Downtown Guadalajara

Well I guess it's my turn to update the blog. I've been seriously ill all week with something in the spectrum of a stomach infection, salmonella poisoning, or some stomach virus and along with me it seems to have taken a toll on Nikki. I guess our little ventures out of the house when I get home from work are what keep her going. She's had a hard time being cooped up with sicky me all week. Luckily she is still in good health. Unfortunately, 6 days later, and about 10 lbs lighter and I'm still not feeling a whole lot better. We are hoping that it is just running it's course but if I'm not better by Monday I think I may have to bite the bullet and go see a doctor.
Also unfortunate is that this illness seems to have stemmed from a great weekend we had last weekend. The week before Valentine's day we took a day trip to the historic city center and had a lot of fun going through and athropological muesem for the region, seeing all the old building and wandering through this enormous market. We decided that for V-day we would get a hotel downtown and spend a couple of nights down there. We stayed at the Hotel de Mendoza(which unfortunately we didn't really get an pictures of) and it was nice. It has a great location right in the middle of the all the downtown plazas and mixed in with many of the beautiful historic buildings.

Nikki really liked taking pictures with these weird benches, chairs and sculptures.

She got a real kick out my pose for this one.

This was the Huge market. all the shops were just jam packed together and probably only 10 to 15 ft per shop one right after another. You could buy anything there from food to clothes to eletronicsto pirated dvds. We picked up a jersey for the local soccer team. It was 3 floors and easily covered 2 to 3 city blocks.

We stayed around the area on Friday night and found out that it was the 468 anniversary of the founding of Guadalajara. That's a lot of years! And the city was hosting some shows in the plazas right across the street from our hotel. So after some McDonald's for dinner(Nikki gets cravings for American cuisine) We walked around the plazas and stopping to listen for a moment and snap some pictures.

This was the roof our hotel above and below is the plaza across the street.

The Federal Palace on one side.

And the Degollado Theater on the other end.

And here's Nikki by the fountain on the front side of the Cathedral.

 

On Saturday we woke up and went to find something to eat. Then we set about trying to figure out what we were going to do for the day. We finally decided in visiting a park that Nikki had read about online in a north-western suburb called Zapopan. It was a fun park with a lot of interesting things to see. They had a beautiful Japonese garden that was populare for special event pictures.

Some pictures of the Japanese garden.

We got a kick out of these turtles.

NIkki and I in the cactus garden.

After kind of a long day of walking we were glad to get back to the hotel and rest. We finally went out to find something to eat and then walk around a little bit more downtown. Sunday we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel(which I think may have been the cause of my stomach troubles) then grabbed our stuff and headed home. We have an enjoyable weekend and found a few other things that we would like to do soon.

Here is the view of the catheral and Nikki on the hotel roof.

Nikki was really hoping we would be able to go out today but I'm still not feeling really well and I end up pretty out of breath and light headed after just a few blocks of walking. I'm afraid I'm really going to have to work hard to make up for this one.