Sunday, January 22, 2006

 

Not really like old times—maybe better

Julia Oliver has come to Mexico to study Spanish for three months! It didn’t occur to me exactly how incredible this was until she visited me this weekend, though I have been excited about it for a long time now.

We have seen each other over the seven and a half years since graduating from college, on occasional visits, but now we are living close to each other again. She is currently in Guanajuato, about five hours’ bus travel from here, which means we may be seeing each other on a semi-regular basis. I hadn’t realized until this weekend what a fabulous change this brings to my life in Mexico. A good friend within easy traveling distance for the next three months! The fun to be had! An end to the solitary weekends of nothing much happening! (So much for the marathon meditative retreat I had foreseen for the rest of the school year…. Happily I postpone this serious project till after she leaves, though I will still have to force myself to meditate daily.)

Julia arrived from Guanajuato to dusty Arandas on Wednesday afternoon. I had just finished giving my sniffliest English lesson ever to a daughter of Doña Paty, and was scrambling to fit in some chores before Julia’s arrival. After she got to my apartment, we went out for lunch/dinner. We talked incessantly. That evening we went to the “plaza,” which in Arandas means the cinema complex. We played pool and drank beer, attracting the attention of everyone in the place with our loud, obnoxious gringa goofing around.

I had been bragging to everyone that I am living in a town where nobody speaks English, which is improving my Spanish quite rapidly. I had told Julia that were she to come visit me here, she’d have to use her Spanish a great deal. But I was wrong. Suddenly fluent English speakers began popping up everywhere, drawn to our loud conversing. Prior to this, I had not advertised so publicly my English-speaking ability; no one with whom I speak English had come to visit me here before, except for Luis—but of course he was not an attractive American girl that all the boys want to talk to, so people didn’t bother speaking to us in English. Was it that I have Asian features, that people didn’t speak English to me? But Julia’s features aren’t too different from those of the very European-looking inhabitants of the highlands of Jalisco, so she does not actually stand out as a gringa. I suppose it was only because we were two gregarious American girls chatting and giggling loudly that did it. Now that we had walked all over town speaking English, people whom I’d thought didn’t speak any English began speaking it very well. We were both rather flustered all weekend.

Playing pool, our regular waiter spoke to us in English. He’d never done this before when it was me and my Mexican friends from the school, even though he knew early on I was from the States. Some guy at the bar bought all our drinks and freaked Julia out with his very American accent. Two guys playing pool near us kept saying “bless you” whenever I sneezed.

The next couple of days I had to go to work while Julia hung out by herself. After work Thursday, we went out for lunch. We wanted to try someplace new, since I only know two restaurants here, and we ended up walking to the edge of town. Near the restaurant was a big grocery store, so I indulged in some one-stop shopping. We walked back. Every time we were walking, people would whistle or shout stupid things at us. It was definitely more pronounced with Julia’s presence. That night, we went out for tacos and bought a bottle of tequila to sample at home.

Friday we decided to walk to a tequila factory to see if we could get a tour. After work, we made chicken mole for lunch at home, and then I remembered I had to pay my phone bill. By the time this errand was finished, it was too late to try the tequila factory, but we went for a walk in that direction anyway, passing some agave fields and getting whistled and shouted at again along the way. That night we were determined to go out on the town. We found out very soon, however, that on Friday nights in Arandas not much happens. The cute little bar we were in closed quite early, and the two clubs I know weren’t open when we passed them. The streets were empty; we were baffled. We got home before midnight, but at my building we could hear a band playing out at the fairgrounds. Certainly this was where everyone was—a concert at the fairgrounds. We called a cab to take us there, because goddammit we were going to find the party if it meant searching for it in a cab. Once we got there, however, the cab driver explained that it was probably a private party for a wedding or quinceanera, so sheepishly we asked the driver to take us back home. He explained that most people go to other towns for entertainment on Fridays, since the clubs in Arandas are only open on Saturdays.

