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The festivities went well and I ate more beef tongue than so far in my life up to December 24, 2010.




Later today we'll be heading to Las Vegas to meet the. Daughter if Toño's late godmother.

Location:W 57th St,Los Angeles,United States

Merry Christmas!

Preparing for the Festivities

The day was mainly dedicated to preparing for the festivities - that is, we drove to numerous Mexican tiendas to get ingredients for tamales and ponche. For the latter, a fruit named tejocote was needed, which was difficult to get for a reasonable price. They also bought a box of tongues. I have no idea what they will make with them. However, I haven't seen as many piñatas in my entire life as today. The ceilings of all shops were covered with them.

But now, we are relaxing by enjoying margaritas :)

Location:W 58th St,Los Angeles,United States

A Warm Welcome with Frijolitos, Carne de Res y una Cervezita

Although in coach, the flight to Los Ángeles was uneventful, which is always good. Though, Toño was a bit peeved, because the maître de cabin dropped by to greet me personally and let me choose my lunch before they started serving to ensure I get the choice. These perks were not granted to Toño. Being a frequent flyer is not always easy, but I reckon we got the exit row seats with more legroom thanks to my seniority.

At LAX we had to wait an entire hour on the tarmac. BA was blocking our gate. They were probably not keen at all to return to snow messy Heathrow.

Immigration was then a bit of an ordeal as well, Toño's Swiss passport is without biometric features and he had to use his Mexican, for which has a visa. This cause some intense scrutiny. An upgraded passport is definitely on the to-do-list.

The welcome by Toño's relatives was then more to my liking. They served us frijoles, carne de res and cerveza :)

We are staying with Toño's aunty Chica, her husband Héctor, and their teenage sons Héctor and Alfonso in a nice house in south central Los Ángeles. Aunty Chica is actually younger than Toño. Three siblings of Toño's father live here nearby. For Christmas, siblings of Toño's mother will come from Palms Springs. It will be huge :)

Location:W 51st St,Los Angeles,United States

Heading for a Navidad Americana

We are heading to Los Angeles to celebrate Christmas and New Year with Toño's relatives. There are many of them. I've counted presents for 10 families.

However between us and Los Angeles are 13 hours of *cough* coach *cough* :/ well, at least we can prepare ourselves for this in the lounge.

Location:Gates,Kloten,Switzerland

Big Chill

I'm on business in India and it's unusually chilly here. Today, the Bangalore edition of the Times of India featured the headline Big chill leaves Bangalore shivering on the front page. Today's high temperature forecast was 21.3°C. I'm starving for sympathy here.

5 on the fifth - Faces

This month's 5 on the fifth theme is Faces.

Since we are in the middle of Advent season, I took portraits of the figurines in our nativity scene.

Cookies Delivered

I was a good boy today, travelled through the heaping snow and brought my mother the Christmas cookies. She was already worried and thought with me having to travel to India this weekend, there will be no time for the cookies. She's relieved now.