[English text below Spanish]

Texto en español
Esta es mi experiencia de ir a Plaza del Sol, el primer centro comercial de Guadalajara, durante los ochentas. Nuestras visitas eran especiales, y lo hacíamos con toda la familia, normalmente iendo con tias y primos los domingos. Como no vivíamos cercas, teníamos que tomar el camión o ir en carro. is nos ibamos en carro, entonces tres o cuatro adultos y cinco ninos se metian en el compacto de mi tia. Cuando veiamos a los agentes de transito, nos decian que agacharamos las cabezas.

Por lo general llegábamos en la tarde. Lo primero que hacíamos era comprar nieves de la Bing, que era una nevería con nieve estilo americano. Durante un tiempo, compramos nieves de yogurt cuando era la moda en Guadalajara, pero después regresamos a la Bing. Después mis tias y mi mama se sentaban en una banca a platicar y ver a la gente pasar.

Nosotros, los ninos, corriamos y jugábamos. A veces mis primos y yo íbamos a los juegos de video, conocidos en aquel entonces en Guadalajara como "las maquinitas." En Plaza del Sol estaban Diversiones Maravillosas, que ya para 1986 estaban bastante obsoletas, con la mayoría de sus máquinas siendo de pantallas de blanco y negro y de Atari. Asi que visitas a aquel lugar era como visitar una de los primeros museos de video juegos. También tenían un laguito artificial bajo techo donde uno podía remar. En retrospectiva, eso era bastante raro y excepcional.

Después visitaríamos Gigante, un supermercado con ropa, farmacia y otros departamentos. Veiamos cosas, veia televisión o leia libros, y después compraría un dulce, quizas. Después de que oscurecía, íbamos a misa al templo cercano. Lo mas impresionante de este templo modernista era que tenias criptas en la pared donde uno podía poner sus cenizas. Después nos regresaríamos a casa.

Lo mas interesante es que no recuerdo muchas ocasiones en que hayamos comprado muchas cosas allí. :)

Text in English
This is a personal account of how going to Plaza del Sol, the oldest commercial mall in Guadalajara, Mexico, was like in the 1980s. Going there was a special trip, normally done together with aunts and cousins on Sunday. We didn't live nearby, so it meant either going in car or taking the bus there. If we were going in car, three adults and five children would squeeze themselves into my aunt's compact car. If we saw a transit police officer, we were instructed to duck.

We would arrive by mid afternoon. The obligatory step was to get what we called American-style ice cream from Bing's. For a short while, we got yogurt ice-cream while it was the craze in Guadalajara, but then we went back to Bing's. Then my mother and my aunts would sit at a bench and chat, watching people go by.

We, the children, ran around playing. Sometimes my male cousins and me would go to the video arcades called Diversiones Maravillas (Marvelous Entertainment!), which already by 1986 had pretty dated machines, mostly black-and-white Atari games. So playing there was like going to an early video game museum. They also had a indoor pound where you could row; now that I think back to about this, this was pretty funky.

Later on, we would go an visit Gigante, a supermarket that most resembles Target in the US. We would look at stuff, I would watch TV or read books, and then buy a piece of candy. When it got dark, we would go to the nearby church and go to mass there. The coolest feature of the church was that it had a crypts that held ashes on the back of the modernist church. Then we would go back home.

Interestingly, I don't remember too many incidents of actual shopping done by my parents there. :)