We are In "Hot Water"

Here we are in Aguascalientes City (Hot water). Our hotel is on a very nice pedestrian plaza (that's where I am standing) so we were able to walk around a lot. Unfortunately I was very sick yesterday (Monday) when we got here so we only walked around a little while. However, we liked the city so much we decided to stay an extra day. Today we took a tour of the city on a trolley which Felipe narrated for me.



This is the main cathedral in the historic downtown area. There are at least 5 cathedrals in the central area but this is the biggest one. The inside had gold leaf all over the ceiling and paintings everywhere. There is a very elaborate altar to the Virgen of Guadalupe in all of the churches here. That is really the only main difference from cathedrals I have seen in Europe. This is all pretty new to Felipe too since his family are not really strong Catholics. I felt too guilty to snap a picture of the inside of this cathedral since there were so many people kneeling and praying and there was even a priest taking confessions.


This is the old train station we saw on our bus tour. It is actually not as old as I thought for the city being 400 some years old. I think it was built in 1910 or something like that. There is a park area and museum around here but we did not go in since it was far from where our hotel was and we did not want to take any taxis.

We walked around more this morning and sat at a cafe by the plaza having smoothies and watching people walk by.


This is Felipe inside the Palacio Federal. It was very pretty. We found very nice buildings here and the city seems very safe. The streets are very skinny and tough to drive through but all has been well so far. No crashes! Most of the buildings here have open plaza areas with some cloth or plastic streched over the roof like giant skylights. There is tons of natural light everywhere and bright colors. We saw a tortilleria where they were making the tortillas from scratch and a nice bakery too near where we had lunch. We also walked around at night a little on Tuesday and got some Elotes... For those of you who have gone with to 5 de Mayo in St. Paul you know what those are.... Sweet corn grilled with either cream or mayo smeared on it then sprinkled with cheese and you can add salt and chile powder to it. YUMMY! Then we walked over to the Cathedral of San Marcos which is at the end of our plaza at the hotel and it was like a carnival with food vendors and a little lawn mower pulling train cars for the kids to ride it and fountains that weren't going during the day. It was fun to see all the people out. None of the food stalls had any meat except pork or tripe (cow stomach) so Felipe got a huge wedge of Jicama on a stick (and I mean HUGE) and I got an entire mango sprinkled with lime and salt. It was the perfect ripeness and very delicious. Then of course we had to finish off with some churros. The were stuffed churros though which I had never seen before so I got a chocolate one and Felipe got a strawberry one. Fabulous! We are looking forward to more street corn but usually won't buy the fruit. We only bought it from that vendor because she put the stick in it before peeling it so it was cleaner.

One very interesting story we learned on our bus tour seems very typical of the "legendary Mexican passion". It is the story of how Aguascalientes became a state (it is a state AND a city). In 1853 there was a party for the "rich and famous" of Aguascalientes city and the president of Mexico was in attendance. Apparently there was a woman there who was very rich and powerful and also very, very beautiful. The president was asking her for a kiss and she kept refusing saying that her husband was watching her. Then he asked her to dance and she accepted. While they were dancing he kept asking her for one kiss and she said that she would give him a kiss on his cheek only if he gave her what she wanted... for Aguascalientes to become a state of its own. He finally said yes and she stopped the music and announced that she was now going to give the president a kiss on his cheek because he agreed to make Aguascalientes a state. She then kissed him and everyone cheered and within months a new Mexican state was born. Seriously? for a kiss on the cheek? She must have been incredibly beautiful! I tried to convince Felipe that our life should work that way... One kiss on the cheek and he will do whatever I want... Sadly, he said things do not work that way any more.