Off to Mexico ...

[NotQuiteCockney]

We're off to Mexico for half-term, I think, for a funeral (ish).

We'll be near Ajijic, which is near Guadalajara.

Any tips? We do have family there, but I'd rather not hassle them at the moment. I've never been before.

Also, they are apparently having a "fiesta" for the deceased. I know this will mostly be Canadians and Americans, but assume it will have something a bit Mexican to it. Any guesses as to what I'm getting myself into?

I think we're flying to SF, overnighting there, and then going on down, for various practical reasons. Maybe.

I don't know where we're staying, or anything of the sort.

Well, having a "fiesta" for the diseased as such may be a bit extreme but someway I know that most funerals end up becoming good oportunites for the extended family to spend some time together and to catch up with what everybody has been doing, meet the new members of the family, etc.

AS you are going in some time I assume it may be more like a get together in honour of the person who had died. We did have some of those in honour of my grandmother and they normally involved going to mass and then meeting in the home of somebody from the family. The curious thing is that because, after all, death and remembrance are such serious things, people are in a different frame of mind, so people are more open to other people and great conversations and some times a good laughs follows.

I think the easier (and maybe cheaper) way to get to Guadalajara is by flying to any airline base airpot (like Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, etc) and from there straight to Guad). If you family has offered accommodation to yours, take the offer, Mexican hospitality is legendary, they will take good care of you, and ensure you and your family have a good time. Now, it is also said that we torture our visits by over feeding them, but... Guadalajara is the place to be to be tortured that way!!!

I've heard good things about the food.

The thing is, the deceased (my Mom) wasn't Mexican, or Catholic. No church will be involved, I'm sure.

I'm relieved to hear that a "fiesta" isn't standard for deceased people. It sounded a bit odd to me. But the community involved is mostly gringos (as they call themselves).

I don't think my Dad can put us up, so I'm scrambling to find accommodation.

You're right about the flights. SF as a stopping point is a non-starter. We're going via some US hub, I just have to pick one and book. Today.

Are you from Mexico? Which bit?

You would not believe that some emigree "GRingos" are more Mexican than Mexicans (they feel so passionate about the culture that they are helping a LOT to keep it as beautiful as it is), Besides, if I remember correctly Ajijic is one of the most beautiful places in Jalisco and most emigrees (especially thos who moved to the area decades ago) have very big houses. :0

I'm not from Guadalajara but many years ago I had a lovely boyfriend from there

NQC, I have just read on the other thread how near to you the person who dies in Mexico is, I'm sorry to hear that. May I be of help? Please let me know if I can help you a bit more to plan your trip [[hugs]

Thanks, Chandra. I gave up and asked my dad to try to find us a place, making clear we are happy to pay. He knows loads of people there who've been asking what they could do, I'm sure one of them will help with that. Then I got an email from a b+b saying they could take us. But I'd rather be in a self-catering place, as that way the boys' jetlag will bother only us, and not lots of other people.

And then our big computer stopped working.

I think we are all under control for the trip. I will book flights once I have accommodation, probably with Continental, changing at Houston. I will try to dig out lots of shorts etc to wear.

I am trying to explain to DS1 about the water, and not drinking his bath. We'll see how that comes out, but I've bought nasty bubble bath with (I hope) bitrax in it, so he he'll stop drinking his bath water now.

I don't know what else I can do. I guess I will start digging through the summer clothes.

I think is not going to be very hot by half term, so don't worry too much about the summer wear, and get something warm for the evenings.

About the water and the bath, we have the same problem here, something that has help him it's to get some water on his head everytime he drinks it (works because he ahtes to get his head wet). But certainly something that you have to prevent him from doing. I think a lot of people over worry about the water in Mexico but depending on the area, it is likely to be totally safe, but better to err on the side of caution.

I'm very good at finding cheap flight fares if you tell me the aprox dates I might find you a combination reasonably priced. The rules for cheap tickets is to travel between Tue and Thursday and Saturdays. Or use a flight that leaves at not very friendly hours (yep, not nice with family but if an early waking saves you several hundreds pounds is worth it).
The longer before the trip you buy the ticket, the cheaper it is. I would recommend you not to use Aeromexico for the only reason that is terribly expensive (I'm going to Mex tomorrow and the return flight from Manchester to MExico City costs the same as an internal one way flight I will take while I'm there!)

