March 2023 – Week 1

Hallo Zusammen!

After visiting Jalisco we needed some rest, the last two weeks we had been traveling, going here and there, and as much fun as it is, we are getting old… We don’t rest well after being out all day long to come home and binge series until 2:00. We know, hard life. So we needed a break from all the vacation time, as always it felt really good to come back to Leilani’s home, it is just nice how silent it is, because of the lack of neighbors and the big park in front, all we can hear is birds in the morning, no noisy people, just peace.

On Tuesday we went to the farmers market, or “Tianguis” as called in Mexico, which is a bunch of stalls placed on the street selling groceries; vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat, grains, cereals, and sometimes clothes, among other stuff. This type of market is only set one day of the week and it varies according to the neighborhood, in Leilani’s hood it is set on Tuesday from 8:00 to 15:00. It is different than a local market which has a specific building assigned to it, and is open all week long. We love this type of markets because we get to buy tons of fresh fruits by kilos at very affordable prices and we support the locals. For example, on this day we got Serrano pepper, poblano pepper, green tomato, onion, lemon, cilantro, celery, spinach, chamomile, cucumber, nopales, pineapple, watermelon, oranges, and avocado for around 200 pesos which is around 10€. So it is very affordable considering the amounts we got.

Anyways, later that afternoon we invested our time in setting up the blog and publishing our first post, we were very excited to finally start sharing our little adventures with our family and friends.
As you can see there is a huge delay between the time we write, edit and sort out pictures to when we actually post, it might not look like it but we invest quite some time and work in our blog, it is okay because we enjoy it just as much as to hear how some of our friends and family members like it.

On Wednesday we decided to treat ourselves with a chill morning (as usual), we binged some series and rested our lazy asses until we had enough of it, so we wouldn’t procrastinate all day long, we had some fun with the little furry, naughty fella called Darcy, Leilani’s Dog. We groomed and bathe him as well as we could. Darcy couldn’t be happier to receive so much attention.

Afterwards Leilani washed Yannick’s stinky clothes while he set up a hammock on the terrace of the backyard to later play his ukelele, unfortunately, things didn’t turn out as expected; that evening Yannick changed the hammock for the toilet seat as he started with a running stomach and pain, so that wasn’t a good prediction for the night, he had a poor sleep because of the discomfort, moving all the time, for obvious reasons and also because Leilani has a light sleep she couldn’t sleep herself either.

Early in the morning, she touched Yannick’s forehead checking for fever, and yes there was, she ran to her mom’s room to get help and a piece of more experienced advice that she had as a mom, well… Turns out she was even more worried than us, so she drove us to the doctor as fast as she could, and as the ride went on so did the fever, his face was pale, his lips dry and white, and his body was weak and had a headache. And if he wasn’t feeling good before, the bumpy drive certainly gave him the rest. We stopped by several doctor’s offices but they were closed, opening at 9, and at the moment it was 8:30. 

Leilani’s mom didn’t want to wait any minute so we called a doctor that we got recommended and thankfully he accepted to see us on short notice. The doctor’s visit went alright, Yannick got a bad stomach infection as well as a medicament and resting prescribed, so Leilani rushed to buy the medicine to end Yannick´s pain, he took his first dose and received the news that he would need to get a shot. In his butt! Dear lord, did the world end for him, he had never gotten one in his “Allerwertesten” before so he was shocked. 

Leilani’s mom was in charge of the duty since she was the only one who knew how to do it, but it was a weekday and Elva had to work so the shooting place turned out to be the kitchen of her workplace, on a bench of course, not the table. It was not that bad for Yannick after all and we were done with it soon enough. Now we were getting ready to go back home, and the boyfriend of Leilani’s mom was going to give us a ride, but while changing all the stuff from one car to another… oh Shock, Leilani realized she lost her phone!.