Saturday we tried to do everything we hadn’t been able to do the day before. We walked to the tequila factory but discovered that they only give tours on weekday mornings. The fermentation smelled so bad, though, that we weren’t too excited about returning for a tour anytime soon. Back at the apartment we cooked huevos rancheros for lunch, tired of going out to eat. We spent the rest of the afternoon working—Julia on Spanish and me on some program application nonsense. Then we had some pasta and got ready, again, to go out. We played pool at the cinema again, but this time Cristina came to meet us. That meant finally getting some Spanish practice in for Julia. After pool, we got on the free bus back to town, where some teenager started talking to us in fluent English. He was 15 years old and had lived three years in Houston. He wasn’t in school because he was working already. I offered to help him with his English writing if he needed it. It seemed a pity that he wasn’t in school at his age.

We then went to a café for hot chocolate before going to the club. The club was playing mostly techno, which is known as “punchis-punchis” in Mexico. It’s not so much techno as it is electronic dance-pop, with bad remixed versions of “California Dreamin’” and “YMCA,” all currently popular in clubs all over Mexico. There seemed to be hoards of muchachos and a dearth of single women. Thus, Julia and I were approached several times throughout the night by English-speaking and non-English-speaking Mexican men. It ended up being rather fun turning them all down, because they usually asked nicely and left us alone once we declined to dance with them. Julia liked coming up with all kinds of obvious excuses, like her leg hurt or something. The DJ played regeton later, which Julia and I preferred to dance to, and after that some silly pop and then banda, which we sat out. Around the end of the night two fist-fights broke out. It was an extremely entertaining evening.

Julia left this morning, and I have promised to try very hard to visit her this weekend in Guanajuato. I am afraid I may not be able to, because I found out there are meetings for the school all weekend, but perhaps I can get out them. It would be nice to spend some time in Guanajuato again, especially with Julia. We want to go salsa dancing together, and there are places in Guanajuato for that.

Perhaps it’ll take longer to settle back into work-mode and out of vacation-mode with all these visits, but I don’t really mind, to tell the truth.

 

Menu for a cold: Rice porridge with knorr

Hmmm, I seem to have forgotten to publish this entry, dated Tuesday, January 17, 2006.

I’ve got a cold once again—big surprise. Stayed home from work today, much to the disappointment of the principal. I refuse to feel bad about staying home, because I really wouldn’t have been much of a teacher today, and I would’ve just made myself worse had I tried to work.

But of course I feel bad. I don’t know why I always feel so much responsibility, when it’s so easy for others simply not to care. The English teacher before me, for example, just up and left—didn’t even return the teacher’s books she had, didn’t even give any notice. That’s something I think I could never do. I’d die of guilt.

My boss scolded me once again for not taking care of myself. I went to the beach, she said, and didn’t take care of myself. She had told me to get something yesterday, medicine or a tea, but I didn’t catch the name of whatever it was, and of course I wasn’t planning on getting it. I was so tired I slept all afternoon, and then it was too cold for me to go out to get anything, not even food to eat. She was upset with me for not getting whatever it was she wanted me to get, but I was too tired to argue or tell her that I was too sick to go out to get anything. And still I feel bad. However, I know she’s supposed to act disapprovingly, because she doesn’t want to make the impression that it’s fine for me to keep taking sick days.

Puerto Vallarta was fun, and I’m glad I went, but I don’t think I’ll be making that trip again anytime soon. It takes much too long to get there and back—I had to travel eight to ten hours each way, and I felt sick going on the winding mountain roads by the shore. Luckily I had two entire days there, and the weather was fine, and it was lovely to spend time with friends.

I stayed with Meabh, Mika, and Claire, who live in a nice house on a hill, about a ten-minute walk to the beach. We were all on the same course in Guadalajara, and Meabh and Mika had been my roommates at Vilasanta. Though it’s not my idea of a great beach for a vacation, because it’s a big resort town and very touristy, it wasn’t at all as annoying as I thought it would be. As soon as I got in, I was shocked by the prices and the extent of the resorts, but my friends live in the old town, away from all the crazy stuff, and within walking distance of nightlife as well.

