Barra De Navidad, Jalisco Mexico

Another picture of the sun set.

It was cool because even though the sun was about to set there were still people out surfing and swimming.

This is the view of the sun set from Barra de Navidad.

This is me, Gunnar and Maetzin hanging out in our room at night.

This is me and my dad studying the Mexico road map that he bought to go on our road trip.

This is me and Gunnar eating Crepes. We found a delicious French bakery.

While we were at the beach dad made a friend, her name is Melisa. Their interactions mostly consisted of my dad saying Hola Melisa, and Melisa would giggle and hide her face. This was on the last day though and we were fortunate enough to get a picture of them together.

This is my dad, Lori and Maetzin. We were walking around town.This little girl was really cute, and she had bright green eyes. In this picture though she looks like a pretty tough cookie and I personally would not want to get into a scrap with her...

My dad made me and Maetzin in to mermaids.

Maetzin and I took the opportunity, during one of Gunnar's visits back to dry land, to bury him in the sand, which ended in us making him into a butterfly.

Gunnar and some kids trying to communicate.

This is Gunnar running from a wave with his little yellow shovel.

This is Gunnar on the beach. He spent probably at least 6 hours a day here, mostly playing in the water, but every once in a while he took a break to play in the sand or eat.

Me and Gunnar rolled in the sand and then went and jumped in the ocean.

This is me and my dad sizing up the waves before heading out.

This thin piece of land is the point of what separates the ocean from the lagoon. The picture of the beach is what's on the left side and our hotel and the lagoon is on the right side.

This is the view of the beach, from the beach.

This is the view of pretty much all of Barra de Navidad from the board walk.

This is me and my dad heading to the beach with our board, ready to have some serious fun.

This is the lagoon at night. The lights across the way belong to what appears to be a REALLY nice hotel. This is the lagoon and the piece of land you can see out there is not the other side of the lagoon, it's actually a little island, and as we discovered through careful observation of the locals, you can actually get there by walking through the water which only reaches up to about knee level at it's deepest point. This little guy's name is Chacho. Gunnar, in an attempt to make friends, gave Chacho a banana. After eating the banana, he grabbed Gunnar's shirt, pulled him up to the fence and screeched at him... I understand his intention was to get more food, but it was NOT very friendly.

This is another picture from the balcony. You can see the lagoon better and the little hotels and restaurants that run along it.

This was the view from the balcony out side of our room. That's our pool and you can see in the back ground the lagoon.

Maetzin rode shotgun and co-pioloted part of the way cuz I got to drive. After 6 months of not driving it was excellent (don't worry mom we went on the pay highways, they were really nice, not too much traffic).

This is another picture of the view on the way there.

This is the beginning of our road trip to Barra de Navidad, which is a small beach in the state of Jalisco (for those of you who don't know Mexico very well, its a little south of Puerto Vallarta, which is also in Jalisco). We rented a car in Leon and it ended up taking us about 8 hours to get there, but it was worth it. This is what a lot of the drive looked like, in between towns there's not that much out there.

¡Mi papa, madrastra y hermano llegaron a Guanajuato!

Here's my dad and Gunnar out in a boat in La Presa de la Olla, the lake/dam by my house, feeding the ducks.

This is Gunnar standing in front of his school. It's the same school I went to when I first came to Guanajuato. He takes 3 hours a day.

This is Gunnar hanging out on the couch with the cat Compadre, he's playing his DS (video games).

My dad, Lori and Gunnar got here on the 6th. We've pretty much just been hanging out in town. Gunnar took one week of school the first week they were here and will take one week of school the 3rd week they are here.

Dolores Hidalgo

This was a house we passed by on a side street, I just liked it.

Here are some guys that we found in the zócalo. They were filming a music video (I think for a channel that always has music videos of not very well known groups). We didn't realize that before we took the picture though, we just liked their spiffy blue boots with matching belts.

Here's Maetzin showing some balloons and toys. In every Zócalo I've been to, there was a man walking around selling balloons and toys which are attached to one big stick (to make carrying them easier).

This is a church across the street from the zócalo.

These are pictures from Dolores Hidalgo, a town near Guanajuato. It's pretty small and not as touristy. This is a picture of the zócalo, there were lots of ice cream stands on the other side.

Día de los Muertos

Some other really common decorations are little figures made out of sugar. These are fruits and vegetables, but they also have baskets filled with typical Day of the Dead bread and figures of animals.

These kinds of stands were set up in one of the plazas in town. These are typical decorations for Día de los Muertos, dressed up skeletons and tissue paper with pieces cut out to form designs or words. If you click on the picture it comes up bigger and you can see a lot more detail.

This is me with a skeleton, they had decorations set up all around town, this was probably the biggest one though. You can kind of see the altar in the background.

For the 1st of November, the first day of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), I went to my friend Maetzin's family's papelería (paper store, they sell other things too) and we handed out candy to the kids who came by asking for their calaverita (little skeleton). These were a few of the costumes we saw. Día de los Muertos, I believe, is a native tradition now mixed with Catholicism. It takes place the 1st and 2nd of November and supposedly it's a chance for the dead to come back and visit. Many people set up an altar with pictures of loved ones who have died along with candles and the deceased's favorite things like bread, sweets and beer.

Festival Internacional Cervantino

These pictures are from a Chinese Puppet show called Teatro de Arte Folclórico Shaanxi.

The three different pictures are from three different stories.

All of their joints and mouths and stuff moved

(I think it was meant to be for children) it was really cool.

This was a Korean dance performance I went to in one of the many theaters in Guanajuato.

This group is called Compañía de Danza Didim de Kook Soo-Ho.

This was really cool and I also want to go to Korea...

These are pictures from a Cuban Concert I went to.

The group is called Orqueta Alejandro Y Sus Ónix.

It was really cool and I want to go to Cuba...

Right now the 35th annual International Cervantino Festival is going on.

It goes from around the 2nd to the 21st of October every year in Guanajuato.

This year the country of honor is China and the state (of Mexico) of honor is San Luis Potosí.

Sorry about the picture quality, it was kind of dark and I didn't want to use my flash...