March 2023

Querida familia y amigos,

On this last post about our vacation in Mexico, we are gonna try to keep it short and sum the last two weeks up as much as possible because now we are in Germany (cries in Spanish) struggling to adjust back to the time change and our routine so we have less time for the blog.

On our last two weeks in Mexico, we felt like time flew, well… Actually the last two months for us felt like a glimpse, we assume this is because we did quite some traveling and a bunch of activities all the time, so we never had time to get bored or witness the time pass by, in other words, we enjoyed our time in Mexico very much and now that we are back in Munich we miss being there, especially Leilani who feels like in a post-travel depression missing everything there more than before.

Anyways, in our last two weeks we enjoyed our time with Rio, Leilani’s cat and Yannick’s favorite pet, he put effort into earning his love because he is more attached to Leilani, opposite to Darcy who is Leilani’s favorite pet but after Yannick came to their house Darcy just follows Yannick everywhere, funny how we like the pets in the opposite way they like us.

That week we visited Dani and Diego’s Comics store in the center of Toluca, we took one of the local busses nearby our home for 12 pesos each and rode to the city center. From there it was just a short walk to “Freaky Plaza” the building in which they own their store. Sorry, multiple stores actually, they also have a store for trading cards like Yu-Gi-Oh and similar stuff as well as a “Hello Kitty” merch stall. On top of that, they rent Playstations for people to game (apart from the lovely Comics store) we got some free time playing a virtual reality video game, we enjoyed some rounds of Beat Saber and Yannick even dared to play a horror shooter game. Our highlight was the lovely comic store, obviously full of comics but also has tons of cute little nerd things. Diego brought a little Star Wars comic from his last restocking tour and Yannick also wanted to buy some more star wars Comics, even though they were in Spanish, now he has more reasons to learn the language. Then Diego had another huge surprise for Yannick. He gifted him two more comics in English, a Joker anniversary edition, and a lovely Justice League episode in Hardcover! Thank you, Diego! That was very generous :).

The next day on Friday we stayed at home. Leilani didn’t feel so well and we decided to take a day to rest. In the late afternoon, Vero came over for a visit. She brought tons of food for us, including a pizza for Yannick, for which he was very happy. After the food, we watched a movie together and when Leilani’s mom came the three girls had a long chat, basically until Brandon came to pick up Vero was that Yannick finally had some male company and we had a lovely evening.

On Saturday we met with Leilani’s dad and went to Malinalco, a lovely little town just one hour drive from Toluca. Despite Leilani feeling awkward to meet the new girlfriend of her dad for the first time we enjoyed the little stroll around the markets. On that exact day, a Mezcal fair was taking place on the main plaza, where local producers came to sell and give free tastings of their products, we got two bottles of mezcal with Maracuya and blackberry flavor, very tasty and now we regret not having bought more.

After the mezcal fair, we had some lunch and headed back home, it was a short trip so they drop us off at a restaurant where her family (the mom’s side) were having lunch, we actually made it to the celebration we thought we were going to miss, Alfonso’s (Leilani’s uncle) Birthday, and even though Yannick was not the birthday man he still got a present, yes again! Leilani’s uncle in Law, Josue, brought him a more traditional shirt to combine with his tejana and boots. So after the restaurant you could see all the men of the family surrounding Yannick in the parking lot waiting to see if the shirt fitted well on him, and when he finally buttoned it up and tucked it into his pants everybody went “ohhh “ “muy bien“ “le queda super bien“ “Que guapo“(las tias) so now we headed home with a very flattered and happy Yannick, we made a stop to buy a cake for Leilani’s uncle and at home, we sang “Las mañanitas“ (the birthday Mexican song) to him.

For those none Mexicans, in Mexico after blowing out the birthday candles people will chant “mordida, mordida, mordida“ which means people want you to give a bite of the cake, the fun part is that when you do it, the guests of your party can smash your face on the cake, this is Leilani’s favorite part of every birthday, she even has a fame in her family for doing it just as her uncle, which is the one smashing everybody in their cakes but nobody has ever been able to smash him on the cake, never! So Leilani thought that with the help of Yannick this year Alfonso’s fate would change, but no… we failed miserably, he was too strong for us, the cake on the other hand was a success, and everybody liked it.

In the evening we were about to leave and one of the cousins of Leilani was coming with us. But after the rest of the little cousins found that out, they also wanted to come with us. And so we drove home in a car fully packed with kids. Since we didn’t need to have dinner anymore we decided to chill together and play a little. After a while Yannick remembered that he promised to teach the kids some Judo, so we decided to make the pijama party a judo night, he was teaching them all the techniques to master the first belt in one night. He was impressed they caught it so fast, since his Judo – kids normally are so naughty that he needs way more time to teach. The cousins were really into it, especially the younger ones. And just after being exhausted from the day and the exercise we all went to bed.

