The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread

MinnieM123

Premium Member
Sheesh first the thing you have for snow but to keep picking on a dear sweet puppy that's just mean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, the little darlin' :rolleyes: managed to knock the bag of dog food off the kitchen table, and it poured out all over the floor. I was in the other room and heard something fall, so I went to look. There he was . . . land shark that he is . . . gobbling up as much spilled dog food as he could, before I could sweep most of it up! :devilish: And just so you know, he did just have his dinner no less than 5 minutes prior to that!! :facepalm:
 

MinnieM123

Premium Member
Part 2 of the Trip Report!

After reaching Pachuca (I had no idea as I had never visited the place before).
So we went out of the bus and found a cab.
Then we went out to our hotel, which was in the historic downtown.

Now.. a funny thing about pachuca, the way it grew is very similar to my own hometown.
The small historic downtown was lodged near mountains, with a plaza and everything.
But it soon started to grow outwards (think of it like a volcano lava spill).
The city is now huge and the downtown administrative offices were moved elsewhere as the historic area has only TINY roads, big plazas and a ton of historic buildings.

Our hotel was part of a small chain that had hotels all around the historic area. including 2 which were face to face (opposite sides) of the main Monumental Tower clock.
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Pardon the photo. this one was of later night.


Anyway, there were a few things wrong. First we had paid for a bigger room with 3 beds (Jr Suite) and they only gave us a 2 beds. So we had to scramble.. the hotel sadly was full.
So no changes... We got an additional portable bed later on for me.

Anyway.. This place is COLD..
But in a different way.. Cold, Dry and the temp drops depended on the wind. So if there was no wind, the climate was perfect for walking moving around (15 to 20C).
But when wind started to pick up, temps dropped to 5C-10C.

Anyway, we left our things, packed our needs, I packed my camera.. and we went downstairs to meet our first "Guide" of our paid private tour (only for us) to meet our first Disappointment.

The guide was all nice and with good manners, but he knew NOTHING. He was like.. a foreign trying to give a guide to other people from out of town.
He knew not much and hardly had answers for our questions.
So we just went to the Tula archaeological zones. Where the Giants of Tula are located (Atlantes de Tula).

These towering pillars unlike what many expect. Are not "Telas" or just pillars with historic value. They were actually pillars holding a covered palace.
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Funny thing about this thing.
The entire Tula zone was completely covered and overgrowth with dirt, sand and vegetation. Protecting it from the spanish conquistadores who used to destroy anything they deemed "un christian".
This preserved the area pretty well and the area wasnt fully excavated until the 1940's.
These towering things are higher than 4 meters tall.
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Anyway, Thank god our trip had a local guide included. An elderly man in his 70's.
He lived in the complex and his father worked with the person who uncovered and studied the Tula complex.
He was very well knowledged in everything, including medicinal plants. He gave us a nice lecture as we went from a different path from the "tourists". Including a secondary entrance so you can see the real front of the pyramids (the photo above is from the "back")
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Have Panoramas!

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Note that the buildings have very similar building style as the Yucatan's Chicken Itza's Templo de los Guerreros (thousand pillar platform)

Excellent photos!
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
Yes, the little darlin' :rolleyes: managed to knock the bag of dog food off the kitchen table, and it poured out all over the floor. I was in the other room and heard something fall, so I went to look. There he was . . . land shark that he is . . . gobbling up as much spilled dog food as he could, before I could sweep most of it up! :devilish: And just so you know, he did just have his dinner no less than 5 minutes prior to that!! :facepalm:
Dogs, the ultimate vacuum. :D
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
There is a lot to visit and view, trust me.
Most of the things are fairly near (1 hour on average via car or tour guide)



Good thing I have no need to paint my toe nails to feel fabulous :hilarious::hilarious:
Really enjoying your pics and the information. It reminds me of when I went to Mexico with my parents in 1989. We visited many historic spots. I had a great time and loved the food and people. My favorite spot that we visited was in Merida. We stayed at a lovely hotel. The reason I remember that one is that my stepdad and I both had an issue after eating a food that had a green sauce. It was delicious but had a bad after affect. :D
 

donaldtoo

Well-Known Member
Allright Folks..


Lets start.

We got out ready to take our plane in November 7 to Mexico City for our first stop.

We boarded an A321 from Volaris (low cost carrier).
The trip was not pretty much uneventful.
View attachment 244546
Hardly any shaking or turbulence.

