Lisa n Tom (n James n Joseph)

Boys had a 3-day weekend so we went to Valladolid. Here's the Cliff's Notes: Founded by Spanish conquistadors in 1543 Built over the ancient Maya city of Zací, and relocated in 1545 due to mosquito complaints, using stones from Maya structures. Significant Maya revolts in the 1700s Pivotal role in the 1847 Caste War, where it was besieged and temporarily lost to Maya rebels before recapture As U. Utah Phillips used to say, "The past didn't go anywhere." The Maya stones are still part of the Convent of San Bernadino de Siena that you see behind the guys in the photo below. The convent was built next to a really deep cenote. They came up with a very clever pump system to get the water up 60 feet to the surface. We went to Mass next door. It was standing room only because it was the first Sunday of Advent and everybody had brought their advent wreaths to be blessed.  All of the streets in Valladolid are numbered except this one: Calzada de los Frailes (Friars' Ro...

 That is all.

 Thanksgiving is only an American and Canadian holiday, and even those two can't decide which date to celebrate it. But Mexican has turkey and potatoes and green beans and sweet potatoes and marshmallows (and Amazon can provide cranberry sauce), so we invited all three sets of the local missionaries over for dinner. There were eleven of us all together. Eight Americans, two Mexicans, and a Brazilian. Everybody was happy with everything, except the non-Americans were more than a little concerned about the cranberry sauce. They ate small, polite nibbles, but I don't think I made any new converts.

 Joseph had the day off of school today for parent-teacher conferences. James did not. So Joseph and I had an adventure day at Animaya, a big animal park kind of like the San Diego Wildlife Park. (Like, the budget version.) Our favorite animals in the exhibits aren't meant to be there at all: the iguanas. They're native to the area and they just wander around wherever they feel like it, like the Yucatan version of squirrels and pigeons. You've got to admire that energy. "Hello, I've been here for 70 million years. That's a nice exhibit area you've got there. Don't mind if I do." Joseph has helpfully circled them for you. Hippos

... not as scary as they sound.  

 Mexicans drink more Coca Cola than anybody else in the world. I just looked it up and, as of 2023, it was 634 servings of Coke per Mexican per year. This is empirically not a good thing, but it does lead to some sugar-filled fun activities like the gigantic Coca Cola Christmas tree in the Chedraui grocery store parking lot. They lit it up tonight.  "Before Thanksgiving?!?"  "¿Qué es el Thanksgiving?" Anyway, it was packed. The lighting ran 25 minutes behind schedule, which, for my boys, is approximately eternity. When it finally lit up, James was underwhelmed but everybody else had a good time. 

 James is on a league soccer team called Los Quetzales*. It's a co-ed team of 11 year olds and he's about a head taller than everybody else. He sprained his finger two weeks ago and has been going to physical therapy so he's missed a lot of games and practices. Had some frustrating practices where the coach was hollering instructions in Spanish that he couldn't understand and his teammates found it funny. He finally got back into the game a couple of days ago and this morning he scored the winning goal (3:2) against a pretty good team. *Here's a quetzal, by the way:

 The Christmas trees have arrived! It's 89 degrees, but I've seen people happily driving home with trees strapped to the roofs of their cars like it's Vermont.  The Christmas music -- English language Christmas music -- is playing in all the stores all day long except at the Christmas tree lot. They were playing EDM.

 Here is a small collection of weird stuff I've seen at the Merida Costco that I haven't seen anywhere else.