours below us.

We also watched a Don Quixote impersonator work his magic getting money to pose in photos. The best part about Don Quixote is that between photos he would take cig breaks. We figured we'd get a picture too.

Classic Guanajuato picture with the yellow church at the town center in the background and a VW bug passing by.

A little closer. Sandra's technique of asking Asians to take our picture wasn't practical in Guanajuato, so we had to have some of our pictures retaken as the locals would take terrible pictures.

The houses on the hills of Guanajuato are multi-colored like Rio, except with the notable difference, they are NOT favelas.

This is the same church where I saw the play during Cervantino.

View from Pipila looking down.

This is what I'm talking about where we had to wait outside our hotel for a few minutes when we came back after 7 pm and wait for someone to open the door. On this particular occasion, they had left the fountain on inside and it flooded the entire lobby and was spilling out the front door into the plaza. I seized the opportunity for a pic.

We also went to Truco 7, saw Raul the Juice Guy, went to the Callejon del Beso, went to my taco spot (El Paisa II), ate in the Mercado Municipal, ate in Plaza San Fernando, and otherwise explored Guanajuato. The thing about Guanajuato is that you don't need to do anything in particular. The city is so pleasant that just wandering around is enjoyable. Sandra was surprised by the number of teenage pregnancies we saw. There were tons of girls, maybe 16 or 17 that were preggers. Guanajuato is an extremely conservative part of Mexico, so if you get pregnant, you're having a baby. Sometimes you would see someone who looked like an older mom with an infant and daughter, and realize that she was the grandma, and that the daughter was the mom! 

After the weekend, we headed back to D.F. on Monday afternoon. As Sandra had already seen the major sites of Mexico City, Monday night, Tuesday, and Wednesday were low key. I took her to the best restaurants in my barrio, and we had lunch at my favorite places around my work. When Sandra met my co-workers they said, "Your Spanish is so good! Where did you learn!?" Sandra gets whiter when she hangs out with me. The same thing happened in Spain. People would ask us if we would like to see the menu... in English. 

Although Sandra came to Mexico City in September, I saw this as her first REAL trip to Mexico, where she met Mexicans, tried the food, saw my apartment, and realized why I like it so much down here.