My family came to Mexico!

About 2 weeks ago, Mom, Dad, Granddaddy and Jason came to visit me in Cuernavaca for a long weekend. We had a great time being able to spend 4 days together after such a long time apart. There were barely enough hours in the day for me to show them where I've been living for a month and a half. I was able to take them downtown Cuernavaca and show them some of the cultural nightlife in the city, the Mexican markets with handmade crafts, and my University. They met my friends from NC State, some of my professors at my university, and my lovely Mexican family.

My two wonderful families together :)

my 2 mothers

On Saturday, we had a private driver, Imeldo, take us to the picturesque city of Taxco- Mexico's Silver Capital. Taxco is known for its silver mining and its hand crafted silver jewelry. The city's winding cobblestone streets and whitewashed houses with red tile roofs make this city one of the most unique in all of Mexico. We bought lots of silver that day with our Mexican pesos and ate lunch on a rooftop over looking the city while listening to some Spanish music.

The view of Taxco

shopping, what Mom, I and Jason love to do

My family was able to stay in one of the oldest but most elegant hotels in all of Cuernavaca- Las Mañanitas. It was such an experience to have huge peacocks to walk around our dinner table. One peacock even flew into our hotel room and ate peanuts from Granddaddy's hand!

peacock in our hotel room!

Albino peacock eating peanuts from Granddaddy's hand

Standing outside Las Mañanitas

One night for dinner, we decided to try the second best restaurant in the city - GAIA. And as delicious as the food was.. it was almost more exciting to figure out how to order "blackened tuna" in Spanish. For some reason with mine and Jason's spanish put together, we still had 4 different waiters (each one knowing a little bit more English than the other) ask us again how we wanted our fish prepared. It was interesting that on their English menu, they had "blackened tuna" but when we that's what we wanted, they had no idea what that actually was. We then tried to explain in both languages how you cook and prepare the tuna for it to be "blackened". haha what a great experience.
Jason and I also used our Spanish together to ask for directions to the black market, to call taxis and negotiate the price, and to buy things at the market.

hailing a radio taxi

The weekend my family was here in Cuernavaca was also the departure of my NC State friends. My good friend and owner of the pizza place, Manuel, in La Pasuela, threw a going away fiesta at his restaurant. It was a nice time for my family to meet my closest friends and professors who did so much for me when I first got to Mexico by myself.

La Pasuela, Cuernavaca

My sister wasn't able to come to Mexico to visit because of her study at UT. We missed you Erin, more than you know. We made sure to save a seat for you at the dinner table and wish you could have been here to say your favorite spanish word- bombero. haha I LOVE YOU!

It was by far one of the best weekends I've had since I've been here. It meant so much to me just knowing my family came all the way to Cuernavaca to see me and being able to show them my life in Mexico and what I have been doing since I've been here. I know it wasn't a lot of time but we enjoyed spending time with each other and experiencing new things together.

saying goodbye as I got in the taxi to go to school