Upon entering Veracruz, I had very different expectations from what we actually discovered. First off, let it be said that Veracruz is the entry point of Cortes, when he began his seige/attack on Mexico. By 1521, he had crushed the Aztec Empire. He did sooo many bad things, but I will not get into that here.
Basically, Veracruz was the world’s gateway into Mexico for the next 400 years. Invaders, pirates, slaves, silver, settlers…they all came through this port! See where it is located? It is a major gateway to massive cities like Mexico City, and even Oaxaca, etc!
As for us, we got a large room at the Howard Johnson chain for $600 pesos a night (~$40 USD), and settled in for a two-night stay. We dropped our laundry off down the street ($8 for someone else to wash, dry, and fold your laundry!), and then we went to get Chinese food at the mall. Veracruz is not only large, it is VERY modern. It had nearly every American chain store you would expect to see in the US, with large modern buildings and a very massive, high quality mall. See more modern building designs at www.iddarchitecture.com/.
In the morning we went to the Acuardio de Veracruz, the Aquarium. It cost $310 pesos for a family like ours to enter, and while it was surprisingly small, it was very well done. They had great lighted tanks of fish, and the kids had a great time!
How do you measure up to a manatee?
We then drove down into the old part of Veracruz, and found it to be very pleasant and also well-maintained.
Because Veracruz was often under attack by various threats from the sea, they built fortresses on the waterfront. The only remaining fort of nine that were built in 1526 is the Baluarte de Santiago. They are actually now located further into town…seemingly because the ocean level went down, or they kept filling in the waterfront with more and more land and buildings!
Next, we made our way back into the newer section of the town, and outside of the large mall we found a perfect relaxing place for the next few hours: an outdoor bounce park! It wasn’t cheap, but the special of the day was that adults were free, so we paid “only” $190 pesos for the girls.
Jared helped Maiya run and jump to reach the button on the left.
Next, Jared got his chance.
Since we were on the whole family-date theme, we decided to go see a movie. We wanted to see Tin-Tin, but almost all kids movies are in Spanish, we knew it wouldn’t be enjoyable for the whole family. To our astonishment, the mall had TWO movie theaters. One was a typical stadium-seating movie theater, and the other was a VIP theater. The VIP theater was almost double the price, but it said on the sign that they were showing Tin-Tin in ENGLISH! After confirming with the gal at the counter, we bought our tickets, and went into our luxurious VIP movie theater.
What makes it VIP, you ask?
Well, it had leather sofa seats end tables, as well as a menu featuring various types of food, and a server to make you comfortable. Truth be told, we bought our popcorn before we entered the theater, and we didn’t order any food. The kids also decided they would prefer to be in OUR chairs, instead of their own. We put on the 3D glasses in anticipation of the movie!
Ethan climbed up and down, and all around the seats. Only one other person showed up to watch the movie, and of course he sat almost directly behind us.
After the previews ended, the movie began. In Spanish. I turned to Jared and sighed.
I went out to talk to the ticket agent, who said, “of course, the English showing is only the 9pm one”. Well, that’s not what the sign says. And that’s not what the ticket sales lady said. And we weren’t going to keep the kids out for a movie at 9pm. Here we had 4 paying tickets for a movie in English, and only 1 other person in the theater presumably paying for Spanish. $385 pesos verses $96. We lost.
Oh well. It was the way it was.
Jared traded in his ticket to see the new Mission Impossible movie, and I returned to the movie theater to watch the movie with the kids. After all, with all of the anticipation, I was not going to make them leave that theater!
How do you like 3D movies? I can’t stand them. I feel like I’m watching a movie through a pop bottle. I took off my glasses, and attempted to understand the rapidly-spoken Spanish movie!
Veracruz? We like you, too!
