Obamanos!

So a week ago tonight, we were hanging out with the President of the United States. President Obama made his first trip to Mexico and he boldly chose to visit the capital. Lucky us! (In fact, only six US presidents have ever visited Mexico City: Taft, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton. The rest chose resorts, ranches and other more rural spots when they visited Mexico.)

The employees at the US Embassy were invited to a very short reception with the Prez, right here in Polanco at a nearby hotel. Sasha and Ivan stroller-ed over and met Sergio there only to find a long, long line ahead of us. There are a LOT of Embassy employees! Once in the ballroom, there was even more waiting, so keeping Ivan entertained was top priority...

Walk with Daddy...

...crawl with Mommy...

...and Daddy loses it a little.

After a couple of hours, we were rewarded with a quick speech from Obama thanking everyone for their public service. Very nice, but really we wanted a photo. It was every man (woman and child) for himself and we just didn't have what it took to get in the front row.

He shook a lot of hands.

This is as close as we got (not bad, really).

A little fuzzy but, hey, ya know, it's the President.

We managed to rig one shot of Ivan, thoroughly exhausted at this point, with his President.

A glimpse into the Lil Dude's future?

A Symbiotic Relationship

It was inevitable. LouLou figured out that anytime Ivan sits in his funny high-chair, food comes flying in all directions. So now, the moment we even move the chair, LouLou emerges from whatever nook in the house she was sleeping in. And Ivan loves it.

LouLou tickles Ivan's dangling feet.

He looks for her constantly.

Dude loves LouLou.

And LouLou is very content with their arrangement.

Representin' Mount Pleasant...

Mmm, mango....

Last week we had some great company here in Mexico City. Bookie and Michelle made their way down here from their amazing new place in DC to get a taste of DF's charms.

It was a blast to see them here --- they were excellent, enthusiastic tourists. We had a ball seeing the sights with them, but it was also fun just to catch up as Sasha has known Bookie for a pretty long time now (since freshman Foss Six dormitory days!) and even though English is her second (third?) language, Bookie never fails to impress with her formidable conversational skills. And Michelle is no slouch herself, so basically us blabbermouth Morenos were in heaven.

Michelle and Bookie are not tossing Ivan out the window.

So we dragged our friends all over town, took them grocery shopping with us and "entertained" them with a basketball-watching, camarones-eating marathon in our stuffy apartment. Then on Friday they took us out to eat at Pujol where we ate exquisitely presented and tasty alta cocina. We definitely got better than we gave!

(Side note: This was our very first evening out in Mexico without Sir Ivan! Thank you to the ladies for encouraging us to act like grown-ups and for pal Michael for graciously babysitting for us. Sasha was totally wigging out about leaving Ivan, and while the little dude apparently woke up pretty much immediately after we left for dinner, he was apparently a very congenial companion. He certainly looked happy as a clam-- and wide awake---when we came home three hours past his bedtime. So lesson learned: Ivan might wake up while we go out, but his sitter won't hate us. Of course, the sitter might try to make a Los Angeles Lakers fan out of him...)

Bookie and Michelle got a quick tour around Polanco (Turix!), took a trip up to the Pyramids and to the Basilica and Sasha and Ivan joined them for a tour of the Centro highlights (zocalo, murals, churches, golden post office, etc.). The whole gang spent Saturday marketing: a quick zip throughout the Ciudadela for souvenirs and then a lengthy exploration of Mercado San Juan where Bookie tasted grasshoppers and compared notes with Sergio on the wide display of snout-to-tail butchering. Apparently the Swiss and the Bolivians share a taste for the secondary meats like tongue, tripe, etc. Must be the altitude? They certainly have little else in common.

Bookie inspects the day's catch

Introducing Ivan to dead seafood

We loaded up on more tame ingredients for a big cook-up at home.

Sasha gets ditched on a bench while the rest go for tacos.

Sergio made some really great food for all of us and Michigan State kindly beat Connecticut to round out the day. Bookie and Michelle spent their last day in Coyoacan and San Angel, and joined us in Polanco for one last appointment with some of our fair city's famous margaritas.


It was a chatty, food-y few days and we look forward to more of the same when we land back in their neck of the woods in a few months!