Viva La Revolucion Day (off)!

We had a nice long three day weekend here in Mexico. As we've mentioned before, we have the great pleasure of celebrating both American and Mexican holidays and Sergio had Monday off for Mexican Independence Day.

We took advantage of the break to finally get around to a return visit to our favorite food market in the city, San Juan. We recruited our pals and neighbors Kate and Michael to accompany us which was great fun as they are extremely well-traveled, especially in the world of markets. Kate is a fantastic cook and also happens to be pregnant with her first child, due around Valentine's Day. Kate and Michael got a chance to see what is in store for them, family-wise, as we loaded up Ivan in the car seat and circled the city in our station wagon looking for parking. Baby = No more taxi rides!


We made it to San Juan early, and actually even stopped at the Ciudadela (artesania market) on the way there for what Sasha likes to call "the Christmas preview." But before we get to Christmas, there's still Thanksgiving and we saw a lot of turkeys at San Juan that looked like they might like to play a starring role at an old-fashioned American pilgrim fest:


We skipped the big birds for now, though, and concentrated on getting the fixings for a paella we planned to make that night. It turned out to be one-stop shopping as the market stocked everything from saffron to giant briny shrimp to chorizo. After the market, we were able to introduce Kate and Michael to a fabulous pastor stand that was even yummier than we remembered. The food festival continued as later that night, Sergio showed off his "I studied in Spain" cooking skills.

It really should be more yellow than that.

We were impressed!

Later that weekend, we cruised around Polanco's strangely empty streets (these folks take holidays really seriously) and found our favorite fast-food joint was doing its usual brisk business. We adore cochinita pibil, and this place is awesome. It is all they serve. We ducked in for a bite and then let Ivan spend some time with his favorite trees at the park.

Spicy!

Sweet!

We wrapped up the weekend with the discovery that Ivan does indeed have a little tooth poking through his bottom gum. A sharp little number, too. Ivan is taking it in stride, and seems to be more interested in practicing his bodybuilder poses...

He's a pocket Hercules!