Fiesta Americana Aguascalientes

... were half empty, so must be like a ghost town outside the month of the Feria. Every second place was selling booze & many of the people were laden with litre cups, the full one stacked in a pile of emptys! Other areas were more family orientated, the park with the busy bandstand, the fairground rides, fast food stalls and they'd roped in the Voladores of Papantla too!!. Armed with a caguamon of Indio, I went to watch an avant garde French band - the beer helped improve appreciation ...

... trying to squeeze some humor out of the name of the city. For anyone who does not speak Spanish, Aguascalientes is translated as "warm waters" hence my feeble joke of "can we warm up to this city?" The short answer is surprisingly "no"! Why "no"? All the other places we have visited and blogged about have had one characteristic in common and that has been an outstanding "centro historico" or historical center. It turns out that in the cities ...

Accommodation <br><br>Whilst here I stayed at Hotel San Antonia, Zaragoza No. 305, Tel: 01 (449) 9159341. This was the best of the budget options in town. The en-suite rooms with cable TV are standard but do vary, so look at a few until you find one you like. Avoid the rooms on the ground level around the parking area. Rooms 35 - 38 are your best bet as they are the nicer rooms and also set back ...

... but the odd time people do it, the night can often end in tragedy. Other than that, our 5 days in Aguascalientes were spent exploring the city centre (a zocalo, a park...pretty but not wholly unlike the other Mexican cities we'd seen) and searching for replacement shoes after my flipflops finally gave up their valiant struggle. The Feria they have here in April sounds amazing though, the whole city centre is truned into one big street party. Think I'll be back for that!

... able to see the San Marcos Fair, one of the largest fairs in Mexico. Besides the enjoying the seasonal revelries, we can hit the Casino, or go to the Bull Ring. Bull fighting is one of my favorites. Ever since I saw those garguntum bulls engaged inj a duel in one of the programs in Travel Channel, I've been dying for the real taste! Moreover, since I'm so much enthusiastic about colonial ...

... a restaurant next to Collusium st. I don't remember the name of the place but it was a yellow Argentinan steakhouse with a really cool tequila bar. The steak was really big, near 1 pound and cooked to perfection. This may have been one of the best steaks that I had ever eaten. After dinner we returned to the hotel and continued working. We finished up around 12:30 am and caught some shut eye.

... t have a personal insight to share, I just don't write. *To see the kinds of things I do write, check out an earlier entry, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/sr uof/europe_2004. Or go to www.travelpod.com and enter my user name: sruof. Remember, let me know before Tuesday if you'd like to be taken off this list. Otherwise, you're stuck with my musings ... or my silences ... until I return. Exploring the world, one sensible-shoe print after another, Sheila

... wine and a hotel built from an old bull ring. Good base to visit the La Quemada ruins, which are good if you like ruins or just want to go for a bit of a scramble because you have spent to many hours stuck on a bus eating junk. Excellent museums, such as the 2 Coronel museums (modern art and masks). There is an interesting church made of orange sandstone above the modern art museum that is worth a look. The mask museum is housed ...

... work assignmet and then got back together to share our pix and critiques. The next week I took a photoshop class with her that focused on using photoshop to duplicate traditional dark room techniques, more frustrating than the first class but helpful. Esteban took private Spanish classes the second and third week. Everyday he bought newspapers and focused on politics and economics and read a story or editorial with his teacher and then ...