While they worked and Claire had an interview with a school on Friday, I took it easy, read a girlie magazine at the house, and then walked up and down the beach for over an hour looking for a place to plop down and get sun. There were lots of people on the beach, and the shore was lined with restaurants, bars, hotels, and condos. I finally found a less crowded spot where the water wasn’t good for swimming, but where I could watch pelicans diving in the water. They were amazing, the pelicans. They’re huge and fly right over the water, skimming over waves and then diving down to catch fish. Claire met me after her interview on the beach, but by this time the sky had grown overcast, and I felt cold. I ate some grilled marlin on a stick for lunch. Then we went back to the house.

That evening, we got all dressed up and made up to go out. Meabh was feeling a bit sick, but apparently she felt fine once she started drinking. We had dinner with Mika’s dad, who is in Puerto Vallarta taking Spanish courses for a month. I was very ready for seafood, which I hardly ever eat in Arandas, and had an excellent grilled red snapper. Then we went to a bar to meet a friend of Meabh’s. We got bored there and decided to go to a tiny hole-in-the-wall bar that Claire and Meabh knew. It had about four bar stools and little seats around two tables. They served up big micheladas there, the ones made with caguamas in huge Styrofoam cups—I think they’re a liter each—and that seemed to be the attraction for the very young local clientele there. (Nobody in our group likes micheladas except for me, but I only had a little one.) The attraction for a member of our group, however, was the bartender, and the almost-free drinks. They played good hip hop, too. So good that by the time we’d had several drinks, Mika was up on the bar dancing with someone who was celebrating his birthday. Good times.

We then left to go somewhere else, and as we walked by this terrible-looking, chain-like, gringo-oriented bar called Carlos O’Brien’s, Meabh said, “I bet I can get us inside for free.” We went in without being charged (they probably weren’t charging cover for girls—sorry, Meabh) and danced like crazy to regeton and hip hop. Most of the guys were Mexican, so dancing was nicer than it would be in a club in the States—the guys here are much more shy and usually ask politely if we’d like to dance with them, and they tend to respect an answer in the negative. We had a great time.

Unfortunately, on the walk home, I flipped out. The girls had stopped to talk to some guys standing in front of their van, to see if we could get a ride home, and I was having none of it. I couldn’t just drag them away, however; for some reason—and I’m going to say it was the alcohol—I had to yell and lecture and raise my voice far more than was necessary. As we passed by a group of gringos standing in front of a bar, some blond guy made fun of me, mocking my yelling. I shouted in his face to fuck off, which made him really angry, but I was ready to knock him out if I had to, and I think he could see that.

It was indeed a very embarrassing moment for me, shouting at my friends as we walked down the street. I feel bad even writing about it, because I’m sure they’d like to forget the little episode as much as I would. But I’m still sorry about the gross overreaction, and would like to apologize here once again for it.

The next day everything was better among all of us, but Claire got really sick from something she had eaten. Mika, Mika’s dad, Meabh, and I went to breakfast and the beach. We were on a spot on the beach near the gay resort, and we had lots of fun watching guys in their speedos. Speedos never do seem to flatter anyone. After the speedo watching, we went back to the apartment with rented DVDs to accompany Claire, who couldn’t go out or eat anything at all. And we all needed a quiet night after the craziness of the night before.

The next morning I had to go, but not before having a nice, big breakfast, of course.

The highlight of the trip back was that I could get on a first-class bus from Guadalajara to Arandas, which cut the travel time down a bit, and we got to see “White Chicks” dubbed in Spanish on board. It was definitely the best movie of the six I had seen on buses that weekend (which gives an idea of the kind of movies they play on these buses). Everyone in the bus was laughing, and the atmosphere was wonderful. When we got back, the fiestas were still on, much to my surprise—the last day, somebody told me—but I was too tired to want to go one last time.

