March 2023 – Week 2

Grüẞ Gott,

When Leilani was in University she made very nice friends, but of course, there are always those who fade and those who stay, from the ones she is still friends with, some of them she met at the main library of the campus and some others were her roomies when she was living in a house for students, she had been missing them and wanting to meet with them, and even though not all of them could come to our gathering we managed to see Caro, Giz, Giz’s boyfriend, Luis, Nadia and Caro (it is not a mistake, she has two friends named Carolina) to come bowling with us on a Sunday afternoon, for that we had to go to Mexico City because all of them live there. Leilani’s mom drove us to the city and left us in a nearby metro station, she took that opportunity to meet with her sisters while waiting for us to pick us up and drive back to Toluca later at night.

We arrived at “Coyoacan“ metro station and had a nice walk to the bowling place, but since all of Leilani’s friends were late (because in Mexico being on time is not so common) we went to have some food at a nearby mall, after a while, Luis met us excusing himself for being late without knowing he was actually the first one to arrive and we were very happy to see him, he had a special surprise for us and started by saying “here a little something for your new home“, he gave us the coolest doormat, with Grogu in it, and a colorful set of scented candles. Thank you, Luis!

Afterward, we walked back to the bowling place and we met with Caro and Caro. We played bowling until our hands and fingers looked like an old granny with arthritis, Giz and her boyfriend Juan joined us at the end of the game to have lunch together, later on, Nadia joined and we decided to go for a walk to a nearby park where we had a nice and long chat before going back home. Once we were in Toluca we realized we were hungry and Leilani remembered there was a nice “Taqueria“ with “tacos al pastor“ that Yannick hadn’t tried before and also they had vegetarian options for her.

So far Yannick had tried tacos of Cecina natural, adobada, carnitas, suadero, longaniza, campechanos, pollo y arrachera but not pastor, until that day… let’s just say he only wanted one, after he ate it, he asked for a second one and after that one, he decided to get the full order with 1/4 of a kilo of meat, so yes! They won the number one place on the list of his favorite tacos, and now they were in a very tough fight for the number one spot of his favorite food against Leilani’s grandma’s food which he loves very much. Tough life for this poor man among delicious food.

The next Tuesday Leilani had a facial done, she cannot have those done in Germany because they are overpriced and she rather has someone with the same mother language do it, so she went to her usual place in Metepec, “Botaniko”, and since we were now nearby the street of crafts of that town we decided to buy a few clay crafts for our apartment in München.

On Friday we met more friends, this time they were Leilani’s best friends from high school Vero, Dany, and their boyfriends Brandon and Diego, very nice people, we stayed very late that night and did some plans for the next week, Yannick promised to visit Diego’s Comic store to get some Star Wars merch and we also agreed to go all together to the volcano nearby because Señor. Siebenhandl hadn’t had the pleasure of being there.

On Saturday we gathered with Leilani’s family, yes again, like we said she is very close to her family and luckily Yannick is okay with it, he finds Leilani’s family amusing, spontaneous, fun, and warm, they are a loud happy group of people that do tons of things together without a previous plan, always making jokes and laughing. The good thing is they also love Yannick, we think his personality fits with the family vibe and that makes the ambiance really nice. We went out for lunch and later went to Costco to buy the best snacks. 

On Sunday we met with some of Leilani’s cousins from her dad’s side, (she has 17 cousins on that family side but we only met with three) we went to “La Marquesa” a place known for having tons of cabins in the forest for barbecues and other types of activities like horseback riding, go-karts, motorbikes circuits, zipline, and other stuff. We had lunch with Linette and his boyfriend, we waited like 2 hours for the boys to arrive and by the time they came the weather was horrible for the go-karts (what we wanted to do), after everybody finished their food Linette and her dude left. We stayed with the cousins and went go karting despite the shitty weather, we paid 250mxn for 20 min per person, it was quite enough, it was fun and very muddy, so after we finished our 20 min racing our faces and clothes were covered in mud and water, it was quite an experience and we enjoyed it.