Boring Takeoff and Landing (PVR to MEX)


After arriving, we headed immediately to dinner and then to rest in our hotel, which was in Downtown Mexico City.
In a very good area (2 blocks away from the Historic Zocalo of Mexico city)

We didnt had much sleep because Mexico City is noisy as hell and for me because the beds were hella uncomfortable lol.

So we requested a change on the next day.
We got a nice bigger room with no charge up. This room had 2 full rooms with 2 doubles.
The scary part is, the room I was in, had a very easy to feel "inclination" towards the street.
Note that this is completely normal as the city is unevenly sinking into what was the "old lake" of Mexico City.
A lot of buildings are leaning, sinking, etc.. you name it!
In some instances it is VERY noticeable.

Regardless, the room was extremely spacious. I got the bigger room that was inclinated and was looking at the street (Since I'm deaf) and my mother and sister got the internal room.

After we set our things up. We decided to just go to get breakfast as we had a trip planned.

We went first to Mexico City's Chapultepec Forest and the Chapultepec Castle (formerly the Presidential Palace of the likes of Porfirio Diaz and Maximilian of Hapsburg).

The place is pretty big, so we took an Uber to the entrance as we didnt want to deal with Metros.

We first went directly into the Castle as it was early and in between weeks. Perfect for a calm stroll before the army of teenagers and kids from schools went in.

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There were a ton of Squirrels going around grabbing as they could. I found it because there were no cats at first. Then once the cats appeared, all Squirrels were gone!

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The Castle and surrounding areas is full of monuments, statues and paintings/murals.
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As well as lavish gardens of classic emperors of opulent leaders.

The "Castle" area has been pretty much transformed into an historical musseum of the story of Mexico.
From the Ancient days to the modern age (passing the Aztecs, Mayas, Spanish Empire, Colonial Age, French Empire, Mexican Empire, and its republics, wars..etc.. and then to modern day)
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Continue....


Looks like a great trip!!! :)
Great pics, as always, and as you know my love of flying ;), also loved the takeoff and landing video!!! :happy:
Thanks for sharing, Cesar...!!! :)
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Bow season started here also. Gun season starts the Monday after Thanksgiving. The schools in PA are actually closed Monday because of it. Apparently there are so many hunters in PA (most guns per capita in the USA), that half the kids would be absent.:confused: I found it weird when I moved here and found that out. Dh and I are definitely not backwoodsy hunter/fishing people, so it was an interesting fact. Just about every family we know goes hunting on Monday. At a Christmas party a few years back when 2 of my girls took dance, one of the food offerings was deer. At that point I was still an omnivore, but I refused to touch it. I only would eat chicken or beef. Never ventured towards wild game.

Gun season for deer hunting starts this weekend here in Wisconsin. I went and got my errands done today because I don't like to be out on the roads much during gun season. When I was a kid our family dr was driving on the highway and a stray bullet from a hunter hit him while he was driving, so I know it isn't very likely to happen to me but still... Anyway, we always have a lot of kids gone for hunting so next week the kids have off and we teachers have 2 days of inservice. I guess it works out really well that Thanksgiving is during hunting season so the vacation times out well.
 

donaldtoo

Well-Known Member
Part 2:

We continued to check the castle, which is pretty big.
Id say you can easily take up to 4 hours just the castle portion.
As there is always other art displays (there were a lot of Day of the Death sections and even a temporal showroom displaying "luxury jewerly" from different countries)

The display for Mexico has alot of important artifacts.
From clothing, to small statues and memorabilia. Also things that existed back then or were used to make important things.
Like the plaques to make coinage and money paper.
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The Independence Declaration:
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Clothes

Money..
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I have no idea if the jewerly were copies or not. But the text said these usually contained very expensive stuff.
Including Rubies and Sapphires, even Diamonds.
The most ridiculous one was from a Mexican Cardinal, it was the size of a medallion (almost as big as 10cms with a full giant sized oval Ruby )
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And gold Clocks..
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There was also a famous "door" made by Russians intended for an English palace.
Porfirio Diaz supposedly decided to buy it. Even if it had the symbols and logos of the Royal English lion.

More awesome pics!!! :)
Love the Declaration with the amazing penmanship!
Mostly, a long lost art. DWifey still has amazing handwriting, but, me not so much.
DWifey does this when I sign my name to anything... :rolleyes:
My chicken scratch signature from my latest drivers license...and, this is one of my better ones these days... :oops:

image.jpeg

No way can I post DWifeys siggy, 'cause it's waaayyyyy too legible, and we don't know any of y'all remotely close to that well...!!!!! :hilarious: ;)
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
Gun season for deer hunting starts this weekend here in Wisconsin. I went and got my errands done today because I don't like to be out on the roads much during gun season. When I was a kid our family dr was driving on the highway and a stray bullet from a hunter hit him while he was driving, so I know it isn't very likely to happen to me but still... Anyway, we always have a lot of kids gone for hunting so next week the kids have off and we teachers have 2 days of inservice. I guess it works out really well that Thanksgiving is during hunting season so the vacation times out well.
A whole week. Wow, that’s pretty generous.
 

donaldtoo

Well-Known Member
The next section was the "living" portion f the Castle, which featured the palace.. The living area, the bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, personal offices, etc..

