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.
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.
