Update: Houston voted #1 city to live in by Kiplinger's magazine. Number 2? Raleigh, NC.

Fue una fiesta en Fiesta!

Here in Houston we're not that far from the Mexican border; oh, I think it takes about 5 hours to get there. So obviously, this city has a lot of Mexicans. And Salvadorians and Guatemalans and Costa Ricans and so on. I mean, just the other day I heard a statistic on NPR that there are now more Latinos in Houston than any other group of people!

So anyway, in our effort to live as cheaply as possible, we decided to try Fiesta. I'd heard that it was the best place to get groceries, costing even less than than Kroger. What an experience! Our closest Fiesta is about 3.5 miles away. Of all the places that we go regularly, this might be one of the furthest away from our house. It's in the Bellaire area of town and wow, was it wild! The parking lot itself was an experience. Cars, Hispanics, and kids everywhere, and outside were guys selling Mexican corn (corn on the cob w/ mayonnaise and Parmigiano cheese on it). It was hot as hell, we were parked miles away, the parking lot was dirty, and there was just something surreal about the whole place. I felt like I'd entered Mexico.

And I had. Inside the Fiesta was a Mexican heaven. It was unlike any grocery store I've ever seen in the States. The Fiesta is sort of like a Wal-Mart in that it has food, clothes, and things like that. But it's absolutely chaotic. Aisles are blocked, people are giving you samples at every corner, groups of 3 or 4 Hispanic men all gathered around one grocery cart, large families, women in tight clothing with large, gold earrings, the whole she-bang. As soon as you get inside there is a store within the Fiesta that sells cowboy boots, all of them colors other than what you might expect, or at least, what I would expect, such as light blue and light green. Then there's the huge lotto station. And the full Taqueria inside in case you want to sit down and get a bite to eat. And let me tell you about the cheese section... the humongous vat of sour cream alone was enough to make me want to just drool. There was fresh queso all over the place. And let's not forget about the meat section. In addition to the regular cuts, there was mondongo which is actually cow's intestines. Carlos loves this kind of thing. We didn't buy any. There were also jars of pig's ears and wow, the chicharones were pig-sized. Literally. Like you know where these pork rinds originated when you looked at them. So la di da, we were shopping away and having a good ole time. We found tunas which are a fruit and I'm not so crazy about tunas but they're okay. We found just the right papaya for Carlos, we found cactus which I'm excited about figuring out how to use, there were of course chiles of all types, oh, and quince, which I'm going to try tonight. We also found my favorite Peruvian purple corn drink, chicha morada, which honestly is one of the best drinks ever, and Carlos found his beloved Inca Cola. Granted, there were a few things we didn't find like my contact solution and shiitake mushrooms. But I guess a store can't be everything to everyone. So instead of regularly shopping at Kroger and going to the Whole Foods to get what Kroger didn't have, now we'll go to Fiesta and then go to the Kroger to get what the Fiesta didn't have. Oh wait, and I didn't mention the prices which was the whole reason for even going in the first place, right? Cheaper than Kroger. I was won over. And I can't wait to go next time and spend some quality time with the dulces.

Later Carlos said that I was the only white person in there. I didn't even notice. Being in the Fiesta almost made me feel like I was on vacation in another country and that upon leaving I would take a cab over to my swank hotel on the beach and relax with some chicha and fresh fruit.

The Bat Colony at Waugh Bridge

So on Sunday night we went out to see the Waugh Bridge Bat Colony in downtown Houston. Who would have ever thought there were 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats living under this bridge? By passing by you'd never know it... that is, unless you had your window down and could smell all of that terrible bat guana. Eek! So the story goes that this particular bridge was built with a type of expansion joint that is just the right size for these bats to live in, and that's why they're there and not under any other bridges. We went there at 8pm, about 20 minutes before official sunset. There are a couple different places you can watch the bats from, and we were able to stand at the observation deck and wait. For awhile not much happened. You could see a few bats flying underneath the bridge, but nothing else. Then slowly you start to notice that more and more are dropping down and that they're whirling around and creating a vortex. And then, by some signal unknown to me, they all start shooting out horizontally and flying down Buffalo Bayou (see first post to see what Houstonians refer to as a "bayou") and into the nearby trees and brush looking for their dinner. We were actually expecting something more spectacular of the kind where all at once thousands of bats would fly up into the air creating almost a black sheet and that it would all be over in a matter of minutes. Instead, they flew out sideways and even after 10 minutes were still flying out! We took numerous pictures, none of which turned out since it was so dark. It was cool, and believe it or not, I also read a post by a guy who said that he'd been picking up the Waugh bats on his weather radar. Ha!

While there, we heard about the bat colony in Austin, TX which boasts 1.5 MILLION bats! Now that is something we're definitely going to have to go and check out.

Photo by sirtrentalot

Yes, it's come to this...

It's so hot that my cat is sleeping in the sink. Where in the world will he go in August?

The Quinceanera Party

The Quinceanera party, or a Fiesta Rosa, is one that I never gave much thought to, I think that I had heard about it before somewhere.... the party that a Hispanic girl has when she turns 15. Well, since I've been in Houston, every Saturday I see at least one girl dressed up in her Quinceanera dress getting professionally photographed near a beautiful fountain or park setting with the limo waiting nearby. I'm fascinated. I did research. I talked to my husband.

So, the Quinceanera is a type of coming-of-age party that really doesn't compare in my mind to the Sweet 16, at least not the Sweet 16 of today. As you can see from the dress on my right, this is serious. It is like a wedding. Traditionally there is a religious ceremony first. You have las damas, or what I would call the equivalent to the bridesmaides, who all have formal dresses on. You can also have men in your entourage. You have a magnificent cake, a humongous party, a mariachi band, dancing, oh and you also might be wearing a tiara, throwing a bouquet to a group of boys in order to see who will be the lucky man to have the first dance with the lovely Quinceanera. I found that there is also a tradition of the father changing his daughter's show from a low-heeled one to a high-heeled one, signifying her transformation from girlhood to womanhood. Everyone goes to the Quinceanera party, people you invite, people that the people you invited decided to invite, those peoples' friends, everyone. It is supposed to be the party of a lifetime.

I asked Carlos about his sister's Quinceanera party and he couldn't really remember it, probably because she was kind of busy being pregnant I guess. But we talked about what we would do if we had a girl some day.... Quinceanera? Sweet 16? Both? Neither? I suppose it depends on how close the girl would feel to her Peruvian heritage, what her friends were doing, all that. But one thing is for sure--if she gets a Quinceanera party then she'll have to take out loans for her college education. And we'll have to be thinking of the Quinceanera party when we choose godparents since the godparents foot a portion of the bill. Or maybe we could just have a boy. At any rate, I hope to find out more about this party and hopefully even get invited to one!