Now I’m back, taking a sick day and putting off my planning for the week. I can’t wait for Julia Oliver to come visit this weekend. Once again, I’m not really out of vacation mode. It’ll be a while before I take another big vacation, though, so I’ll probably settle back into the slow, non-fiesta Arandas life again soon.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

 

Retreat

I can’t remember at what point I started reading Somerset Maugham—perhaps in high school and at least by college—but I fell in love with The Razor’s Edge (definitely NOT the movie version), which means I was thoroughly romanticizing Buddhism and “Eastern philosophy.” I had a vision of myself becoming enlightened and calm and good to others, helpful, at peace with my own suffering while trying to alleviate that of others. Isn’t this why anybody becomes religious?

I mention this now because I’d sort of forgotten that goal for a long time, until last spring. I was reading a book on mindfulness meditation, and there was a part exhorting the reader to create a vision of what one wants in the grand scheme of things, what one wants to be and do, and to remind oneself of this vision daily in order to keep oneself on track. I was sitting in the back garden of the house where I lived in Columbus, reading on a sunny day and trying the meditation exercises, and when I read this part I cried.

There was a point in my early twenties when I decided that all that enlightenment stuff was beyond me, and pretty much gave up on it. I had started somewhat to believe in karma and reincarnation, and I’d thought, well, I’m pretty far away from nirvana at this point; any enlightenment coming to me isn’t for a few more lifetimes at least, so might as well not worry about it. Though I never stopped wanting to be a better person, I’d forgotten about the work I had once wanted to try—meditation and self-cultivation and charity and all that. It’s not like I’m planning to get me to a nunnery or anything, but I’m finally ready to try to achieve some peace within this mess that I call my mind and body. So I’m practicing yoga every single day, and now I’m reading another book on mindfulness meditation (because the practice hasn’t stuck yet), all in order to feel better.

Which brings me to this blog—maybe I should explain, truthfully, at least a little bit, what I am doing here in Mexico, living by myself and putting myself through this experiment in solitude. One of the things I fear most in life is being alone, and since we are always alone (even when we are with other people), I figured it would do me good to find joy in being alone.

On the phone with Tricia this past weekend, I lamented a lot of the things about my life here. I am living in this apartment alone (though that’s what I wanted—my roommate finally moved out last week), and I’m in this building alone now too, because my neighbors have moved or are still on vacation. I don’t go out much, even though the fiestas in Arandas are going on this week—I’m usually too busy or tired or have a cold or don’t feel like going out by myself at night to get harassed by drunk muchachos. I don’t have any really good friends in this town, because I can’t have any real conversations with anyone to get close enough. Sometimes this is completely fine with me, but this weekend I was pretty down about it.

I said to Tricia, though, that I knew this would happen. When I lived in Taipei, the only real friendships I had were with people who spoke English, if not as their native tongue, then at least well enough to understand me when I didn’t know some words in Chinese. I was there for four years, and I still had a hard time becoming very good friends with Chinese-speakers. So what was I thinking would happen to me in a small town like Arandas, with only a beginner’s level of Spanish, for only one school year? I chose this place because I wouldn’t be able to chat with people in English, to force myself to acquire Spanish quickly, but also because I wouldn’t need to make lots of fabulous friends for the year I’d be here. My purposes, after all, were to learn self-sufficiency and independence.

This is why I came here, I said to Tricia. And she said, yes, it is; how difficult it must be.

Yes, it’s difficult sometimes. Especially when you’ve just been on vacation for two weeks, traveling with friends, visiting a good friend, having a good friend visit you. Then after a whirlwind of buses and friends and exciting new places and the wonderful familiarity of being with old friends, not having rested well, you have to go back to work and to your purposefully solitary life, it can feel pretty difficult.

However, I am very grateful for the life I have right now. I am slowly learning to live more in the present, not obsessing about the past or the future so much as I used to, and I am able to feel content much more often than I ever used to. It is not actually all that difficult most of the time. And now that I am getting back into the swing of teaching again, excited to finally start classes divided by level with level-appropriate materials, and even happy to start the evening classes for adults soon (to make some extra income also), I am not feeling so sad about the sudden disappearance of easy companionship and socializing.

