Sunday, February 19, 2006
Out on the town in Guadalajara despite rhinitis
Back from Guadalajara once again. Laundry now done, fingers aching from the washing, the skin on them tight and dry. Waiting for my quesadillas to cook so I can eat and start my antibiotics.
Bad cough since last week—started last Sunday, but it is really just a continuation of the cold I have had for a long time. The cough was so bad that Friday morning I threw up twice. I went to school that day but only to give an exam to the 2nd graders and turn in the midterm grades. Then I went to Guadalajara, because I was going to hang out with Julia over the weekend, but also to finally see the doctor.
Luis’ sister’s fiancé, Santiago, is an ear-nose-throat specialist. The day that Lorena met him, two winter vacations ago, Luis and I were staying with her in Guadalajara. Santiago was a friend of Lorena’s roommate. I had a bad cold then, too, and Santiago told me I could go to his office the next day to check out the cough. He checked out my ears, nose, and throat with a freaky endoscope, cleaned out my ears, and gave me a prescription that eventually helped me get over whatever infection I had. He didn’t charge for the visit—I think because Lorena had brought me.
I’ve never liked going to the doctor. Since I knew Santiago and was going to Guadalajara anyway, I figured I’d see him again instead of trying to find someone in Arandas. With the help of the little video camera on a stick, we saw on the television screen that I had a sinus infection. He gave me a 50% discount, and he also gave me the antibiotics I needed, so I wouldn’t have to buy them. And I even got a ride back to the city center. I was very happy with this doctor’s visit.
Julia and I were going to hang out, though, which meant we would end up drinking at some point, so I haven’t started my antibiotics till now.
I spent the entire weekend as one of those annoying friends who always complains about being broke. I just paid my latest phone bill, which included half the line installation cost. Installing a phone line is incredibly expensive—about US$200, and I forgot I still had one payment left. Thus, half of my bi-weekly pay went to the phone company. Had to eat cheaply, had to avoid taking taxis. I had to pay for the medicine and also for the repairs to my camera, about which I had bragged in my last entry as being incredibly cheap. I ended up borrowing from Julia.
We stayed at a different posada from the one in which I had stayed during my month in Guadalajara. Casa Vilasanta had a great monthly rate, but its nightly rate is a bit steep; as much as I’d love to stay there again, I can’t bring myself to pay for it. Amanda, a former ITTO classmate, was back in town, and Julia was staying with her in Posada San Pablo. They’d met at the Spanish-language school. The rooms are nice and it’s very close to both ITTO and the language school IMAC, but the posada is notorious for the cranky abuelas (grandmothers) who run it. Several things were annoying, but the most ridiculous was that, in order to get in or out the front door, you have to get buzzed out by the abuelas. That means sometimes waiting around for a few minutes while the abuelas finish whatever they’re doing and come round the corner with the remote that opens the door. This is, of course, a security measure, but an extremely frustrating and inconvenient one.
Friday evening, Amanda, Julia, and I went out to meet a girl from Amanda’s Spanish class. Their teacher had invited the class out to a bar for two of the students’ last night in town. Once there, Julia and I were a bit too obviously hesitant to mix with the party. The bar was filled mainly with muchachos, and the table of Amanda’s classmates was filled mainly with gringos. Julia and I needed to eat dinner, so we basically ran out of there and ended up in Café Madrid, the little diner where we always end up eating. Back in the bar, we chatted with Gizelle and Kiet, two other former ITTO classmates. When a few of the others left, Julia and I ended up sitting next to this National Guard guy from Amanda’s class. Julia, having worked the last few years as a reporter in Fayetteville, North Carolina (home of Fort Bragg), was expert in extracting information from him. While I sat astonished, thinking I’d never have the faintest idea how to converse with this person, Julia made him feel comfortable talking and was very nice to him. I was amazed that I actually felt some compassion for him. But it turns out he is moving to Tucson and that he is working for the border patrol. How sad I felt, that someone would want to do that, and in my hometown. Later, I discovered Julia hadn’t in the last few years become suddenly enamored of all soldiers—she simply has learned how to talk to them.
