The 'Murials' of Albuquerque

We spent a chili-fuelled top couple of days in the largest city in New Mexico, Albuquerque. You may wonder why the odd title to this entry? Well, Albuquerque (I'm going to refer to it as Abq in the future as it's a long word to keep typing!) is a city with many amazing murals painted on it's walls, and Clare (bless her) had a bit of a difficult time pronouncing murals, and kept calling them 'murials', which I thought was most amusing (she'll kill me for posting this!).

Anyway, check out some of them for yourself:
















This one is supposed to symbolise the racial diversity of New Mexico (get me with my arty speak!), and shows a locally famous white writer, a Native American bloke and a Hispanic lady who both campaigned for their respective rights to vote. No more lessons, now, I promise, its just that it's such a good painting!

Here's a couple of other ones:































It seems that there is only one thing to eat in Abq, and that's chili! There are even shops and a museum dedicated to these spicy bad boys. Our breakfast, lunch and dinner all came smothered in chili (and it's really hot here, none of you namby-pamby school stuff) unless you specifically (and sensibly) ask for NO CHILI. And then they look at you kinda funny.

Another highlight (for me, anyways) of Abq is the National Atomic Museum. As you may know, New Mexico is the birthplace of the atomic era, as the first ever atomic bomb was partially designed, and subsequently detonated in southern New Mexico (no more lessons, sorry!). Now, this museum (staffed by some SERIOUSLY OLD blokes) has your usual 'blah, blah' about peaceful civilian uses of nuclear power, but what I really wanted to see was the nuclear bombs. They have all sorts here (deactivated, obviously!) including replicas of the 'Fat Man' and 'Little Boy' that were dropped at the end of World War II on Japan, and two 'broken arrows', which are nuclear bombs that were temporarily 'lost' in Spain when an American B-52 jet crashed over there in the '60's. These are the real things, with dents where they hit the ground and everything (sorry about the morbid fascination here!):















































Anyway, before you think I'm a complete freak for posting lots of pictures of bombs, then I'll tell you now that I left this museum with the inevitable impression that only one side of the story is told, and it's completely pro-nuclear. For example, in the exhibit on Marie Curie, there's no mention of the fact that she died of radiation-derived cancer! In short, an interesting place to visit, but take it with a pinch of salt.

On a slightly more peaceful side, Clare loved the cutaway-nuclear reactor model, and seems (worryingly) highly knowledgeable on the workings of a Nuclear Power Plant (a budding Homer Simpson, possibly?):
















Anyways, moving on from the atomic museum, Abq has a great 'old town' area, with some top native American craft shops that Clare loved perusing, and some great old churches, like this one (sorry I don't remember the name of it!):
















As you can see, the weather in New Mexico is absolutely rubbish!

We left Abq on Friday for Flagstaff, Arizona, where we are now, and thanks to the University of Northern Arizona's extensive (and free to use) computer facility, I've been able to post this massive blog entry. We're off to the Grand Canyon tomorrow with a Dutch couple we met in our hostel, so expect some awesome pictures soon...

Si