Our christmas vacation

Since going to Argentina was too expensive we decided to go to a horse ranch in Mexico City. The first night after we drove we spent the night in Puebla but of course we had to get stuck in a road block. This time the problem was that there was an accident and 30 pigs in a trailer were killed. A huge semitrailer was blocking the way.
                              I will now explain the stages of a road block (this is how our thinking evolves):

1. "We're not really going slower, but in case we are, let’s try the other lane…at least we’re still moving… only 14 km more!"
2. "At least this accident doesn’t involve ________ (fill in blank from previous bloqueo: labor dispute, police protest, 30 dead pigs and a huge semi-trailer, or a traffic accident).  If we can just get 10 km more we’ll stop for the night."
3. "Can't the police (or, depending who's causing the bloqueo,  can't the government, or Carlos Slim, or someone) pay/persuade/impel someone to open the road?"
4. Oscar- "I’d almost settle for a love motel..." (but after checking with the only local hotel that is open, we changed our minds..); Wilhelmina- "If we get to any hotel. I’d be fine eating cookies and crackers for dinner." Kirstin- "Better to sleep in the van than in the Subaru, right guys?" Sean- "We can sleep right here in the highway. The car behind us will honk to wake us up, before we get run over....."
5.   Wilhelmina- "If in doubt, knit."

There was a 4-hour delay and then we got through. When we got up in the morning we wanted to look around the town of Puebla a little and the church.
I am not a huge fan of churches, but this church in particular was amazing. It was  the first church where I didn't want to leave right away. The arcs, the drawings, the organs (they had three) were huge and it looked like a castle outside. When we got to our hotel in Mexico City, we relaxed a little and then went out on a walk. While we were in Mexico City we did these things: Went to churches, swam, went to the anthropology museum, saw four people attached to ropes by their legs swing around fifty-two times and have a great time. After our time was up in Mexico city, we took a two-hour drive to the ranch were we had a great time galloping, feeding our horses, grooming our horses and giving them treats. One thing that made the ranch really special was that we could gallop and canter a lot where in other places you couldn't do any of that. Also the food was really good. The problem was that it was so awesome that we were really sad when we had to leave.

 We had fun ice skating.

Awesome fireworks.                                                                

We strung popcorn and made cranes.

 Mina and I got really cool clothes.

  

 We visited a really cool church (in Puebla). 

  

We saw murals of Diego Rivera that showed the inquisition and the revolution. 

Here we are at el Palacio Nacional where the Diego Rivera murals are.

They even had human remains in the church. Relics-- a holy old thing.

In the church some people put their wishes on the saint's place and locked them in or tied them in.

We went to the cake store; Lewis called it the cake museum. Here are some examples.

We also went to the archeology museum which had some interesting old relics.

As an old Aztec tradition, these men swung around on ropes 52 times to be represent a year or to be cleansed (I'm not sure which).

We had fun swimming in the pool at Lana and Dewis's really fancy hotel. (We switched the first letters around; actually their names are Dana and Lewis. But they are really nice and funny.)

We had fun going in bicycle taxis, which I wish we had in San Cristobal.

And of course the ride on the boats in Xochimilco was amazing. They even had mariachi bands that would come up and play for you.

Here we are at the horse ranch.

Mom got a little mud in the face while galloping.

I am having a chomp-off with a cactus piranha.

I'm sorry that it took so long to get my blog post out.