The next morning we spent time playing in the garden together and later the rest of the family arrived. We set the table for everyone and had a big lunch together. Later in the afternoon the cousins and us went to the park. We brought inline skates and other toys to play with. We were excited until we realized that the special area with some pavement suited for skating had been renovated for some useless benches.

That was quite a disappointment, it was the biggest reason to come to that place. Yannick had a decent time anyways since he only brought his camera to play around and took a few nice pictures. Later we got picked up again and went home. Most of the guests were gone already, just Leilani’s aunt stayed a little for a chat, but once they left Leilani’s mum drove us to get some Tacos, she had promised Yannick to take him to eat more Tacos de pastor he loved, and we had a delicious dinner together.

The next day we went to buy and prepare some food to donate to some people camping in front of a hospital to fulfill a promise Leilani’s mom once gave. On Tuesday we stayed home to supervise some smiths that came to install a new door, the exit from the kitchen to the garden.

On Thursday we had quite some plans. We agreed with our friends to meet and take a trip to the volcano. It was awesome!. It is in fact the biggest tourist attraction of Toluca and Yannick had not been there in all of his visits so far. But at the end of his third one, he finally managed. We met with our friends at a convenient point for them to pick us up, and we drove around one hour to the volcano. Once we were there, we had to take a little road to the parking lot close to the top. We could also walk this distance, but because the volcano is so huge is better to drive that part, since you still have hours to walk from the parking lot to the top anyway.

When we finally arrived we could already feel the difference in the air. Toluca itself is already at 2.660m above sea level and the volcano is around 4.780m. So just the base camp had quite a difference. To be prepared we brought some chocolate to maintain our blood pressure. The first few meters were quite different to walk, but the longer we were walking there, the more we got used to it. We just felt out of breath earlier than expected and took it easy. It wasn’t that bad though.
Once we reached a little ridge on top we could see the nice little lagoons. The volcano has two, the sun and the moon lagoon. The sun lagoon is the bigger one of the two and the girls wanted to visit it. On the contrary, the boys wanted to go to one of the peaks, because what is a hike without a visit to the top, or one of the tops? And so we split up. The girls went for a nice walk down to the sun lagoon and had a lovely chat while the boys went to the peak. It wasn’t that much of a hike. The boys went for one of the higher peaks nearby that was safe to go. Any further and one should bring climbing equipment for safety because the slopes get very steep and one has to climb the ridges. Definitely a project of Yannick for another day.

The way to the peak was pretty chill apart from the extreme height of above 4400 meters which was a first for Yannick. Just one part was a bit more challenging, it was a steep field of gravel and loose stones, very exhausting to climb, but with enough breaks, especially for pictures, everything went pretty well, it was a wonderful hike and the view definitely rewarded the effort. After descending to the middle ridge the girls met up again with the boys and we all went back to the car.

From there we drove to eat a volcano specialty, a local fish cooked in aluminum foil. Unfortunately, Yannick didn’t feel well at that point, because of the rapid descent he got a headache from the change of pressure. After having some food he felt quite better though, little did he know that his stomach doesn’t take fish that well anymore, which became more obvious the next days. After a nice time at the restaurant we all drove back to Toluca, there we decided to spend some time at Dani’s house and later at night, we got driven back home by Dani and her boyfriend Diego (the owners of the lovely comic store).

The time to leave was getting closer and closer, Leilani was in denial, to travel to Mexico she started packing so much ahead of time, but when it was time to come back, it was the very last thing she did, on top of that our flight from Canada to Munich got canceled and they delayed our itinerary one more day so she enjoyed her last day with her mom and sister who came from Guadalajara to say goodbye, so just until there was no time left to pack, we did it, on Sunday morning we finished everything, said goodbye to Darcy and Rio and drove to Mexico City, we spent our last hours in the house of Leilanis aunt Yolanda, her granny was there for a visit as well, so we all went out to eat some “Tlacoyos” that Leilani wanted to have before leaving, we accompanied them with a “Raspado” and after a very emotional goodbye, Linette and her boyfriend drove us to the airport. It was such a sad moment not only for Leilani leaving her loved ones again but also for Yannick who had grown fond of them all this time.

After saying goodbye to Linette in the airport and there was only left a Yannick and a crying Leilani his admiration for her grew even more, since he witnessed the warmth of her family she had always talked about as well as the joyful and happy life she has to give up for us to be together and the beautiful love we have.

And just like that we also want to thank Leilani’s family and friends for the wonderful time, you are all excellent hosts as well as kindhearted and generous people, thank you for treating Yannick like a member of your own family, we hope to see you soon. Thanks you to Yannick’s parents as well for supporting us and helping us to make this trip possible. We appreciate and love you all. ♡

Con mucho cariño,

Leilani and Yannick

Pd. Ya los extraño.

*SPAM picture section*

Malinalco

*Unprofitable advertisement*