A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 


Preface - World's Greatest Dad


To preface this new section of blog entries, I would like to state for the record that I have the greatest father in the world. Sure, he's a bit of a loon sometimes, but all in all I have absolutely no complaints, and I'm not just saying that because he gave my mother, my sisters and I perhaps the most fabulously thoughtful Christmas gift of all time. Mind you, I'm not at all opposed to a high level of sucking up, and I certainly wouldn't want to do or say anything to diminish the potentiality of any similar travel-related windfalls coming my way down the line, but I should emphasize here that even without the incredible Christmas surprise I still would have been more than willing to say nice things about Dad. Well, maybe I'm a little more willing now, but that speaks more to my general lack of character than to his inherent quality.

Now that we've got that out of the way, on to the trip!

My mother (henceforth to be referred to as "Mom" unless she does something particularly embarassing, in which case she will be referred to as "Mother" with the big eye-roll implied) is an incredible cook, and loves learning and sharing new recipes. My sisters (henceforth to be referred to as "A" and "D" to protect the innocent) are great cooks as well. I, by contrast, suffer from the deadly combination of living alone and natural laziness, so I'm more of a grilled cheese and Cheerios sort of gal. Nevertheless, my lack of cooking talent (or indeed any previously evinced interest) was fortunately not considered any obstacle to Dad's Grand Plan, as I am widely known as a person who would accept a trip to North Korea or Fallujah or the corner store for that matter. Hmm, those places sound pretty interesting, actually - I'll start checking flights as soon as Mom is otherwise occupied.

Because of Mom's love of cooking, she had already enjoyed a day at a Thai cooking school during their trip to Bangkok, and Dad, whose only hobbies are reading about travel, planning travel, and traveling, had for some time been on the hunt for a place where he could send us all to Mother-Daughter Cooking School. Mexico was the winning country - we all love Mexican food - and after compiling a few file folders stuffed with info on our options (the man is a whiz with internet travel research and subscribes to an estimated 349 travel magazines and newsletters), last fall he invited me to lunch to present the choices for my thrilled comments, opinions and suggestions.

While I'm sure he could have easily made all the arrangements in secret, where's the fun of planning if you can't share the process? I, therefore, was given such tasks as ferreting out A's boss's name so Dad could arrange her vacation time, and was the recipient of periodic phone calls in excited tones as planning progressed. (Sample: "I made the wire transfer today!!! It was my first time!!!) So, while it was sad not to have Dad along for the trip, I do know how much he enjoyed the months of prep. Not to mention Christmas morning -- you've never seen three more stunned faces as Mom's, A's and D's as they opened the box with the half-ream of schedules, walking tours, web info and whatnot that Dad had put together. Mom cried, of course. That's how you know she's really overwhelmed and happy.

So on February 11, 2006 we were on our way, and since Dad was doing the planning and we are a strange family in general, our destination was not one of the usual Mexican beach tourist haunts but the central highlands east of Mexico City. Two days in Puebla, culinary home of Mole (chile/chocolate sauce) and Pipian sauce, would be followed by five days of classes in the tiny nearby state of Tlaxcala at the Mexican Home Cooking School, where we would be the only guests/students of Doña Estela, a great cook and native of Puebla, and her husband/sous chef/business manager Jon, an American and the lucky recipient of Dad's 157 e-mails (I'm estimating the number, but I'm sure I'm close). To give you a sense of just how unusual it is for tourists to go to Tlaxcala (which is, incidentally, a great place to visit), the customs guy who searched Mom's bag at the Mexico City airport and who, presumably, talks to hundreds of tourists daily, said we were the very first he'd met. Which makes me like it even better!

That's enough backstory for now. Tomorrow I'll start the actual story of our trip.



P.S. Thanks, Dad!
posted by Katy at 5:26 AM