By the time we were freezing because we were all wet, we were ready to go back home except that they didn’t let us go, they insisted so much on taking us with them that we couldn’t say no, so without anything on us for an unexpected trip we took off with them. We didn’t regret it, having so many boys around was fun for Yannick, they live in The Hood on the other side of the state, and people speak differently, kinda like with flow. Her cousins are popular in the neighborhood because they own many businesses around so when companied by them tons of people greeted and chat with us on the streets.

When we came to their place we took a shower and dressed up in borrowed clothes, luckily these three guys are huge, way bigger than the average Mexican (1.87m, 1.96m, and 2.05m) so for sure they had something that Yannick could fit. Afterward, the boys wanted Yannick to play “Maquinitas “ which are arcade videogames, so they took us to the store of Leilani’s aunt where she had some, it was the first time Yannick played in those and he found them fun, old-school, and entertaining.

At night after Yannicks recent discovery called “Tacos al Pastor”, the boys took us to have another presentation of meat al pastor, this time Yannick had a “Volcan“ and a “Gringa“, both with cheese and meat al pastor just different presentation and type of tortilla, one made out of corn and the other one with wheat. It was okay but Mr. Taco expert preferred the ones he had in Toluca.

The next morning we chilled with Juve, another cousin of Leilani, he is 8 and lives nearby the other 3 big cousins, his life consists of playing video games, going to school, and playing more video games, so during the morning he showed his pro gamer skills to Yannick and they played together for a bit.

Later on, Yannick was curious about the cousins’ pets, he heard they had fighting roosters! and he got very intrigued by it. We checked out the cages of the 8 roosters, they showed us how they feed them, and they two of them out to show us how they make them fight, basically they hold two rosters in front of each other and pat/slap their chests a little to get them into fight mode, when their head feathers start to open and they look like little mini dragons, they get them closer and further away from each other while still holding them in the air to tease them and make clear for them who is their opponent.

Then they put them both down on the floor and all hell gets loose when they fight each other like beasts. This was only a training fight and no one got hurt. In a real fight, they both get an iron blade, like a mini knife tied up around their ankles with which they can mortally wound each other. Usually, only the winner stays alive. The roosters are well-fed and get some extra vitamins to make them very strong, until their big day. There is quite some money on the line because people bet on the fights. There are small regular events with weekly fights but also big ones where more people come and the bets are even bigger. The late father of the boys won a cup in one of those events and brought home 100,000 pesos of the betting wins from the fight.

Side note: Leilani hates these roosters fighting events and remembers how horrible it was to watch those animals fight and die when she was a child while being on vacation with her grandparents, her grandfather used to go to those events called “Palenques”

In the afternoon we had plans to go paintballing. It was Yannicks first time playing paintball and he had a blast. The only downside he said was that he ran out of bullets too fast. But no one can have it all. The place offered the full rental for the equipment and bullets for a reasonable price and all seven participants were satisfied with the experience. Afterward, we headed home and bought pizzas to eat while watching a movie but we were too tired and rather took a nap.

The next morning was our last day of the stay and we had plans to visit the horse of the cousins. It is a very beautiful white horse and Yannick was allowed to ride it for a while. Sadly he couldn’t ride it all by himself since he was not experienced at riding, (apart from pony tours when he was a little boy) and the horse also was not used to him as a rider. To avoid any accidents he was riding it up and down on the leash guided by one of the employees of the cousins and later he was riding it more freely in circles with the horse obeying his commands.

After the ride, we went back to the house, we had some food, Yannick got a free pair of shoes and later we were driven to a bus terminal to take a bus back to Toluca. There Leilani’s mum picked us up (Sorry Elva for driving us all the time), our tour to the hood ended and we can say Yannick’s first time meeting Leilani’s friends, eating tacos al pastor, playing arcade video games, paintballing, and seeing roosters fight was a success for him.

Hasta la proxima,

Leilani and Yannick

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