Sunday 11th!

Ended up with a bit of sunburn and lots of mosquito bites this weekend – it’s just like being on holiday! I went to find Agua Azul this morning but only found a huge cemetery! I asked the guard where Agua Azul was, but I couldn’t find it. I later went to the tourist office and explained my failed quest…seems I walked around the wrong corner when the guard told me directions. The cemetery and the mausoleums are huge (about the size of a garage). On dia del muerte people celebrate with their deceased relatives, so it maybe the place to go to try to experience it all. I got a bus into town (my first public transport experience!) and had a wander about in a different area of the city centre, sat in a park and watched a drum band practice, then walked back into town and ate outside a café in the Zocalo. The Zocalo is the central square with a massive cathedral on one side and cafés and shops around the other three. There was some kind of car event going on, which looked like the equivalent of lots of chavvy souped-up Vauxhall Novas with their bonnets and doors open showing off their wonders. There was a nice old 60s VW though. And yesterday, so I saw in the local paper, there was a Harley Davidson rally with Hell’s Angels and everything!! I got chatted up by a smelly old fella, and bought a Mexican SIM card – both encounters have convincd me of how rubbish my Spanish is. I came back and studied! Wandered through the flea market in Plaza John Lennon, and on to an antiques flea market. This is a very vibrant city with loads going on. At one stall in the antiques market they were selling Cornish pasties (pastes ingles!). I texted Bob immediately because he likes nothing better. Apparently sometime in the past a lot of Cornish people came to Puebla to pass on their (tin) mining skills –and the pasties stayed!

I only know a very few people in Puebla, but bumped into 2 of them in the market. Again, another good day. I watched that Lindsay Lohan/Jamie Lee Curtis film where mother and daughter swap places while trying to get the verb “to make” down pat. I think that I understood a fair amount of the film, though obviously the moving pictures help! Today has been my half-birthday – muy importante! I also googled “queen of england own property manhattan” and it seems no-one on the internet has heard about this either!