My recent trip to Mexico was quite an experience. My real first visit since I was a little boy (I did see the airport in Cancun in 2005) my parents told me that back then all I wanted in Mexico was to get back to the U.S. and eat a hamburger. This time, in addition to visiting Casa Azul, expanding my love for Frida Kahlo, having a transformational experience (a few of them) at the 14th Subud World Congress, I had this feeling that Mexico City looked like a cross between L.A. and Havana. Perhaps being of Cuban heritage (maternal) made me feel more at ease than many of my fellow Subud travelers from the U.S., though some of them were so prototypically Ugly American that I was wincing as I was creating my distance from them AND making sure the wait staff got a bigger tip.

But Mexico was NOT Cuba, when it came to the availability of guayaba pastelitos. Ai Yi Yi! Now I have a taste for them, but I am more likely to find them in Seattle than I am in Puebla, Mexico.