Including some of the carriages:

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Including the one of Maximilian, purchased and designed in Europe.
Containing Gold, Copper and other metals.
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Inside, you could see the living areas of the Castle. Mostly by "big leaders" and people who declared themselves Emperors (aka despots and pseudo presidents).
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Untitled_Panorama3 by John Tamale, on Flickr

Also the rooms of Carlota and Maximilian.

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And there are some statues of the "Heroes" who were kids who died during the American War.
(supposedly 5,000 US american soldiers vs a small battalion of Mexican Soldiers in the castle of around 300 people, mostly young cadets)

Wow! Such opulence!!!
It is amazing what some people's lives were like, even way back in the day, compared to others.
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
More awesome pics!!! :)
Love the Declaration with the amazing penmanship!
Mostly, a long lost art. DWifey still has amazing handwriting, but, me not so much.
DWifey does this when I sign my name to anything... :rolleyes:
My chicken scratch signature from my latest drivers license...and, this is one of my better ones these days... :oops:

View attachment 244929

No way can I post DWifeys siggy, 'cause it's waaayyyyy too legible, and we don't know any of y'all remotely close to that well...!!!!! :hilarious: ;)
Very artistic. ;)
 

donaldtoo

Well-Known Member
Yeah, I won't donate free product to a store like that. I will be calling Salvation Army soon for a pick up.

Our special needs DS has worked at the Salvation Army for quite a while now. They really appreciate the donations...! :)

Being serious...clueless as to what the issue with Goodwill is.
If you don't want to share here, perhaps a PM? Or not. Up to you, of course. :)
 

donaldtoo

Well-Known Member
More photos of the area before moving forward..
The place had some nice vitrales (glass)

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Also has castle spires in some areas, this is the tallest one.

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Right in the center.
Sadly this area was closed to the public.

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Near the the room supposedly used by the "wife" and girlfriend of Dictator Porfirio Diaz. There is a small hallway with some very nice vitrals. Linking guest rooms and the bathroom. Also the a living room.

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A view from the castle, surrounded by big tall buildings.
Most of the skycrappers and tall buildings are in the famous road called PASEO DE LA REFORMA.

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These buildings are now surpassing the previous record of 110 meters tall (note that this area is outright sand, dirt and mud from the older lake). So they all supposedly capable of handling quakes up to 9.0 ( they have insane dampening systems, reinforcements..etc..)

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After the castle, we went out of the way back to the forest.
We decided to get a drink.
One of the "typical" street drinks if Squirt (soda) with chili, lemon, salt and tamarindo. It tastes weird at first but then you get hooked. I drank 2 lol. And gave me bad stomach cramps later lol.

After this, we took a small touristic train around the forest, which did show some of the many buildings, statues, structures and monuments. Which are a lot mind you...
Including some nifty fountains. Main attraction was one long one (25 meters long I think) in the shape of Quetzalcoatl.
Also the oldest working fountain of Mexico, dating back to early 1900.

Once we finished, we decided to to eat. As my mother wanted to try a very specific dish.
Unfortunately when we got there. We took an Uber to the place and unfortunately.. they said the dish was seasonal and they ran out of ingredients.
So we decided to go nearby to eat. We had a nice lunch and used the facilities for a restroom break before heading to the Telcel Theatre (cellphone company that built a theatre for shows, which is below floor level) to see the Broadway musical of The Lion King.
Note that the show was heavily mexicanized. The whole thing was pretty much the show, but they added so much modisms, double words, alburs and hilarious jokes specific of Mexico.

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I think Timon and Pumba stole the show from Sasu (He was ultra sassy ! ) in the joke department.

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The entrance was BELOW this area, and we went approximately 8 floors down with automatic stairs (long stairs)

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The hilarity was how much food and drinks were tolerated and encouraged by vendors.
You could be munching an oversized hotdog(most theatres have an strict no food policy)

More amazing pics, Cesar!!! :)
And, yes, earthquake damping systems are pretty interesting, and seem to be working pretty well where they are used. They should only get better with time, and more study...! :)
 

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