We took a trip to the World Trade Center today for Expo Cristiana 2005. It’s an annual exposition here in Mexico City where all the bookstores, music stores, and other stores get together and show what they have for sale. They invite lots of musicians and conference speakers (this year John McArthur and Steve Green were there) to share as well. We just went down today to see what books and other youth ministry resources they have. It took us about 2 hours to get back home from downtown. Lesson learned: Don’t go downtown on Friday.
By the way, Hurricane Wilma looks like it is going to be devastating for Cancun and Cozumel and other parts of Mexico, as well as Cuba (and possibly Florida). Please pray for them as they endure this.
Other News: We got a call from Janell’s mom telling us that we received a bill from the hospital for Nathan’s birth. It was a LOT more than what our insurance seems to cover. We are praying for God to provide the money to pay this bill. If you’d like to help, please email us.
I just saw this article online. It’s about Mel Gibson donating 1 million dollars to Mexico’s hurricane relief. That’s a lot of money. The article has a funny picture of Mel Gibson sitting with Mexico’s President Fox. Gibson has no socks on and a long beard. I’m sure the president didn’t care too much.
So this is probably one of many posts about the football game that I went to last night. I’ve already mentioned that it was the first regular season NFL game outside of the United States. I had so much fun. We got there really early, so we had time to check out the stadium, which was easy to find (surprising here). The parking was good, and we had decent seats (general admission upper deck). You could see pretty well from where we were.
The stadium holds around 110,000 people for a soccer game, and the official attendance at last night’s football game was 103,467. It was the largest crowd for an NFL game in history. The Mexican people are really great spectators, and we did the wave about a million times.
The halftime show was really cool, with regional dancing and a “celebrate Mexico” theme. Hundreds of people participated in the halftime show, and it was really good.
Some things that are different here than in the US: 1. They sold ramen noodles as concessions (also…donuts, Domino’s pizza, tacos, and bags of chips); 2. The food was relatively cheap (30 pesos, or $3 USD for a personal pizza); 3. EVERYBODY went crazy when they announced that Mexico’s soccer team had won their game (the US football players had no clue); 4. We left in the middle of the 3rd quarter, and there was nobody in the parking lot; 5. Stadium parking only cost $4 USD; I am sure there will be more as I have more time to think about it.
If you want to see my pictures from the game, click here.
Well, this is it. I’ve got my ticket, church is over, and we are getting ready to go to the game. I’m excited, and I hope that the game is exciting. If you want, you can watch it on ESPN tonight at 8:30 Eastern Time. If you’re hoping to get a glimpse of me, good luck. My tickets are in the upper deck. But, they tell me you can see well from anywhere in the stadium. We’ll see.
Thursday night was Mexican Independence Day. We went to a party to celebrate. All of September, they have had all sorts of stands selling Mexican flags, sombreros, costumes, and all sorts of cool Mexican goodies. So, we bough Nathan a sombrero for the big night. He wore it to the party, and, as usual, he was the star. We didn’t let them paint his face, though. It was a great time with good food, fun, singing, dancing, and, of course, friends.
Well, the wedding was interesting. We arrived at 2:30, which was when they told everyone to get there, even though we didn’t plan on starting until 3 (That’s the way it works in Mexico). We helped set up the sound system and then ran around looking for people that needed to be informed about things in the ceremony. Then it started raining. The reception was going to be outside under a big tent. Three o’clock rolled around, and the bride’s dad still wasn’t there. We waited. And we waited. And we waited some more. We waited until 4:15 at least to start the wedding without him. The groom and I stood under a bus stop waiting for him in the rain. So, we started without the father of the bride. The ceremony was fine. It wasn’t too difficult. There are always things that don’t go according to plan, but it was okay.
Then came the reception. It was raining, so the people couldn’t get to the tent without getting wet. They had to sweep the water off of the basketball court where all the tables were. Then we waited again. The food took a long time to get there. We didn’t eat until at least 6:30. Janell and I had to go home to get more clothes for Nathan because by this time it was freezing outside. So, we came back, and the food was there. We had carnitas, rice, and some spicy chiles. Then, we were drinking this red soda. Janell had Nathan on her lap, and he decided to grab her cup, spilling the soda on her and him. It was all over him. Luckily, it wasn’t cold because there was no ice (They don’t use ice much here). Whew! We survived, and it ended up being a fun day.