Saturday morning was spent lazing around, reading our Spanish books in the posada garden. Julia and I are doing some independent reading to improve our Spanish, though I think Julia does much more of that than I do—she is reading a Hardy boys book in Spanish (“Hay una bomba de tiempo abordo!”) and I am reading some stories by Jorge Ibargüengoitia. Coincidentally, I read the story about his financial rough times, which I related to very easily this weekend. Amanda moved to an apartment, and two of Julia’s friends from Guanajuato arrived. We walked around the historic center and then went to the Chivas-Santos game.
We had originally wanted to see the Chivas-America game—a game that is bound to be incredible for the rivalry that exists between the two teams’ fans. I was misinformed by Rocio, however, that the game was this weekend (it’s next weekend). Julia still bought tickets to this weekend’s game, though, and I’m glad we went. Julia, her two friends, Amanda, Kiet, Gizelle, Gizelle’s roommate, and I sat in the cheap seats, where the surrounding fans aren’t as rowdy as those where we sat last time, but you can actually get a pretty good view of the game that high up. As usual, we ate kettle chips with lime and valentino chili sauce and drank beer, which tastes so good after the spicy chips. The Santos (still don’t know where they’re from) scored early, but the Chivas tied later in the second half. It was the first goal I had ever seen them score. We jumped up shouting so suddenly that I got the biggest head rush in history. I had to lean on Julia’s shoulder for several seconds until it passed. Julia and I have become such fans that we have also taken to cursing out the Chivas players who make mistakes. At one point Julia even used the mofo word, causing the guys in front of us to turn around in shock.
After the game we were hungry for dinner, so we just plopped ourselves down at a table in a tent outside the stadium to eat birria, which is a Guadalajara specialty. Julia described it as the Mexican version of North Carolina barbecue. It is essentially a stew of goat meat, eaten with raw onion, cilantro, radishes, and tortillas. Yum. Then we got on a bus back to the posada. Julia, her friends, and I then went out for a drink, with the help of Julia’s guidebook. The bar we went to was fun, decorated with bullfighting pictures and playing pretty good music. We decided to go dancing, so we went round the corner and up the stairs to a club.
The music was the regular punchis-punchis that the clubs tend to play here in Mexico, and it was hot inside, and we were not impressed. As we stood talking, this guy who was dancing creepily kept trying to get Julia to dance with him. We just laughed. Finally he danced with one of Julia’s friends. Then other guys started coming over to talk to us, trying to get us to dance. We had to go to the bathroom to finally get away from them. There we decided to leave, but just as we got to the door, the music improved. We stayed and danced for a while. They started playing merengue/fast-cumbia (?). These hip-hop-looking guys came over and one of them asked me to dance. I automatically said no, and he left us alone. Later I regretted it, because it looked like he could actually dance merengue. Then Julia and her friends wanted to go—it was too hot—I was definitely in the minority wanting to stay. It was 1:30, and they wanted to go to the cemetery for the 2 a.m. tour. When we got there, though, it didn’t look like there was any tour, so we went back to the posada to sleep. I’m glad we didn’t stay out too late, though. I am, after all, trying to get over a sinus infection.
I appreciate Guadalajara so much more now that I live in Arandas. I am excited to go back again soon, so Julia and I can go back to that club for better dancing and better music than we get here in Arandas.
Traveling by bus to and from Guadalajara isn’t bad at all—it can be long, like the three-hour second-class ride there on Friday, or it can be short and sweet, like the two-hour first-class trip I most fortunately got on this afternoon. On the first-class trips, I can always watch the movie. On the long, second-class bus trips, I usually just sit in the whipping wind and listen to music on my discman. I always listen to Gustavo Cerati on my bus trips—for some reason it’s perfect, maybe because the lyrics are so hard that I don’t get tired of trying to understand them, and because his voice is incredible and soothing, and because sometimes the chord changes are so deliciously satisfying.
It’s getting late, and I haven’t done any planning. I’m leaving it for the morning. I still have Friday’s leftover lesson plans, so I’m not too worried about getting everything done, even though I really should just get it out of the way. But I feel so tired. Partying all weekend and then coming home to do the wash by hand and finally writing a blog entry is simply too exhausting.
