Saturday we got up at 4am and bundled ourselves into the car to sit on the freeway and travel a quarter of a mile (or less) in over an hour. The intention was to go see the balloon fiesta but Saturday was the opening ceremony and people are rude. The problems were two fold 1) there was a lot of traffic 2) there were a ridiculous number of people who were cutting in to the line of traffic. Once we got to an appropriate point having missed the start of the morning glow anyway we abandoned the balloons and head to (you guessed it) IHOP for breakfast. It wasn't a waste of a day though, after heading home for a nap we headed out to 'Old Town' which is as the name suggests the oldest part of town. It was fun to be somewhere a bit older (the center of Albuquerque was founded in 1706 as compare to Seattle's 1851). It's a wonderful place to wander around and look through all the little shops many for them sell local art works which are beautiful. It was a little overwhelming so I ended up buying nothing because there was so much I would have loved to buy. Many of the buildings are built in the 'pueblo revival' style which mimics 'Adobe' style but in modern materials... Albuquerque is a curious mix of the 'traditional' american houses clad in wood and these more practical simple buildings with flat roofs.
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| Old town was busy... |
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| it was bright and beautiful under that extraordinary sky |
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| The market was for Saint icons which was interesting to look at |
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| There was live music from the rotunda |
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| this is the church in the center of Old Town |
Route 66 runs through the center of Albuquerque and was the main route between the east and the west of America before the interstates were built. We stopped for lunch at a 50's style diner that used to feed those traveling route 66. I had a milkshake and a burger with fries and felt very american!
That evening we went to Mexican restaurant and ate too many foods with chili in!
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