Saturday 16 August 2014

Letters from America: Old Town Albuquerque

Hello Everyone,

Yesterday I, along with other international students, went to visit Old Town Albuquerque, and a museum. I met some really interesting people (also on the international exchange) and ended up having lunch with them.
The main plaza and bandstand!
Old Town Albuquerque is a really interesting place as it is the oldest part of the city, and has been there since 1706, when the city was founded. All the buildings are in the style of traditional Mexican style, with flat roofs and big porches. This means that the residents and shop owners are able to hold really nice markets on the porches for tourists to buy. It also means that there is a lot of shade, which was really useful as it was so hot.
Look at all the pretty things!
Inside a pretty trinket shop
The museum we went to was called the Albuquerque Museum of Science and History. It had some really cool exhibits about Bolo Ties and Christo, the artist that wraps buildings and landmarks up in different materials. However, my favourite exhibit was the sculpture garden, when we were just allowed to roam around by ourselves taking pictures.
One of the murals all around the museum
A really pretty fountain/sculpture
A really long sculpture of cowboys transporting their goods and families
It's a pretty epic scene
I just thought he was so cute!
This one was called Tea and Steel, it made me crave a cuppa!

For lunch, we just had to go to a traditional Mexican restaurant. However, we weren't too hungry, so the girls at our table decided to get four appetisers to share (as we thought they would be smaller than a main course). To our surprise, what do we get but four huge plates, that we were barely able to eat! And the nachos! There were nachos on every plate, as well as complimentary nachos brought over when we sat down. One thing I was very surprised at, which we don't get in Britain, was that the waitress kept filling up our glasses with water. Every fifteen minutes (or more frequently, I wasn't watching the clock) she came over with a jug of water and ice, and would top up our glasses. This was a relief, as it was so hot, and we would have gotten pretty dehydrated if she hadn't done that. Although we couldn't eat all the food, the amount we tried was very good. It was pretty spicy, but so flavoursome.
The restaurant we went to

So. Much. Food.

I really enjoyed this trip, and although we didn't really do a lot, we learnt a lot about New Mexican culture just by looking around and seeing what it was like.
That's a lot of chillies!


P.S. If you liked this post, you may also like Letters From America: Day 1 and 2 or Dinard.

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