It helps to be reading this very instructive book on starting a meditation practice, too, to find some motivation to engage in a useful and relaxing project (read: to kick my ass into gear).

The fiestas are in full swing again tonight—I can hear the bands playing cumbia, and every so often what sounds like a truck holding a full band playing banda passes by on the street outside. The fiestas aren’t what I thought they’d be, though. People told me that there would be bands and people dancing in the streets, kind of like what I saw in Santa Maria for the fiestas for the Virgin of Guadalupe. Apparently, it used to be like that, but now most everything takes place on the fairgrounds behind the bus station. It’s like a county fair back home, except only at night, and with much fewer animals. No pig races, no competitions for best cow or whatever. Lots of expensive rides for the kids, games that rip you off, food stalls, and, because it’s Arandas, lots of tequila. Lots of bands that I can hear at night, along with the screams on the crazier rides.

I went one night with Cristina and Aracely and their kids, and it was a lot of fun going round putting the kids on the rides and then waving and shouting to them every time they passed by. They were so cute, having such a good time. Good thing there were some free rides, or else all the parents there would’ve been sucked dry. We ate lovely, warm gorditas (little cakes of corn meal or sorghum, I think). But it was damned cold, and I still have a cold, too, so I haven’t been tempted to go back. I was also there with Luis while he was here visiting before leaving Mexico, before the fiestas officially started. We went in for free and went to the palenque and I watched a cockfight for the first time in my life, which of course made me a little sad, but it was very educational nevertheless. Then we watched the drunk people dancing banda. But it was really cold and late so we went home.

The last day of the fiestas is Thursday. Thursday we get out of school early, at 11:30, for the fiestas, and we have Friday off, too. I may not partake in the festivities, however, because long weekends are hard to come by, even in the land of fiestas. I’d like to visit my friends in Puerto Vallarta and get some warm weather and sea and the beach, since I didn’t seem to get my fill on vacation. That should help me settle out of vacation mode, or at least that’s the way I’m going to look at it.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

 

Buses, hostels, and markets—oh my!

Just got back from my winter travels, a bit worn down and definitely not ready to get back to teaching on Tuesday.

ARANDAS (I)
The last day of school before Christmas break is fabulous for students. They get gifts from their schools and have a big party. The kids at my school had piñatas and games, and a taco stand came to the school and made lovely tacos and gringas (quesadillas with meat) all day long. The teachers’ posada was the following day. We had a lovely catered breakfast, followed by games and a gift exchange where we found out who our amigos secretos were. I got a pair of warm gloves that I doubt I will use here in Mexico but which will probably come in handy should I return to the icy North. The school also gave us gift bags, each containing a Christmas bonus, a small gift (lacy underwear for the women!), and lollipops. It was a nice posada, but I always wonder why they choose the ranch as a venue for meetings because we end up under the ramada where it’s freezing cold in the shade.

Luis’ flight was cancelled, so he couldn’t get to Arandas until Sunday. We ate lots of tacos, danced, read some silly children’s books that he’d brought from the States for me (George and Martha rule!), drank tequila, shopped at the market, and napped a lot. We went to Guadalajara Tuesday and stayed with his sister.

ZIHUATANEJO
The next morning I left for Zihuatanejo, where Mika and Meabh were. The bus to this beach town/resort on the Guerrero coast took ten hours, and I arrived in the evening. First thing was first—I had to have lunch/dinner. The taxi driver took me to a taco bar, the likes of which I had never seen before. I ordered three big tacos before realizing that all the stuff at the buffet was included. Of course I stuffed myself. Even the small places have salads and things that you can have along with your tacos—a Guerrero specialty? After dinner, I walked to the center to look for a hostel. I booked a room for three at a nice place (Angela’s Hostel) and met up with Meabh and Mika, who had been at another beach all day. The next day we had a very nice breakfast at a restaurant called La Sirena Gorda (“The Fat Mermaid”), decorated with paintings of fat mermaids, of course. Then we went shopping, because Mika was leaving that night and had to get gifts for her family. In the markets and stalls there was a ton of silver jewelry from Taxco, and I ended up buying a good share of it, unfortunately for my wallet. Having finished our shopping, tired from hearing vendors pushing their goods with, “Ladies, something for your boyfriend?” and “Almost free!” we went to the beach and swam in the big bay. Then we had a big seafood lunch at a palapa restaurant, and prepared to send Mika off at the bus station, where Meabh and I were planning to ask about buses the next day.

