Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 188 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I want to wish you all a Happy New Year.
If I'm not mistaken...
We'll be right back.
So sometimes I get the date wrong, but I'm pretty sure that this episode will be released right at the beginning of the new year.
So I want to wish you all a happy new year and I hope that this year you can really see some major improvement in your English, especially in your listening, if you're focusing on listening to my podcast or my advanced episodes, etc.
So happy new year.
And in this episode, I'm going to continue talking about the trip that I took recently.
And specifically, I'm going to talk about traveling to Puebla, which is a state in Mexico.
And it's also the city, the major city in that state could also be called Puebla.
So I talked about our trip to Mexico City. in the last episode.
And then, after Mexico City, my dad and me, my wife, my kids we went to Puebla, and my sister's family, who was with us in Mexico City, they went home.
So they didn't join us for this second part of the trip.
But The rest of us went there and it was a really interesting experience, with highs and lows meaning good things and bad things.
So I'll talk all about that in this episode.
I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
And I want to encourage you in this new year.
Start to challenge yourself and really make it your mission to improve your listening and be able to understand native English speakers.
If that's your goal, then you'll definitely want to check out my advanced podcast episodes, because I speak fast in those episodes.
It's normal speed, but you still have the transcript.
So the link to sign up is down below.
And there's also another step you can take, which is to use my US Conversations podcast, because in that podcast I talk to other native speakers from around the United States at normal speed.
We have normalconversations.com.
And, of course, I provide the transcript for you, with the definitions of key words and phrases that we use.
So if you want to take your listening to the next level and be able to understand native English speakers when they speak fast, these two resources will be great for you.
I'm sure these resources will help you reach your goals.
So both of those links are down below.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let's talk about my trip to Puebla.
So this is an amazing destination to travel to.
I highly recommend it.
It's a beautiful state in Mexico.
There are many interesting towns that you could visit in Puebla if you go there.
Many magic towns, as we call them.
In Mexico, some towns have the title magic town, which means that they are touristically and culturally important.
And so the government invests more in those towns and towns.
They're usually really nice to travel to.
I think Puebla has like more magic towns than almost any other state in the country.
Maybe it's number one.
I don't know.
But there are many magic towns there.
There's a lot of beauty there.
And really for me you know me by now the number one draw.
The number one thing probably that attracts me to Puebla is the food.
If you ask someone from Mexico where the best food comes from, like which region of the country produces the best food overall, people might tell you Oaxaca Puebla, maybe one or two other states, but Puebla is usually near the top of that list.
And so this state is known for its food.
So I was very excited to discover its culinary traditions.
So let me talk about just the different days that we spent there.
We spent Four days there.
The first day was more of a travel day because we took a bus from Mexico City to Puebla.
And this bus ride was awful.
Not because of the bus, but because of my baby daughter, who was screaming for a long time on this bus ride.
It was very uncharacteristic of her.
When something is uncharacteristic of someone, it means that it's not what they normally do.
It's like something that's not normal for them.
So my daughter doesn't normally have these terrible screaming outbursts, but she did on this bus ride.
And it was terrible for everyone.
Thankfully, she eventually fell asleep.
But that bus ride was like one of the worst bus rides of my life.
So that wasn't very fun.
But I'm glad we made it safely to Puebla.
And unfortunately, it was raining when we got there.
And we had to do laundry again.
And our Airbnb didn't have a washing machine.
And so we had to go out in the rain and find a laundromat and all of that.
A laundromat is a place where you can go and wash your clothes.
Okay, so the first couple hours weren't very fun.
But let me talk about the Airbnb where we stayed there.
We stayed in a really cool place that was right in the center, the very heart of downtown in Puebla.
So it was an amazing location. and it was a really old house.
It had a style that was very characteristic of houses many years ago in Mexico.
So, for example, the ceilings were really high.
I think that Most modern houses or apartments that are built in Mexico probably don't have a really high ceiling.
But in this Airbnb where we stayed, the ceilings were really high.
It had those old school balconies that you see like on colonial style buildings.
When I say old school, I just mean it's old.
It's like from the past.
So it was a very old school type place, but super cool and amazing location.
And so we were able to walk all over downtown very easily.
So the Airbnb was great.
That first night we didn't really explore because it was raining and we had to do laundry.
So we just ended up you doing what we needed to do, and we went to a restaurant and this restaurant was perfect.
It was another like corn based or masa based restaurant, like i talked about in the last episode, that restaurant that we went to in koyoakan.
This was similar but more modern, So they had like a more modern take on that type of cuisine.
When we say a modern take on something, it's like a modern style or version or method for that thing.
So it was really good.
We ate tacos there.
We ate... Oh!
I need to talk about this.
We ate mole there.
Mole.
If you don't know what this is, it's a type of sauce in Mexico, but it's not a type really, because if you go to Puebla you'll see that there are so many different types of mole.
They make these different styles of mole, which I had never tried before.
I'd only had kind of like the same type of mole over and over again in Guadalajara or in other parts of Mexico.