Bad cough since last week—started last Sunday, but it is really just a continuation of the cold I have had for a long time. The cough was so bad that Friday morning I threw up twice. I went to school that day but only to give an exam to the 2nd graders and turn in the midterm grades. Then I went to Guadalajara, because I was going to hang out with Julia over the weekend, but also to finally see the doctor.
Luis’ sister’s fiancé, Santiago, is an ear-nose-throat specialist. The day that Lorena met him, two winter vacations ago, Luis and I were staying with her in Guadalajara. Santiago was a friend of Lorena’s roommate. I had a bad cold then, too, and Santiago told me I could go to his office the next day to check out the cough. He checked out my ears, nose, and throat with a freaky endoscope, cleaned out my ears, and gave me a prescription that eventually helped me get over whatever infection I had. He didn’t charge for the visit—I think because Lorena had brought me.
I’ve never liked going to the doctor. Since I knew Santiago and was going to Guadalajara anyway, I figured I’d see him again instead of trying to find someone in Arandas. With the help of the little video camera on a stick, we saw on the television screen that I had a sinus infection. He gave me a 50% discount, and he also gave me the antibiotics I needed, so I wouldn’t have to buy them. And I even got a ride back to the city center. I was very happy with this doctor’s visit.
Julia and I were going to hang out, though, which meant we would end up drinking at some point, so I haven’t started my antibiotics till now.
I spent the entire weekend as one of those annoying friends who always complains about being broke. I just paid my latest phone bill, which included half the line installation cost. Installing a phone line is incredibly expensive—about US$200, and I forgot I still had one payment left. Thus, half of my bi-weekly pay went to the phone company. Had to eat cheaply, had to avoid taking taxis. I had to pay for the medicine and also for the repairs to my camera, about which I had bragged in my last entry as being incredibly cheap. I ended up borrowing from Julia.
We stayed at a different posada from the one in which I had stayed during my month in Guadalajara. Casa Vilasanta had a great monthly rate, but its nightly rate is a bit steep; as much as I’d love to stay there again, I can’t bring myself to pay for it. Amanda, a former ITTO classmate, was back in town, and Julia was staying with her in Posada San Pablo. They’d met at the Spanish-language school. The rooms are nice and it’s very close to both ITTO and the language school IMAC, but the posada is notorious for the cranky abuelas (grandmothers) who run it. Several things were annoying, but the most ridiculous was that, in order to get in or out the front door, you have to get buzzed out by the abuelas. That means sometimes waiting around for a few minutes while the abuelas finish whatever they’re doing and come round the corner with the remote that opens the door. This is, of course, a security measure, but an extremely frustrating and inconvenient one.
Friday evening, Amanda, Julia, and I went out to meet a girl from Amanda’s Spanish class. Their teacher had invited the class out to a bar for two of the students’ last night in town. Once there, Julia and I were a bit too obviously hesitant to mix with the party. The bar was filled mainly with muchachos, and the table of Amanda’s classmates was filled mainly with gringos. Julia and I needed to eat dinner, so we basically ran out of there and ended up in Café Madrid, the little diner where we always end up eating. Back in the bar, we chatted with Gizelle and Kiet, two other former ITTO classmates. When a few of the others left, Julia and I ended up sitting next to this National Guard guy from Amanda’s class. Julia, having worked the last few years as a reporter in Fayetteville, North Carolina (home of Fort Bragg), was expert in extracting information from him. While I sat astonished, thinking I’d never have the faintest idea how to converse with this person, Julia made him feel comfortable talking and was very nice to him. I was amazed that I actually felt some compassion for him. But it turns out he is moving to Tucson and that he is working for the border patrol. How sad I felt, that someone would want to do that, and in my hometown. Later, I discovered Julia hadn’t in the last few years become suddenly enamored of all soldiers—she simply has learned how to talk to them.