She look for it everywhere and Leilani’s mom call the phone multiple times but it was nowhere to be heard or found, suddenly she remembered she still had it in the pharmacy when she got the medicine so we rushed back to ask if she left it there, we arrived and she asked the clerk’s of the pharmacy who sadly said nothing was left or seen by them, Leilani was crushed and couldn’t help but cry, she had not even one year with that phone and just as everybody nowadays she had all her important information there, she sobbed all the way back home, and only until we were about to arrive her mom called us to say somebody picked up the phone, they had found it in the middle of the street in front of the pharmacy, it fell out of her pocket when she was running with the medicine.

We turned around and went to pick up the phone at the house of the people that found it, Leilani was so grateful and relieved, now we could go back home for Yannick to have some rest, Leilani took care of him and made sure he had everything he needed to get well and by the end of the day, he already looked a bit better. the next morning he was able to get out of bed and do things as usual, he was happy about that because we had already plans to go to “Gualupita“, which was going to get canceled for him to keep resting, but now being more recovered he decided he still wanted to go, and so we did.

Gualupita is a town famous for making clothes and mostly jackets out of wool, although they also make carpets, blankets, hats, gloves, and those sorts of cold-weather clothes. It is about 1 hour drive to get there from Leilani’s home. And once we arrived we started our search for presents to bring to Yannick’s family.

On the way back we made a stop in San Mateo Atenco, this time for shoes; Leilani´s family is from the south of Mexico (specifically from the mountain range of Guerrero), more like the stereotype abroad in this region people do wear cowboy-style clothes and hats, her grandparents left their ranch years ago when they were 16 and 22 years old, they raised their kids in Mexico City because grandpa Alfonso got a job there, they kept visiting the ranch very often because they have properties and cattle, so basically they keep their ranch lifestyle, cuisine, and traditions even tho they don’t live there anymore. What we are trying to say is, in the center of Mexico (where they live now), it is not so common to see people walking on the streets cowboy style, especially in the cities, maybe in small remote towns you could find some but in general, in Mexico City and Toluca you won’t run into them often.

However, her grandpa loves to wear his ranch clothes, especially on weekends when he doesn’t have to wear formal clothes for work, as for the rest of the family, they only dress like that for specific occasions or parties they organize with a cowboy theme, although for them it is not a costume. Last year Leilani’s grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and the party was Cowboy themed, Leilani was in Germany so unfortunately she missed the nice celebration, so on this visit she wanted pictures with her family wearing those clothes and we went to San Mateo to get her fitting boots, and even tho Yannick was not planning to get boots for himself because he had been shopping like Julia Roberts in Pretty woman he liked the man boots he saw and couldn’t help but to add another item to his shopping collection, he also found a fitting shirt to complete the outfit.

Apart from that we also bought an extra suitcase for the way back to Germany and had pozole for lunch before going back home. The next morning we were excited to meet the grandparents with our cowboy outfits, Yannick was particularly feeling himself in his Mexican style, Leilani and her mom told him he was looking handsome and OMG it went right up his head and he was behaving like the hottest men alive, and even though that was a little annoying, Leilani had to admit she liked the way he looked.

We are sorry to tell you this, Michael, but your son has a strong Mexican side, he loves the clothes, the food, and the people, he vibes very well with this country, and we hope you are not disappointed that his Mexican side is shining stronger than his German xD

Anyways, grandpa Alfonso told Yannick he looked like an actor, Andres García

But when he was younger

Well… Let’s just say grandpa only has good vision with one eye, he had surgery on the other and only sees blurry, so that explains.

We took some pictures with Leilani’s mom and grandparents

And we found out he had a rooster! We had no idea, never heard of it nor saw it, so yes Grandpa Alfonso is quite a picture of the Mexican stereotype abroad but lets be honest, it fits him well.

That is how our first week of March ended, so far for us it has been an amazing time here, with something interesting happening every week. Thank you for reading us.

Gracias por leernos,

Leilani and Yannick

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