So it was really cool to go to Puebla and try these different sauces.
This is maybe what Puebla is most famous for in terms of its food are the different moles.
It's one of the most famous things there.
And It was the best mole I had ever had until we ate one, I think, a couple days later.
So I'll talk about that in a second.
But we had our first mole there in Puebla, which was incredible.
We had cornbread for dessert.
That restaurant was perfect.
I don't have a single thing i could possibly complain about.
So it was a great introduction to the cuisine of puebla, so very satisfying.
So the next day we ate breakfast at this place right by our airbnb, and And we had a phenomenal dessert type dish, like a sweet dish, which was like a plantain creme brulee.
I don't know if you've tried this French style dessert before, creme brulee.
It's one of my favorites, by the way, but this one was kind of like a plantain creme brulee.
Plantains are those big bananas, not like the ordinary bananas, the ones that you'll find a lot in tropical countries, like in the Caribbean, for example.
And so this was out of this world.
It was phenomenal.
We actually went back a second time to eat it.
And I almost never do that when I travel.
I don't like going to the same place twice, but it was so good that my wife said that we had to go back to eat it again.
So after that breakfast, we walked around downtown, which was really charming.
Something that's charming is like beautiful in like, let's say a town that is smaller.
It's not a huge city or whatever, but it's beautiful, it's cute, it has picturesque places and all of that.
We would say that place is charming.
So I don't know if we would only say it for smaller towns or cities, but I tend to think of this word when I think of smaller cities.
So The downtown area was super charming.
My dad loved it.
He was taking pictures nonstop because he hadn't had much experience with colonial-style cities before, because he hasn't really spent a lot of time in Europe or in many different colonial-style cities in Latin America before.
So he was really enjoying himself taking pictures of all the different houses and the beautiful doors and windows on the houses, all the cute little alleyways, those like tiny little streets between buildings.
Puebla is a super charming, beautiful place, especially the downtown area.
So we walked all around downtown.
We went into the underground tunnels that they have in Puebla.
This is really cool, especially for like little kids.
My son really loved this going underground and walking. being almost like in a cave, right?
He really got a kick out of that.
When you get a kick out of something, it means that you enjoy that thing.
So he really got a kick out of that to discover the underground tunnels in that city.
We went up to a lookout point, which is like a high area where you can see... the city from above.
So that was good exercise.
We went up to this really high lookout point to see the whole city.
So we walked a lot that day and we ate tacos arabes, like Arab tacos, I guess you could say, Arabic tacos, which are also really famous in Puebla.
It's like a Middle Eastern style taco, right?
So with like pita bread instead of just the typical tortilla that you would find on a normal taco.
And these were great.
We really liked these as well.
And so yeah, that second day we just kind of spent in the city of Puebla, discovering downtown, walking around.
And then the third day we went to a town that is also considered a magic town.
That was like 40 minutes maybe from our Airbnb called Atlitsko.
And this is a town that is very close to the big volcano there in Mexico, right?
I won't say the name of the volcano.
It's a little hard to pronounce.
But if you just Google Mexico volcano, you'll see it.
The volcano is really cool when you see it from a distance.
It's kind of intimidating for me, but really cool.
We ate a good breakfast there and we walked to the top of this hill or almost to the top.
And here is where the first big problem occurred.
And that is a raging thunderstorm arrived there at that moment.
And we got caught in that storm, like at the top of this hill. with little kids with us.
It was horrible.
We only had one umbrella.
Thankfully, we were able to take cover.
When you take cover, it means you go under some area that has a roof so that you don't get wet or whatever.
So we were able to take cover in a bathroom there, but we had to wait a long time for the rain to die down.
We say that something dies down when it starts to diminish or decrease.
So it didn't stop completely, but it died down.
But it was a fierce thunderstorm like a strong, intimidating thunderstorm, really loud and lightning all over.
So we thankfully survived it and got down to the bottom of the hill, but we were wet and had to take A taxi back in the rain, and it took a while to find a taxi that could take us back.
It was not a great experience, let's say.
So that was a low point experience. of our vacation, I will say.
But that evening, when we got back to the city of Puebla, we went to an incredible restaurant and for just the second time in my life I got the tasting menu.
A tasting menu is a menu that is set.
You don't choose it.
And there are different courses that the chef has chosen.
So they give you like a little bit of a lot of different dishes.
Here, it wasn't just a little bit.
The portions were actually pretty big.
And this is only the second time in my life I've had a tasting menu.
The other one was in Oaxaca, a different city in Mexico.
And we did this tasting menu for two reasons.
Number one, we were in Puebla, which is one of the most amazing food places on the planet.
So I really wanted to do some type of tasting menu at like a really good restaurant here.
It wasn't a super fancy restaurant, but it was a really good quality restaurant.
And the other reason was that it was actually pretty affordable.
If you do a tasting menu in the US, oh man, you're gonna pay so much money for that, you're gonna pay a ton of money, but at that restaurant it was not expensive at all for uh, the quality of the food.
