Tag: Mexico

Finally got off work! I got off 4 days early for some reason(bad crew scheduling!). I originally booked a flight down to Puerto Escondido to get back to Burro but my friend Adrianna told me there was a Quinceñera in Guadalajara that she was going to for her cousin and I could join her and her family there. So I immediately asked for another flight and after a little bit of convincing they got it for me.

I arrived in Guadalajara and was offered a ride from the guy sitting next to me on the plane to downtown Centro. His name was Roberto and he was the nicest old dude and insisted that he would take me out for some local coffee in the morning the next day.

The plane landed and I walked through customs with Roberto, who’s sister was also on the plane. Roberto reunited with his wife and they drove me into town and dropped me off right in front of my airbnb. Roberto handed me a black card that said, “Abogado.”

I took a nap and then messaged Adrianna to meet up with her and her family downtown. I walked downtown, found them, and we went to Punto Mago which is a Harry Potter themed bar. It was super cool and they had Harry potter themed drinks like butterbeer, which was perfect because I was just finishing Harry Potter 4 in Spanish.

We finished out butterbeers and went our separate ways to prepare for the quinceñera the next night.

I ate breakfast with Roberto and his family at a very typical Mexican place and rested the day away waiting for the party. When they sent the text to come over I threw on my party shirt, jumped in an uber, and shot over.

When I arrived I felt pretty damn weird. I was worried I would feel like people were staring at me but in the end I really didn’t feel that way at all. The family was incredibly welcoming the entire time.

There was a full service bar at the party so I ordered a strong rum and coke to catch up with the rest of them. With rum and coke in hand I went around meeting some very friendly Mexican people. I enjoyed meeting the whole family and felt myself quickly slipping past tipsy.

I tried my hand at the most gringo salsa you’ve ever seen and was outdanced by every Mexican there. But we had a really good time and at one point they were trying to light some of those big puffy flying candle things but they just kept going up in flames instead and Adrianna and I ended up cracking up so hard that we both had to lie down in the grass in pain. We all stayed up till about 2 or 3 am singing karoake and finally decided to go to bed.

I woke up really early as it was bright and I slept on the floor of the living room. I swam in the pool and lounged around for hours before other people started waking up. Kevin made and shared some bomb chilaquiles and I had a pretty good time swimming and hanging out with the family members but I felt a little bit detached. Even though my Spanish is pretty good it’s still really hard to communicate and I didn’t have much in common with most of the people there. The older people would speak quietly and I just can’t understand them. A lot of the conversation is me saying, “que??”, “mande??”

The family requested I sing some English songs so I sang some karaoke in the middle of the day but then Adrianna was itching to leave. So we left around 7pm and invited Kevin to join us. We went to an area just outside of the city called Tlaquepaque that ended up being incredibly nice to walk around. We accompanied Kevin buying something different from each street vendor and ended up at a Mexican place with absurdly loud music with some dude doing sexy dances at presumably the “after hours” gay bar across the street.

Adrianna and Kevin sang along to the absurdly loud music and I danced along pretending to know the songs. We were all pretty tired so after exploring around for a bit I headed to my Airbnb and Adrianna and Kevin headed to their house.

All in all the quinceñera was an incredibly interesting experience. The most touching moment was the parents of the girl talking about her, as it is her coming of age party. In this day and age it is just a big birthday party with some quirks. They all buy dolls that are supposed to look like the quinceñera girl. It’s a bit creepy, but as are most traditions.