Even more from Guadalajara – Feb. '10

So I spent my birthday in Guadalajara and as it turned out, my tour guide’s bday was just two days previous. So, since I liked her company so much, I invited her out for a combination Happy BDay evening. She accepted and we had a great dinner in a beautiful place that has professional artist created murals. Huge murals covering thousands of square feet of the place. For the two of us, dinner and a bottle of wine, just $62. Would have cost $125 in the US in that nice of a place. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera along so I didn’t get any pictures. I do have some pictures today though. A couple days after our BDay dinner was Super Bowl Sunday. Although I had plans to go to a nice bar nearby, Myrna whipped up a Super Bowl party real quick and invited several people from the RV park. I got enthused about the idea and ended up buying a bunch of booze and food for everyone. It was at Myrna’s home, which turned out to be just a stones throw from the RV park in a gated community. I’ll post pictures of the house late. Several people came and we had the game on only Myrna couldn’t find out how to turn on the English so we watched it in Spanish on her big 48″ TV. A minor difficulty.

Myrna and Isson in her back yard.

I’m not sure of the spelling of her son’s name but she always pronounced it Iss-Son with emphases on the “I”. She is still married to an English guy who’s job has him running to different countries all the time. He met her while here in Guadalajara around 3 years ago. After a whirlwind courtship, they married and immediately started having problems with each other while she was pregnant. Then, about a year ago, at the time he was living in the spare upstairs room of their big beautiful house, he was assigned to another country. So, he’s not seen Isson or Myrna for over a year, whenever he and Myrna talk they end up fighting, but she’s still holding out hope that he’ll be back from China to stay, where he’s assigned at this time.

I tried to convince her that it’s unlikely he’ll be back after she told me extensively about the fights that they’d had before he left but she’s not willing to believe that yet. He still sends her $10,000 pesos (around $775 US) on occasion, but it’s not happening as regularly as it use to. Lucky for her the house is paid off, so she’s making enough as a tour guide to scrape by during those times when he doesn’t send the child support. He’s starting to complain it’s too much and she’s complaining it’s not enough. She is considering opening a liquor store to make ends meet in the event he stops payments.

But what I wanted to say was that Isson is just a great kid. He took an instant liking to me and I was happy to have him around. I taught him that it’s OK to be thrown in the air, to swing from his mom’s and my hand when we’re walking around, to splash in puddles. Stuff his mom never even considered doing with him. He even came to call me Papa and wanted to be with me whenever I was around. As you can imagine, an intelligent and active 2 & 1/2 year old is draining, but I adapted. I really liked that little kid and hated to go when it was time.

Back to the Super Bowl party…After we had a traditional Mexican pre-football dinner we were all sitting around talking and Myrna wanders into the house. Around 20 minutes later she came out looking like this:

Myrna all dressed up in her Mariachi outfit.

She use to sing in a Mariachi band and still has the get-ups to boot. And her voice is spectacular.

Clowning with that good looking German gurl.

Can’t remember her name but the pretty German gurl was the daughter of some friends of a couple of German people that came over from the campground. She lives here permanently and has opened her own business, as a Realtor I believe, or something to do with German tourists anyway. Like most Europeans, she speaks several languages. And she was delightfully charming and fun and funny.

Isson wears mom's hat.

A week later was Valentines Day so I invited Myrna out for dinner. She was really a knockout in the dress she wore. We went to a Japanese Sushi restaurant and spent the night talking. Seems she doesn’t really get to do that with most of her clients as they are more interested in themselves and in Guadalajara then in her. We talked about going out to dance after but she had to work early the next day so we deferred that to some other time.

Myrna and I go out for Valentines Day dinner.

Couple of days later Myrna happened to wander into the RV park and while visiting she invited me along with her and Issom for shoe shopping. Not my favorite pastime but seeing a new part of town did interest me so off we went!

Off to town for some shoe shopping! Exciting!

A look at one small portion of Guadalajara.

Guadalajara is a huge city of 6 & some odd million people. If you can’t find something to interest you here, you’re not looking.

The weather while I was here was a little dicey.  Some days were nice and warm, getting up to 80°F during the afternoon but pretty chilly at night. I actually used my electric blanket every night I was there. And some days we had to contend with either all day overcast or some pretty heavy rain. But the warm air during the day made it easier to deal with.

More later.