So we really wanted to take advantage of that and my dad and i both got this tasting menu And it was phenomenal.
It was out of this world amazing.
Those were some of the best things I've ever eaten, really.
We had the best mole I've had in my entire life, for sure.
We had the best tamal that I've ever had in my whole life.
Again, we tried this ceviche. that, again, was probably the best we had ever had.
There were so many things there that were just insane, incredible.
My wife didn't get the tasting menu but she ordered this fantastic ribeye with esquites like corn with cream.
It was like if you've ever had risotto I'm pronouncing that like an American but this Italian dish risotto, but like an esquite risotto with the ribeye.
Oh man, my mouth is watering just thinking of it.
So I'll stop talking about it, because I'm sure I'm making you guys hungry right now, and that's not fair.
So just know that that was one of the greatest culinary experiences of my life.
I'm extremely thankful that I was able to go and eat this type of food, be able to afford it.
I'm very thankful for that.
I know it sounds kind of crazy.
Um silly, i'm talking about food, but really um, i'm thankful that i'm able to uh, give myself and my family those types of little treats right um, that's something that's special for us, so i'm very thankful for that.
So the last full day that we had in Puebla, we spent in Cholula, which is another small town just on the outside of the city of Puebla.
And one of the main reasons people go to this place is because the biggest pyramid in the world is in Cholula.
I know that's probably surprising for a lot of you.
Even if you're Mexican, you probably didn't know that.
The pyramid that is in Cholula is actually the biggest in the world in terms of volume, if I'm not mistaken.
So it's not the tallest pyramid, and a lot of it is underground.
I think most of it is.
So you can't really see all the pyramid.
You would never know that it's the biggest in the world, but it is in terms of volume.
So that's really cool.
And then you can go up to the very top of this pyramid and then you can see the amazing volcano very clearly from the top here.
And unfortunately it was cloudy that day.
So it kind of obstructed the view of the volcano, but it was still really cool to see the volcano in the distance.
It looked really intimidating.
It was like in Lord of the Rings where you see that mountain or whatever it was.
I can't even really remember the movie, but you see like that evil place in the distance.
I forget if it's a mountain or there's a castle on the mountain.
But it was super cool.
We really enjoyed that.
And then we went back that night to the city of Puebla and spent our last night at another fantastic restaurant.
It wasn't as good as the other restaurant that we went to.
But the dish that I ordered, I have to say was probably in the top 20 dishes of my life.
So that dish was incredible, but I think that overall the other restaurant was better.
They just had more good food, let's say more options of amazing food.
But the dish I ordered was at this other restaurant was really, really good.
So another amazing culinary experience.
And the last day, we had to leave in the morning to go to the airport, and this is where things got bad.
So we got to the airport, which is kind of far outside the city, and our flight was canceled, unfortunately.
And that was on a Wednesday.
And the next available flight for us was going to be Saturday, three days later.
And they weren't going to pay for anything, no hotels, no food, no transportation, nothing.
And it was awful, of course.
And we were with our young children who were actually sick at that time.
It was just awful.
Not good.
Fortunately, we were able to get a flight the next day out of Mexico City, not from Puebla.
So we had to take a taxi for almost two hours to the Mexico City airport and then stay in this really low-cost kind of like a hostel that was right across the street from the Mexico City airport.
Thankfully, we had a place to stay that night, but the kids were sick.
My son didn't sleep almost at all that night.
He was coughing all night.
The next morning, we were all just like, So tired.
And thankfully, our flight was on time.
No cancellation that next day.
So we finally got back home a day later than we were supposed to.
So it was a very hard end of the trip.
It made me not want to travel anymore for a long time.
I think I'm going to talk about that. in another episode, actually.
I'll talk a little more about kind of some of the reflections that I had when I was on this last trip.
But overall I'm extremely grateful that I had the chance to go to two amazing cities and eat incredible food and really create memories for my whole family.
I mean, I'm just really blessed.
I'm really thankful.
And I'm just glad that we have all these pictures and these memories from this trip.
So we had an amazing time.
Of course, Thank you so much for watching.
So I'll talk in, I think, the next episode about kind of how I feel about traveling currently, right now.
But I'll end this episode by saying that we had a very nice trip to both Mexico City and to Puebla.
And I recommend both of those places, especially if you live in Mexico, if you're from Mexico and you've never been to these places.
Put them on your list.
These are places that are definitely worth a visit at some point in your life.
So I hope you enjoyed hearing all about our trip and I hope it was good practice for your listening.
Remember that you can use my advanced episodes and you can use my U.S.
Conversations podcast to to practice with real English spoken fast, not like in these normal episodes in which I speak slowly.
You can practice with real, fast English.
Both of those links are down below, so go check them out.
Use that content, those resources, to achieve your goals for this year in terms of your English listening goals.
So those links are down below, as I said.
So go check those out, and I'm sure you'll enjoy all of that content.
And if you can, please give this podcast a five-star rating and write a review.
All right, thank you so much for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
