The End of the YOA Mexico Tour

The last week of the Mexico Tour went by in a blur.  From Orizaba, we moved on to Leon, where we stayed in a very nice, if somewhat creepy hotel, and Stella and I got away to enjoy some street food.

While Leon was the place to go for leather, we only found the cheapo Tourist leather goods, and I never did find anything worth buying.  Whenever I found a pair of shoes that looked cute, I would realize they weren't actually made out of leather, or they would be cheaply made leather, that upon closer inspection looked like they would fall apart after a week.

Still, the street food was fantastic, and the architecture in the city was beautiful.  We went into some gorgeous cathedrals, and walked through large parks with fountains.  We also had some delicious and much-needed ice cream.

The nice but somewhat creepy hotel

The Lion of León

Tacos al Pastor, baby!

A delicious Torta

Stella and her street tacos

Sunny day in León

Emma and a León Fountain

Delicious strawberry ice cream with whole strawberries in it

The Pink Cathedral

Moving on from León, we next went to Guadalajara, for the final stretch of the Tour.  While the city seemed great (for the small amount of exposure I had to it), the food at the hotel was a pretty major negative point for my time in Guadalajara.  Somewhere in the confusion of trying (again and again and again) to explain the dietary needs of our 10 vegetarians and 1 vegan (in Mexico... Really...) they somehow made the decision to serve the entire orchestra a dinner of taquitos, filled with:  (drumroll please)... raw onions.  No cheese.  No cilantro.  No fajita seasoning.  Just a dry corn tortilla wrapped around some diced onion.  Awesome.  The rest of the meals were not much better, even after explaining to the chef that the food needed to be seasoned, and it needed to be more substantial.  Needless to say, many of the musicians and staff members sought the comfort of nearby restaurants instead of eating at our lovely hotel.  Which really was a pity, because it was a very nice hotel, and the concert venue was incredibly beautiful.

The old theater had a façade that reminded me of the Parthenon, and had balcony seats that made me nauseous.  I literally got dizzy in the one minute that I stood up there to take a picture of the stage from above during a rehearsal.  The railing was very low - as low as your knees easily, and the way the ceiling closed in above you in strange angles just made me uncomfortable to be up there.

Teatro Degollado

The eating area of our hotel:  empty...

The lobby of Teatro Degollado

The dizzying heights

Nice work, Emma

Spoiling myself with a Chai

And a meal not from that hotel

From here, the Tour was especially brutal.  We drove from Guadalajara to Mexico D.F. where we had the final performance of the Orchestra's guest artists, and the last performance of some of the best pieces of the Tour's repertoire.  They also performed in the absolutely breathtaking Palacio de Bellas Artes.  This was undoubtedly the most beautiful concert hall I have ever been to, with a fantastic colored dome that shone in the sunny Mexico skies.

I also got to see an interesting phenomenon of Mexico D.F., where apparently every Sunday the streets are either completely closed or partially blocked off so that bikes can take over.  at first I thought it was a bike race and carefully ran to the other side of the road to get out of their way, but then I realized: they were riding slowly.  Hmmmm.  Leisurely even.  Dressed in normal street clothes.  Talking to each other.  Carrying groceries.  What was this?  It went on all afternoon:  thousands upon thousands of Sunday bike-riders enjoying the sights and streets of bustling Mexico city.  And unlike many of the parks and trails that are open to the public that I've experienced in the states, the streets were absolutely packed with people.  This wasn't some novelty race that attracted thousands for one random weekend.  This was something common, something that happened every week.  And yet, still, the people came out in huge numbers to take advantage of the luxury of roads free from crazy traffic (and believe me - during the week, it is crazy.  Like, ignoring red lights, crazy).

The orchestra's performance in Bellas Artes was fantastic, and we all braced ourselves for the last three days of the Tour, which were sure to be brutal.  With a travel day to Puebla and rehearsals, a concert day in Puebla, and then a travel day back to Mexico D.F. with a concert that evening and finale party celebrations late into the night, and departures from the hotel to the airport starting at 3 am... it would surely be a brutal 3 days. 

A space-efficient room in Mexico D.F.

Palacio de Bellas Artes - magnificent

It is hard to capture the beauty of the dome - much more breathtaking in person

Pre-concert desert and margarita with Stella

Hotel Casa Blanca

As I said, these last few days of the Tour were especially hectic.  As a result, I don't have nearly as many pictures from it as I did of the rest of the Tour, but you can still get the idea.

Puebla was really my last chance for finding souvenirs for my family, so Stella and I found a mercado to buy some Tourist stuff.  I got Hilma a necklace and found Ryan a cool Día de los Muertos shirt, and found a super cute dress for my soon-to-be-niece Ayla.  I found a neat green print of some sort that I figured could be framed and one of these days can hang in our house.  

I also finally succumbed to the call of the McDonalds cheeseburger.  If you don't already know, I have an inexplicable love for McDonalds and their two-cheeseburger meal.  While I fully understand the difference between a cheeseburger and a McDonalds cheeseburger (no, they do not scratch the same itch) I still am crazy for those little guys.  As part of my ridiculousness, I have made it a point to go to a McDonalds in every country that I have ever been to.  And saved the wrappers and/or a menu.  Yes.  I fold up the wrapper and put it in my purse, to be lovingly placed in a scrapbook eventually.  I ran into the McDonalds nearest to our hotel, ordered "dos hamburguesas con queso y papas fritas", then joined my friends and a nearby traditional restaurant where they ordered tacos with mole sauce.  Well, now I was torn.  Here I was in Puebla, the land of mole, and I hadn't really tried the stuff out properly yet... Such a conundrum.  Luckily, I solved that problem fairly easily with my second cheeseburger, where I decided to forgo the traditional cheeseburger route, and dunked the thing in the rich mole sauce.  I think it'll be big.  You're welcome, Puebla.  

