monterrey, mexico
December 20, 2004

When driving into Mexico, look for this sign that tells you where to get car permits.

This is the hugest mexican flag i've ever seen.

As soon as we entered Monterrey, these boys beelined to our car with US plates, wanting to wash our windows.

Our first night we walked around and got Mexican corn from this fast food type establishment with mayonnaise, chile, lime and cotija cheese, just like they serve at Cafe Habana, except in a cup. It wasn't very good.

This restuarant is called Las Monjitas, which means The Little Nuns. I think this is the scariest entrance to a restaurant ever.

Next door to Las Monjitas is this bar, El Monastereo. They had matching monks to go with the nuns next door.

Inside there was live music, and I finally understood the name. El MonaSTEREO... get it?

The next day we visited the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo or MARCO. The brand and wayfinding system was designed by Lance Wyman.

Andrea being my muse at the MARCO.

The stores near our hotel use Disney characters' likenesses and names to sell shoes, probably illegally.

We found a small market with some ladies making gorditas.

A delicious gordita taco and a real Mexican Coke for about $1.20!!! I LOVE Mexico!

Here we are crossing over a bridge to find a building we spotted that stood out architecturally from the rest of the city.

Great handpainted signage throughout the city.

We found the building. Surprise, it's a church. Here is a statue of the Pope.

The inside of the church. Crazy isn't it?

One of the stations of the cross, carved into the stone walls.

Mail goes here.

Tiny schoolbus!

On our way back, looking for this bridge, we got lost and stopped at a bakery. We bought the hugest bag of baked goods with like 12 different pastries for about $2. Did I tell you I love Mexico? As we were trying to find our way back, we gave up, sat down on the side of the road and had a carb-fest in the middle of nowhere. A stray dog came up and sniffed us as we ate. It was a sad sad sight. Andrea said goodbye to her diet and she finished the entire bag of bread.

We finally caved and dined at Las Monjitas. It was delicious.

We kept hearing about the Barrio Antigua, this neighborhood in Monterrey that is full of nightclubs and bars. We learned later that we were there too early because there was no one in the neighborhood. The only people we saw were all in this Irish Pub. An Irish Pub in Mexico? Sure why not. They had 6 beers on the menu. 5 of them were Mexican beers. We got the 2 for 1 special. Apparently in Mexico, 2 for 1 specials come all at once so Andrea tries to quickly finish her 1 before her 2 gets too warm.

The next day we went to Las Grutas de García, a cave with an entrance at the top of this mountain that has the most concentrated occurrences of stalagmites and stalactites in the world.

We took the cable car up that I swear had a sign that said it could only hold 20 adults. They packed about 40 of us in there. It was scary and Mexicans are really loud.

Looking up from the entrance of the caves. It was misty and awesome.

The first grotto. Pretty much everything else in the caves looked like this.

Of course every formation in the caves was named after something from the Bible. Catholics see Jesus in everything. The tour guide only spoke Spanish, and all we could make out was that this was some shrine to the Virgin, but I swear this is a doll, dressed up in a doll dress, and not a cave formation.

This is Servando. He drove us from the HoJo to the caves and back.

McDonald's Apple Pay.

This is Daniel on the bus back to Austin. Bless his heart, he doesn't know what a blog is.

At the border we were ushered out of our bus and then it was x-rayed by this giant truck x-ray scanner thingy.

Andrea is very sad because they made her throw away her apple, and as we found out later, my Kinder Eggs too.