The bus station trip turned out to be a drawn-out drama. The bus to Puerto Vallarta was full, so Mika had to find another way to get there before her flight out the next day. After about four hours of running around and waiting, Mika got on a bus to Guadalajara, and Meabh and I headed back to the hostel.

That night I felt sick. I had what I suppose was terrible heartburn, though I had never wanted to throw up with heartburn before. The next morning it was Meabh’s turn to be sick. It was probably the tacos we’d had near the bus station. We decided not to take the morning bus to Puerto Escondido as planned. We’d been wavering on where to go from Zihua, since we wanted to go to the city of Oaxaca but weren’t able to take a direct bus, and had decided to just go the beach in Oaxaca state instead. Our stomachs, however, made the decision for us, and we left that night for Mexico City, after recovering a bit and opting for comfortable luxury buses with restrooms aboard (not an option to Puerto Escondido).

OAXACA
Arriving in Mexico City the next morning, we bought our tickets to Oaxaca but had several hours to spare before the next available bus. We went to the trendy, hippie neighborhood of Coyoacan and remembered that it was still freaking early in the morning. Nothing was open except for the chain restaurant Sanborns, so we spent a couple hours having breakfast there and using its bathrooms to freshen up. The bus to Oaxaca took six hours. We arrived during the early evening and settled into the cleanest hostel I have ever stayed in—Casa Paulina (white tiles, fountains, a garden, a rooftop lounge, huge complimentary breakfast, big lockers in the dorm rooms, and hot water in its numerous showers—the opposite of the awful place where Kristin and I had stayed in Guanajuato). It was Christmas Eve, so we went to the center of town, the Zócalo, and had dinner. We watched a big Christmas parade and went to midnight mass in the cathedral (given by the bishop complete with swinging incense thingies) before having a few drinks.

Sunny Christmas Day we ate the lovely hostel breakfast and went sightseeing. We visited the huge church La Soledad and then ran into a concert preparing to begin in the Zócalo. We sat down in the shade of the big trees and listened to the Oaxaca State Symphony play an American Christmas piece (the one where the lyrics go really fast “da-da-da lovely weather for a sleigh-ride together for two” and sounds like horses and bells and stuff), Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Meabh practically died gushing from Gershwin. Some of my music snobbery came through (how unoriginal the program, and the pianist keeps making mistakes, and no this piece wasn’t written for Woody Allen’s Manhattan), but I enjoyed Rhapsody in Blue just as much as she did. It gave us shivers. (Gershwin always does that to me when I’m living abroad. There was a time I saw an American pianist play a Gershwin piece in Bristol and I became terribly homesick, even though I am not from New York.) All in all, a nice Christmas in Oaxaca.

Exhausted from all the bus traveling we’d been doing and finding out that Veronica couldn’t make it to Puerto Escondido after all, Meabh and I decided not to go to the beach. Instead, we stayed on in Oaxaca a couple more days, shopping ourselves silly and creating more baggage to lug around. The markets were magnificent. We decided to purchase gifts for people at home in advance because the crafts are so much better and plentiful in Oaxaca. However, Meabh and I compared piles of goodies at the end of the trip, and the piles for ourselves were much bigger than the piles for other people. Oh well, it’s Christmas, we said. I was enthralled by the alebrijes—colorfully painted wooden animals or dream-creatures—and jewelry and colorful tablecloths. Meabh looked at rugs. We both bought beautiful skirts. Meabh dropped a bag she had bought; when we finally found it in the hands of a nice old woman selling sarapes near the amazing golden church of Santo Domingo, I felt it would be wrong not to buy anything from her, two days in a row…. Meabh said she has trouble turning down vendors but that it seems I have the same problem a lot worse.