The concert YOA performed was with the famed Mariachi Vargas, which ended up not really being to my liking at all.  It was mariachi all right.  And totally boring for someone who was interested in watching YOA.  And totally boring for someone who didn't know the songs already.  And totally boring for someone who didn't really have any interest in mariachi.  It was actually kind of painful for me.  I had to sit there for the full concert (which I swear was longer than even the longest concert up to this point) pretending to be enjoying myself, while some geezers behind me, whose talent for singing went as far as knowing many of the words of a song and not much beyond that, bellowed these mariachi songs on the top of their lungs at the group that was on stage.  It was kind of horrible.  The mariachi group was really great. Really.  I just don't think I care for mariachi.  Or sing-a-longs.

Not that thrilled with the mariachi concert

Oh, and I was sitting behind the governor of Puebla and his possy - note the earpiece in front of me

The next day was the longest day ever.  We woke up early for the 4-hour bus ride back to Mexico D.F., to stay in the same hotel that we were in just a few days before.  Unfortunately, the concert hall was not Bellas Artes this time, as it was before, so instead of being 10 minutes away from the hotel, it was 1 hour away.  But no matter.  We get there, and I do my best to think ahead for the next 16-odd hours.  I completely pack my suitcase to be ready for the flight back home, and pack my little backpack with my concert dress, my heels, all of the gifts that we are supposed to hand out, the tickets I need to pass out, the last of the supplies that I have this one last chance to get rid of before I have to decide whether to take them with me or throw them away, and other odds and ends of things.  

All packed up and ready to go, we head to the concert hall for sound check and the concert.  I spend most of the time running from back stage to the lobby, handing out tickets and reserving adequate seats for our VIPs such as our Board Chair, the Mexican Ambassador to the United States, and others, and handing out the instructions for the musicians to write thank you letters to their sponsors.  I ended up missing the concert because I had to wait to hand out tickets to some very late VIPs, but in all honestly - I didn't care.  I was just missing the same mariachi concert from the day before, and we all know how much I loved that.  

Poor Stella had a much worse day of it, which consisted of going from restaurant to restaurant begging for them to let us have our finale dinner and party at their site, and negotiating the price that we could pay.  In the end, she did an amazing job of it, as she always does, and she ended up getting us the best meal of the entire tour, a sound system and microphone for us to play music and make our speeches, and a seemingly endless drink supply for the orchestra as well.  

The good-byes were tearful for the musicians, as they always are, and everyone was having a bittersweet but fantastic time.  There was no going to bed for us.  Stella went with the first group to the airport at 3:00 am.  I saw them off and immediately started feeling a strange sense of emptiness.  All of a sudden it was getting eerily quiet again, as it was for me the day I stayed in D.F. one day longer than the rest of the orchestra.  

I went next, with the 5:00 am group to the airport.  I had to be a bit insensitive with getting people onto the bus, as they were congregating in front of the hotel hugging and kissing... geezus.  We were worried that D.F. traffic would be starting up and that it would take us too long to get to the airport, so I did some yelling and even had the bus driver start going with the door open so that we could leave on time for once.  

As it turned out, most of us had waaaaaay too long at the airport and couldn't even check in for several hours, so I guess I was a bit hard on them.  I did my duty getting cellos and basses paid for, then said my own goodbyes to the musicians that were there and to Stella, who would be leaving the next day.  I checked in, went through security, and left behind a very different life.  

Back on the other side of security, it was a completely different world.  I was a single traveler, only concerned for myself.  No announcements to be made, no emergencies to be solved, no people to find urgently, and no stragglers to look after.  As I was extremely early to the gate myself, I made a few laps around the airport, had a lunch at a table for two, staring at the wall, and finally sat by the gate and read.  

Musicians sleeping at the airport, waiting to check in

A strange and lonely lunch

Such a strange feeling.  I boarded my teensy tiny plane for the ride to Houston.  I knew I had to be quick on this one, so I chose my seat to be the one in the very front of the plane.  I checked the map of the Houston airport, and found - of course - that my gate, customs, and the gate of my next flight, which was supposed to take off less than 50 minutes after my plane arrived, were all on opposite sides of the long airport.  Great.  

So as soon as the cabin door opened as we arrived in Houston, even before the flight attendant was done with his welcome speech, I was off.  I jetted down the hallway, not quite running, to get to customs.  I already knew where to go, as I had studied the map on the plane, so I wasted no time looking for signs.  Luckily for me there was no line at customs, and I went through in no time at all.  Next I had to re-check my baggage, which was a little worrisome.  But the airline was good to me and had my luggage out first, which I immediately snatched up and threw onto the conveyer belt to go back into the system.  Then I presented my paperwork to get back into the section with the gates, and hot-footed it to the other end of the terminal again to get to my gate.  And wouldn't you know it, they had just begun boarding when I got there, out of breath and triumphant.  I had time to give Patrick a quick call, then had to shut off my phone again.  

In no time at all, I was back in Virginia, back in Dulles, back in Patrick's car, and back in my house.  Patrick and my parents all greeted me, and we started a whole new adventure:  showing my parents around Virginia.  Stay tuned for details of that entirely different expedition.