10/24/18 - 11/4/18 in Guadalajara, Mexico

This story starts with a wedding invitation. My long time friend was getting married and they did a destination wedding with the thought that not many people would show up and they could keep it inexpensive. This turned out to be the most broken plan ever. There were somewhere between 200 and 300 people who showed up. According to the bride, I was the first to go all in and sign up to attend. I did not know if anyone else would be up for it, but I rented a 5 bedroom, 5 bath mansion. The link is below. Worst case scenario, I just spent $2000 to stay in a mansion with a pool within walking distance of the church. I was able to fill the other 4 bedrooms rather quickly, so my cost was only $400.

I arrived a day earlier than everyone else in the house, so I had a luxury hotel room in the downtown square. The bride and groom were already in Guadalajara, along with most of their immediate family members. Obviously, I am going to meet them out for a couple of drinks and some food. That was the moment I discovered that Google maps is superior to Apple’s navigation system. I probably walked 2 miles when I should have only walked 0.3. They were all at an outdoor restaurant inside of a large central square. I think I circled it twice before finding them. 

After a couple of drinks, it was determined that it was time to get some dinner. This was around 10pm. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant, but the food was delicious. They had some meat on a gyro style round, cuttoning it off from the sides as it cooked. The groom’s father paid for it all. (Thank you sir!) And then there were a ton of leftovers. “Hell yeah, I’ll take some of that!” Then I started walking toward my hotel. Two hours earlier, the streets were amazingly bustling with people walking everywhere. I felt safe. Now that I was alone walking the streets of Guadalajara all that was left was the homeless, vagrants, and me.

Eventually, I made my way to the hotel. However, I had all of this food that I had planned on eating the next day, and realized there was no fridge. The hotel room had every little amenity you could ask for, but no fridge. It hurt my heart to throw all of that away.

The first to arrive in Guadalajara was a friend of 20 years along with his wife who I had never met. They came to my hotel room early in the morning and we had some time to kill before chick-in at the mansion. Eventually we ordered an Uber, but because of traffic we stood on the street with our bags for about 30 minutes and watched on our phones as the driver kept doing circles. I cancelled it and we just waved down a taxi. The car was too small to handle the 3 of us and our bags. The driver jumped out and grabbed some straps from the trunk and started strapping everything to the roof. I recall my buddy saying “wow, this is really happening.”

We made it to the house and were met by the house attendant, Angel. He was awesome and showed up every morning to take out the garbage and skim the pool. At this point, we had 2 of the 5 bedrooms filled with 3 more arriving that day. I took the weird bedroom with the 2 queens. My buddy and his new wife didn’t want to impose and take the best bedroom, but I forced them into it. First come, first choice.

Throughout that first day, everyone else arrived. And things started to go south. My best friend arrived with his wife and he felt like he might have pneumonia. I had already bookmarked on my phone all of the hospitals that would be covered by my insurance and kept nudging him to see a doctor. His response was always “there’s nothing that they can do.” He just kept on trucking, but he and his wife left a day early. He ended up hospitalized back in Milwaukee with an infection around his heart. (This had a large impact on my own health care decisions 2 years later. We will get to that.)

The wedding was an amazing experience. They booked a destination wedding to keep the cost down. Really, how many people are willing to fly to a foreign country for a wedding? Maybe 20 or 30? No. The answer is close to 300. I don’t even want to know how much they spent on that. 3 different bands, a hot dog cart, a street taco setup, more roses than I have ever seen, fully open bar, and just a lot of fun. It went until 5am, but all of us in the house were done by 2am.

The wedding was the highlight of the trip, but I need to backtrack a little and talk about Dia de los Muertes. The bride and groom timed the wedding so we were all there for the holiday. I am not sure where we went, but it was a small town with a LOT going on. One of my friends and his girl did the face painting to make them look like skeletons and it kinda creeped me out. I did find an appreciation for all of the temporary monuments set up to respect their ancestors. Nothing felt fake.

I do have a couple of take aways from Guadalajara. First, it amazes me how old the city is compared to any city in the States. The first cathedral was built in 1541 and was recognized by the Vatican in 1548 as a diocese. I have yet to visit Mexico City, but thus far, Guadalajara is my favorite city in Mexico.