9/29/07

It was Shaunie's last day in Zacatecas. We'd only known her a short time but already felt like we'd known her longer. Our home lives were very similar at the time and we seemed to connect on many different levels. I wish I'd had more time to spend with her there.

The boy and I walked over to the school to meet her and had been waiting outside the school for quite awhile before she heard we were at the door. To pass the time, I took pics of the street on a rainy day, took pics behind my shoulders of Andre in the Ergo on my back, and took pics of two out of the four loud gas trucks. I don't mean loud as in mechanically loud, I mean, loud PA systems blaring the advertising of their product at 7am loud!

A Video of the annoying gas truck. This was my favorite of the four gas trucks though. It has a rockin' beat!

Later on in the evening, Andre was willingly put in "jail" back at our room. The windows were cool in that they had this wrought iron bars on the outside in the hallway. He liked to be between the windows and the bars!

Restaurante Cazadores - 9/27/07

Every Thursday evening, the school would hold a 'Cafe Sociale' for it's students at an upper scale restaurant. It was located above a bank, next to Teatro Calderon, the local theater. Unfortunately, Andre was still adjusting to Mexico, and between moving to a different host family and that, he was not up for socializing. So, we left early and walked around the plaza.

There happened to be a Mariachi Band there, performing for a private party. The pictures aren't that great, but at least I got some.

He looked so festive!

Also, every Thursday night, the Zacatecas Symphony Band would gather at the plaza and play music. They had an established following as well.

This particular evening, there happened to be a beautiful rainbow in the sky.

Every year around Mexico's Independence Day, they light up the night's sky atop Cerro de la Bufa with a huge 'Viva Mexico' sign.

I thought it to be interesting as well as pretty random to find a donkey in the middle of an urban city, next to a church.

I took a lot of pictures of the Catedral. It really is a beautiful building.

Our New Room

Our new host family lived in 'downtown' Zacatecas next to the popular Catedral. Their home was huge with lots of high ceilings, big doors, and open spaces. The home apparently is roughly 300 years old! At any rate, we lost some luxuries when we moved, but overall it was the best decision for the boy.

The doors.

My bed and the huge windows behind it.

The boy's bed.

Cute pic of the boy eating a late night snack.

Shaunie and Andre watching Cars.

Our Final Day at the First Host Family

We didn't do much our final day at the first host family's house. Andre decided to take his nap on the floor of our room and seemed to have slept amazingly well too!

The Dolphin Show

Katy and I, with Andre strapped to my back, walked for about an hour or so to get to the fairgrounds and see "La Feria" or, "The Fair." On our way we passed by the University of Zacatecas and saw a very large statue on the wall of the building. I just had to take a picture of it!

Andre was a typical two year old in that his attention span was less than a wink! I don't blame him though. The announcers spent 90% of the time talking versus showing off the animals and their talents. The dolphin pool was small and shallow as well. Andre liked it best when the seals burped. The picture of him below was taken right after one of them burped really loud. Other than the burping, the show was a big dud.

21 Sept. 2007

The people standing to the right and left of Shaundra are Chris and his wife Priyanka from the UK. Chris is the head honcho, Director (or whatever the correct title is) of the British Council in Mexico City. They were cool people. I only wish I had more of an opportunity to get to know them better. They left to return to Mexico City that evening.

Later that evening, Shaunie, Andre, and I went back to the little hole in the wall restaurant for another delicious meal. Andre was being a big goof ball as usual, and the following pictures attest to that fact! Following our delicious dinner, we met up with Katie, the girl from Ireland who works for the British Embassy in Mexico City, and found the traveling band in some plaza in the streets. We decided to follow the band and see what all the hoopla was about. (There are a dedicated group of band followers. It's actually pretty neat. The band walks and plays constantly all over the city and the group follows them.) Turns out, this band ended up at a hotel where they seemed to have been hired by some convention group staying there. The three of us and Andre got busted for crashing their party and we were kicked out of the hotel. All we did was follow the band!

The last photo is taken of the Ex-Templo de San Augustin at night.