Mexico- Day Eight

This morning we didn't hear the barking dogs, but instead at 4am heard a rooster crowing. It crowed off and on till about 9am I think. So we had a new alarm clock (which was good I guess because the clock in the room was broken). Today was the wedding day and we had all morning to ourselves as we weren't being picked up till about 12:30pm.

Despite the rooster we all managed to sleep in a bit and after showering got dressed in yesterdays clothes for breakfast (to keep our wedding clothes as fresh and clean as possible). This morning I was able to order Z. the regular toast that she'd been wanting (similar to the chocolate frosted flakes it was a bit of forbidden fruit as it was white bread toast, something she never gets at home). A. got the huevos tirados (aka dirty eggs) which are eggs scramble up with beans. They are called dirty eggs because as N. told us, it looks like something you picked up off the floor. However it doesn't taste that way, they were very good. I got a chorizo and cheese omelet which was very good. The sausage was more sweet than hot and very tasty. Plus we ordered the fruit plate again and today they gave us a bread basket. After breakfast we went back up to the room and went back to sleep until noon when we got up and got dressed for the wedding.



A. picked us up in the van and drove us out to N.'s father's ranch for the wedding. After a lot of talk back and forth they decided that rather than getting married again with a priest (which would have meant going to a church, a logistical nightmare as everyone was already told to go to the ranch) that they would renew their vows to each other. R. spoke his vows in English, N. spoke her vows in Spanish, her brother A.-Sr. read something in Spanish and her nephew A.-Jr. read something English. The three kids, M., V. and J. were standing up with them during this process. They stood just outside of the open air pavilion to do this and then walked inside and the party began.

There was a wedding band, similar to the kind of wedding band you'd find in the US only they sang in Spanish (we particularly liked when they sang New York, New York in Spanish). The bouquet and garter (which was actually a blue bandanna) was a bit wild, lots of snake dancing around and round before getting to the actual throwing. The crazy part was when the men grabbed R. and carried him horizontally around the dance floor before bringing him outside (to a grassy area thankfully) and threw him up in the air a few times!



At one point a group of Mariachi musicians came in and serenaded everyone while we ate. After they left there was a lot more dancing and later on a group of young guys wearing steel drums came in, banging away for about a half an hour (no one could hear for a while after they stopped). It was wild! They had two guys on stilts (one was on very tall stilts, the other on those drywall stilts that are bouncy) and two scantily clad women dancing around them and with the guests (even Z. dance with one of the women at one point).



There was lots of food and LOTS of alcohol, a bottle of tequila on every table and a bottle of that sweet liquor concoction I mentioned earlier, we had peanut butter flavor at our table and lots and lots of beer. Initially, besides regular Coke which I didn't really want to drink because with my blood sugars it's like shooting sugar into my veins, there was nothing non-alcoholic to drink so I drank a beer, very, very, very slowly. Then my nephew found some bottles of seltzer water and I drank that the rest of the time. I was afraid to get drunk, it's too easy at a wedding (I am not a big drinker, usually a small glass of wine is enough for me, maybe two).



So for the food there was first a platter with some flat tortillas with tomato sauce and cheese and some folded tortillas with some kind of meat inside and fried crisp. Then came a soup that had a broth the color of black beans (although no black beans inside) and had vegetables in it. I ate all of them, happy to have vegetables as we'd had so few all week. Then we got a small plate of rice (the Spanish rice kind again). The main course was a huge amount of shredded pork (and corn tortillas on the table to put the meat in) with some lettuce on the side. As before at Mamacita's we avoided the lettuce. I ate one tortilla with a small amount of pork in it as in addition to not drinking too much I didn't want to overeat either (the picture shows what was left on my plate after I ate what I wanted, there was enough meat on that plate for at least 4 people). Later on dessert was a sorbet made of cantaloupe and some other fruit that tasted kind of like a banana and a basket of Mexican candies and dried fruits (figs, lime shells stuffed with sweet coconut soaked in lime juice and something else I never got to see closely, maybe a date) was placed on each table. We wondered if it was a Mexican thing not to have a wedding cake but later when talking to N. discovered it was a N. thing as she said she doesn't like cake so didn't want to have one (they did have one at the original wedding). Later on a bread basket (with the combination of plain and sweet breads) were placed on each table.

Most of the kids weren't at the actual reception very much but were off playing on the zip lines and various other places at the ranch. Z. had joined them initially but then came back to the reception and had a blast dancing (which totally surprised me). First, all of a sudden, she got up and started dancing with N. and then she was pretty much dancing every dance after that. There were lots of line/snake dances and circle dances and dances with props (balloons, little sticks with paper attached that looked like mini cheerleader thingies, glow in the dark eyeglasses and ears, and cowboy hats for the country line dancing). She did them all, with great enthusiasm. I got such a kick out of watching her let loose and have so much fun without thinking about how she looked (she normally doesn't like to do anything that might draw attention to herself unless she has to).

We stayed pretty late as we waited for a ride back to the hotel. A.-Sr. and L. were amazing as they drove back and forth bringing people to various places. We just couldn't thank them enough for their generosity and hospitality the whole time we were there, they were so nice. We got back around 8:45pm and I had Z. take a shower- wow two in one day- (to get the grease off from the zip line, and she had also gotten another blob of it in her hair again today) and we all went to sleep early.