Since I been here in Guadala­jara, I have been try­ing to eat at two restau­rants: La Gorda and La Chata. I have been try­ing to because every time I pass by there the line is ridicu­lously long. One after­noon around 2pm, I decided to go to La Chata so that way I was there for lunch assum­ing there was not a lot of peo­ple. I was wrong, it was packed as much as din­ner so today I went at 11:45am to get there before lunch time and I still had to wait 15 min­utes but I finally sat down. I have to say, the food is good and the prices are rea­son­able: Avg 60 ($4.50 USD) pesos and the most expen­sive item is 110 pesos ($8.40 USD). As for the Gua­camole, sorry grand­mother, but theirs is bet­ter. The Carne Tampiqueña was really good. How­ever, I have had bet­ter Cafe de Olla in the state of Guer­rero. The ser­vice was good, really fast, and en joyful.

Later that day I vis­iteted the Guadala­jara Zoo and Aquar­ium. It was nice, but I got to see lots of ani­mals uri­nate and do dirty things to each other such as stick one’s trunk all the way inside the rec­tum of another ele­phant. I guess that made my trip more inter­est­ing. After the zoo, I went to the end of the Guadala­jara Mac­robus line 1 to sit down, have din­ner, and relax over­look­ing the Mirador.

At the end of the day, I met up with my cousins Paola and Jorge Luis and a friend of Jorge Luis named Ricardo. We went out for a few drinks and called it a night.

Today I took the Tequila Express train tour. The Tequila Express is a tourist train ser­vice that oper­ates from Guadala­jara, Jalisco, Méx­ico to the Tequila Her­radura dis­tillery at the San José del Refu­gio Hacienda in the munic­i­pal­ity of Amatitán. Dur­ing my trip I befriend the pas­sen­ger next to me, his sis­ter, and his sister’s fiance. It was with them whom I toured with, tasted with, and dined with. It was good company.

A lit­tle about San José del Refu­gio hacienda, it is the only tequila dis­tillery where the entire pro­duc­tion process, right down the bot­tling, is com­pleted in one loca­tion. The Her­radura tequila pro­duced in this hacienda is one of the high­est qual­ity tequi­las pro­duced in México.

Here are the pics:

My solo trip to Guadala­jara, Mex­ico. Guadala­jara is Mexico’s sec­ond largest city (1,579,174). The name orig­i­nated from the Ara­bic word: wād al-ḥaŷara (واد الحجارة o وادي الحجارة), mean­ing “rio que corre entre piedras” or “stony river” in lit­eral Iber­ian or in Eng­lish “Val­ley of Stones”. Also where the Mex­i­can Mari­achi was born.

Last year I did not come home for Christ­mas because I spent it with the fam­ily of a friend (Pere) in Gra­nolles, Spain (out­side of Barcelona). Last Christ­mas trip was excit­ing because we vis­ited Drogheda, Ire­land; Lon­don; Barcelona; Gra­nolles (of course); went ski­ing in Pyre­nean Moun­tains (La Molina); and the blurry unfor­get­table New Years drink-till-you-drop– expe­ri­ence in Madrid.

A lit­tle note about Lon­don and Madrid, I also got to enjoy the time there with my cousin Jorge Luis, which I will be spend­ing New Years eve with this year in Guadala­jara, Mex­ico. The last time both of us spent New Year’s in Guadala­jara was back in Dec. 31, 1999 so we are cel­e­brat­ing a decade since that, which also falls with Mexico’s 100th anniver­sary of its Rev­o­lu­tion and also the 200th anniver­sary of its Independence.

This year I did come home to the fam­ily 9th (+- 1) annual Brownsville, Texas Shopping-Christmas-Drinking-Movie event. Here are the pictures:

Today I met up with an old friend (Andi), actu­ally whom would qual­ify as my first girl­friend. We met in South Padre Island, Texas back in the sum­mer of 1996 when I was 15. We exchanged home address (I had email back then, but she didn’t ) because we lived far hence we wrote let­ters to each other for a few years then com­mu­ni­ca­tion ended. Thanks to Face­book we found each other again after 11 years and dur­ing my Christ­mas trip to Texas we decided to meet up and catch up on what has hap­pen to each other’s life after 11 years. We both where in shock, dis­be­lief, and amazed on see­ing each other. It did feel weird at times, but in a good way. Funny how much can hap­pen in 11 years. Funny how one can remem­ber details from 11 years ago. Even though we already talked about mem­o­ries pre­vi­ously, we talked about them again.

Fri­day night we went out to a local bar and got wasted and had a good time. We where drink­ing the bartender’s “spe­cial” drink which who knows what was in it. How­ever, it tasted good, and after 4 within a few hours we where wasted. Sat­ur­day night was a lit­tle more chilled since we didn’t want to get too wasted. I would men­tion the names of the places, but I already for­got the names. I was hop­ing that we could hang out longer, but I was on a time con­straint and had to get back home to be with my fam­ily. This short visit was one of the most pos­i­tive things to occur to me in 2009. Here are the pics: