The pride of Texas- Alamo and Mrs. Adams

Our first full day in San Antonio and naturally the first stop had to be the country's...ehem..i mean state's pride and joy: The Alamo.  It was a quick walk from our hotel and then suddenly there we were, face to face with the state's pride and joy.  Now, no offense to Texas or their Alamo, but I have to say I was a little underwhelmed.  Maybe it would have been more fun to check it out with a Texan, I'm not sure.  But there just wasn't much to it.  It's not really that big and takes an hour max to check out.  I guess the highlights for me were seeing that two of the heroes of the Alamo were Johnson's and watching other Texan's visit what they consider to be their Mecca.  I think I saw a groan man weep.  Obviously if you're in town you have to see it, but don't worry about spending a lot of time there. 

Afterwards we ventured over to the Mercado, or the big market, about 15 minutes away.  It's full of chintzy type stuff but fun to check out for a few minutes.  The day was gorgeous, 85 DEGREES suckas!! haha sorry to torture but it was awesome.  So we hated to go inside but there was a museum that seemed to be really cool and was free for the day so how could we pass that up?  The Museo Alameda, www.thealameda.org  It's a pretty new museum, opening in 2007, and it's also fairly small.  There were only two exhibits.  One was called "Dichos" about graffiti on cars in Latin America.  The exhibit was pretty great and hysterical.  It's all photos of various vehicles in Latin America with sayings as romantic as "My love" to raunchier ones like "My girlfriend is no longer a virgin" to the absurd "why are you staring at me? I haven't changed."  Great exhibit!  I was cracking up the whole way through.  On the other side was an exhibit called "The African Presence in Mexico."  This was a collection of photographs documenting the lives of Africans in Mexico.  Beautiful photos.  But by chance, and extreme good fortune, it just so happened that as we arrived the museum was having a q&a with a 102 year old woman who just happened to be in some of the photos they were exhibiting.  Mrs. Audrea Adams was born in Mexico and grew up there.  She ended up getting her masters at Columbia and went on to lead a pretty amazing life.  Now, for 102 and this woman was sharp!!!! She would switch between English and Spanish with the greatest of ease and tell hysterical stories about her blind date with her husband. ("he could not dance! and when he tried to kiss me i said "no! I don't even know you!")  She had a book of photos from when she was young and her daughter happened to read about the museum's exhibit in the paper only to realize that her mother was in a few of the photos.  It was just so amazing to stumble upon such an amazing woman.  I think one of the funniest things she said was how she was having some dreams about Obama that her husband would not like. 102 YEARS OLD!! hahaha  God I would give anything to have that spunk and be as sharp as her some day.  I also found it interesting that she never felt discriminated against by Mexicans only Americans, and specifically people from Alabama she said.  Wish I could say that was shocking.  In any event, it was a true pleasure to meet her and hear her talk.  What a tremendous individual. 

If you're in town check out that museum!! I thought both exhibits were great and the people were very helpful and friendly.