I normally use expedia.co.uk to find the prices, it is a safe place to buy tickets from the internet but if you preffer not to do online trnsactions you can print out the details and take it to any agency and, if the same combination is searched the price should be the same. However, bare in mind that every plane have different prices for their seats, and the cheaper ones are the first to go, so move fast to insure you keep the fare you want (last time we were booking with separate reservations as DH was coming back a few days earlier, and eventhough we had the same price at the screen, after I booked my flight -5 min earlier- his went up by £100!)

Good luck with everything, any question just ask (please send me a CAT)

Apparently it's about 27C there now. So we do need some summer clothes.

I don't mind paying an extra few hundred pounds. I am waiting to get accommodation before I book flights. (Continental, probably) I have one B+B that can take me for nearly all the days I want, but isn't used to kids, no fence on pool, etc etc.

I have one that said they could take me but haven't provided confirmation that they can.

And today I found out about another hotel that might work, so have emailed them. I will have to give up and call them.

Things I am fretting about:

• must cancel everything (milk, veg, etc)
• what do we wear to fiesta
• having to listen to people say nice nice nice things about my mom, not agreeing with some of them, and just biting my tongue and keeping silent.
• dealing with annoying old north americans, saying (mildly) racist stuff about Mexicans. God knows my parents, annoying old North Americans, do enough of this, but a room full of these people will kill me.
• the children will be horribly jetlagged and wake in the middle of the night
• at least one of us will get horrible v+d bug.
• my father wants me to talk to Bill Gates about getting computers for Mexican schools. Because, yeah, I can do that.

From the photography thread..

Sorry to hear about that NQC, and about your dad, could he be depressed as well and thinking that he may also die soon? (my father went through something like that after loosing 2 brothers and a couple of good friends in the same year. I also have an aunt who has been allocating her possesions to friends are family incase she dies soon (althoughshe has been at that since at least 5 years ago, she is still very much with us)

MAny hugs

P.S. You were right, Mexico was very hot, weird for this time of the year, I cna't imagine how bad summer will be.

can i come?i need a hol!!

I think he might well be depressed - to not be depressed after losing his wife of 40 years would be weird, wouldn't it?

I went through a little while of thinking he was suicidal, but now I don't.

He is nearly 70. Both his parents died in their 40s or 50s (alcoholic + diabetic). And he had a quadruple bypass a few years back, so death wouldn't be that much of a surprise.

I'm ok with the thought of him remarrying, for companionship, to pass on his pension, or whatever.

I did like Mexico, although I prefer places with drinkable water. We didn't get hassled very much at all (I hate people pretending to be my new best friend, to get me to buy things). And I found that the locals were really nice with the kids. Just little things, like noticing that DS2 was about to grab some barbed wire, and grabbing him, whether or not they knew him or me.

(There was a lot of barbed wire, and railings and so on. Is crime that prevalent? It didn't feel dangerous.)

Oh, and the fiesta/funeral was deeply odd. Lots of music playing (generally not music my mom would have liked, amusingly enough), a bit of open mike time, with people talking about mom or reading poems or whatever. And then dancing and eating.

A religious thing would have been even weirder, though, in context.

Unfortunately it is, one of the disadvantages of living too near to the richest country in the world, we are in the last segment of drug trafficking routes (and without enough economic resources to cope with such problem), and also get lots of people in extreme poverty conditions emigrating from all latin america (inc mexico of course) and getting stuck, for one reason or another, in particular areas which bring a multitude of other problems (like robbery, etc) which I blame mostly on the extreme situation some of these people may be living on.

As for the way people act towards children, that's true, I can't fail to apreciate that when I visit, it's like children are under the responsability of the nearest adult to them. So you can get a perfect stranger runing to catch your toddler before he runs into a main road, or having somebody telling off your children if they are doing something that they shouldn't.

As

Will I be right to assume that most of the people in the party belonged to the expat group?

It was about 50/50, I think? Or 60/40, more gringo than local?

The people dancing were all gringo, I think. Nothing wrong with the dancing, of course.

The expat community there is very odd though. Full of gossip and weirdness. One of the women called my dad the morning after mom died, to offer him a "shoulder to cry on" with more implied. There's a man living in the community we were in, who is under threat of extradition to the US for killing his wife there (and plotting to kill his in-laws, all with the help of his dad, etc etc).

I'm not surprised at what you say about the expat community, the problem with small expat communities is that they grow so dependant on their memebers that it gets to a point that is unhealthy (memebers far too ocuppied on what the other are doing), I have seen it here with the LA community, we are about 30 but the amount of gossiping is such that I try to keep myself at a distance!