Goings On in Guadalajara

No, I haven't had the baby yet, but we have been walking all over Guadalajara, every day going on another new excursion. I should clarify and say that Vlad is walking, and I am technically doing more of a waddle at 40 weeks pregnant, boldly holding up foot traffic everywhere. Gotta love it. Also, today is my due date, as well as the day Mexico celebrates the Mexican Revolution. I'm rooting for a revolutionary baby, but he's still holding on to the status quo.

We have both become pretty smitten with Guadalajara, a city of more than five million people, and are constantly surprised that there aren't more tourists wandering around. Maybe we aren't looking in the right places, but everywhere we go we only see Mexicans and definitely no one with a giant camera! It's strange because there are tons of cool, old buildings, museums, cathedrals with massive spires in every direction, fantastic cafes with delicious coffee and baked goods and excellent street food. This place has some seriously cheap tacos.

The streets are bubbling with families, children gripping balloons, and street performers, and the park by our apartment is chock full of hipster college students sporting skinny jeans, Converses, ear gauges and lots of tattoos. Vlad and I, are still rocking the typical cruiser gear: shorts, t-shirts and sandals, which doesn't exactly fit in. On another Guadalajaran fashion note, everyone here is wearing winter clothing in 70 degree weather. I have literally seen people in parkas, scarves and wool jackets, and no one, I repeat no one, wears flips flops.

Interesting things we have seen in Guadalajara:

The bravest horses in the world. The traffic here is fast and furious, especially the buses, but these horses blithely trot right through it.

A troupe of Hari Krishnas complete with saffron robes and sombreros. I am not joking.

A giant, warehouse market where the top floor consists of stall after stall of what I can only assume are implements of Mexican magic.

Rows of candles, statues of the Virgin Mary covered in plastic beads and an insane variety of herbs boasting cures for all kinds of ailments are just a few of the many selections. And to make matters even more surreal, the top floor is also home to the carnicerias so that as you make your way through towers of candles and statuary you also catch glimpses of raw hunks of meat and sausages hanging from hooks. Let's just say it's an interesting mixture.

So far, we're big fans of Guadalajara. It's definitely different from our coastal haunts, but there's still the occasional palm tree to make us feel at home.