Saturday morning was spent lazing around, reading our Spanish books in the posada garden. Julia and I are doing some independent reading to improve our Spanish, though I think Julia does much more of that than I do—she is reading a Hardy boys book in Spanish (“Hay una bomba de tiempo abordo!”) and I am reading some stories by Jorge Ibargüengoitia. Coincidentally, I read the story about his financial rough times, which I related to very easily this weekend. Amanda moved to an apartment, and two of Julia’s friends from Guanajuato arrived. We walked around the historic center and then went to the Chivas-Santos game.
We had originally wanted to see the Chivas-America game—a game that is bound to be incredible for the rivalry that exists between the two teams’ fans. I was misinformed by Rocio, however, that the game was this weekend (it’s next weekend). Julia still bought tickets to this weekend’s game, though, and I’m glad we went. Julia, her two friends, Amanda, Kiet, Gizelle, Gizelle’s roommate, and I sat in the cheap seats, where the surrounding fans aren’t as rowdy as those where we sat last time, but you can actually get a pretty good view of the game that high up. As usual, we ate kettle chips with lime and valentino chili sauce and drank beer, which tastes so good after the spicy chips. The Santos (still don’t know where they’re from) scored early, but the Chivas tied later in the second half. It was the first goal I had ever seen them score. We jumped up shouting so suddenly that I got the biggest head rush in history. I had to lean on Julia’s shoulder for several seconds until it passed. Julia and I have become such fans that we have also taken to cursing out the Chivas players who make mistakes. At one point Julia even used the mofo word, causing the guys in front of us to turn around in shock.
After the game we were hungry for dinner, so we just plopped ourselves down at a table in a tent outside the stadium to eat birria, which is a Guadalajara specialty. Julia described it as the Mexican version of North Carolina barbecue. It is essentially a stew of goat meat, eaten with raw onion, cilantro, radishes, and tortillas. Yum. Then we got on a bus back to the posada. Julia, her friends, and I then went out for a drink, with the help of Julia’s guidebook. The bar we went to was fun, decorated with bullfighting pictures and playing pretty good music. We decided to go dancing, so we went round the corner and up the stairs to a club.
The music was the regular punchis-punchis that the clubs tend to play here in Mexico, and it was hot inside, and we were not impressed. As we stood talking, this guy who was dancing creepily kept trying to get Julia to dance with him. We just laughed. Finally he danced with one of Julia’s friends. Then other guys started coming over to talk to us, trying to get us to dance. We had to go to the bathroom to finally get away from them. There we decided to leave, but just as we got to the door, the music improved. We stayed and danced for a while. They started playing merengue/fast-cumbia (?). These hip-hop-looking guys came over and one of them asked me to dance. I automatically said no, and he left us alone. Later I regretted it, because it looked like he could actually dance merengue. Then Julia and her friends wanted to go—it was too hot—I was definitely in the minority wanting to stay. It was 1:30, and they wanted to go to the cemetery for the 2 a.m. tour. When we got there, though, it didn’t look like there was any tour, so we went back to the posada to sleep. I’m glad we didn’t stay out too late, though. I am, after all, trying to get over a sinus infection.
I appreciate Guadalajara so much more now that I live in Arandas. I am excited to go back again soon, so Julia and I can go back to that club for better dancing and better music than we get here in Arandas.
Traveling by bus to and from Guadalajara isn’t bad at all—it can be long, like the three-hour second-class ride there on Friday, or it can be short and sweet, like the two-hour first-class trip I most fortunately got on this afternoon. On the first-class trips, I can always watch the movie. On the long, second-class bus trips, I usually just sit in the whipping wind and listen to music on my discman. I always listen to Gustavo Cerati on my bus trips—for some reason it’s perfect, maybe because the lyrics are so hard that I don’t get tired of trying to understand them, and because his voice is incredible and soothing, and because sometimes the chord changes are so deliciously satisfying.
It’s getting late, and I haven’t done any planning. I’m leaving it for the morning. I still have Friday’s leftover lesson plans, so I’m not too worried about getting everything done, even though I really should just get it out of the way. But I feel so tired. Partying all weekend and then coming home to do the wash by hand and finally writing a blog entry is simply too exhausting.