We found a great restaurant with an Anti-Bush sticker and EZLN posters and delicious, delicious food (“Decano” on Cinco de Mayo, near our favorite store, the Oaxacan craftswomen’s market). The set lunch was only 40 pesos and incredible. We went back two more times. Freeing up our days by deciding not to take the six-hour bus ride through the mountains to the beach, we made time for more sightseeing. We went to the Zapotec/Mixtec ruins at Monte Albán and the Museum of the Cultures of Oaxaca. Our last night we went out to a bar with some of the people in our hostel, where we discovered sangrita (a spicy tomato drink that serves wonderfully, at least in some people’s opinion, as a great chaser for tequila) and I (along with several tequila shots) succeeded in getting Meabh to dance in public. It was our only night out, but a funny and strangely satisfying one, despite the bar being pretty dead and the dancefloor full of gringos humiliating themselves by trying to dance to cumbia music. Oaxaca really grew on us; we enjoyed our four days there a great deal.

TEXCOCO
Wednesday night we took another overnight bus, back to Mexico City. The next groggy morning Meabh continued bus travel to Guadalajara, and I went to visit Veronica in Texcoco, or rather in Tlaminco, a little town on a hill outside of Texcoco. I spent two days there, chatting much-missed chats with Vero and sleeping and reading in the sun. We played with their golden retriever Güero, ate and joked with Vero’s family. It was nice to stay in a real house and eat Vero’s mom’s delicious home-cooked food. It was nice to rest.

GUADALAJARA
Friday night I took an overnight bus to Guadalajara. I met Meabh early Saturday morning at our old posada, Casa Vilasanta. It was lovely to see Martha the cook once again. We ate breakfast at our old haunt, El Fenix, where the service is the slowest we have seen anywhere but where we always enjoyed going to sit outside in the plaza in front of the church Expiatorio. We met up with Gizelle, a classmate from the ITTO course, and stayed with her for New Year’s Eve. We watched dumb movies on cable and ate these terrible croque-monsieurs I made for lunch. Then we trekked to the Gigante in Plaza del Sol to buy supplies for our New Year’s Eve gathering. After taking Gizelle’s roommate’s brother’s neglected and neurotic cocker spaniel out for a walk/run, Gizelle’s friends arrived and the partying commenced. This consisted of the consumption of chips and beers and wine coolers and tequila while watching “What Women Want” on cable, then eating twelve tequila-soaked grapes at midnight, and dancing around in our seats till 4 in the morning because nobody was brave enough to stand up and dance properly. It was fun. Except when we had to get up in the morning and take a bus back home. I don’t usually get hangovers, but this morning was an exception.

ARANDAS (II), or Home-sweet-home
Got the bus back to Arandas, sitting in the sunny window seat with the wind blowing strong in my face and my discman creating my own individual space and blocking out babies crying and people getting on and off the bus every fifteen minutes. Around Tepatitlan and Capilla de Guadalupe, the wind blew a little too much cow smell, but I needed the window open. It was nice to take the bus home, and all two and a half hours were tranquil and easy compared to the heavy-duty bus riding we had been doing all break. Nearing Arandas, fewer cows and more agave. At the bus station I waited in the warm, declining sun for the bus to my neighborhood, La Prepa (named after the only public high school—preparatorio—in town). A gloriously short bus ride later I was back in my apartment. It’s been quiet and lazy the rest of the day, and I intend for the rest of the evening to continue thus. Tomorrow I must get my application to Columbia Teacher’s College together, plan for the week’s classes, do my laundry, clean the apartment, etc., etc., but until tomorrow, I am still on vacation.

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