Tuesday, June 20, 2006
My last visit to Guadalajara?
Went to Guadalajara on Saturday with Rocío.
We stayed with my friend Amanda in her crazy apartment ruled over by a crazy landlady. We were going to see the Panteón Belén, which gives night tours, but I found out that there are no night tours except on Wednesdays through Fridays, and we were too late arriving to make the day tours. We had lunch at El Fénix, the outdoor place in the plaza of the cathedral Expiatorio, where we had always gone when I was staying in Guadalajara in September and October. Then we had my favorite raspados (shaved ice with fruit or other toppings) nearby. Unfortunately for Amanda, she got lots of bee parts in hers. We had the same toppings, so I might have consumed some bee parts as well without knowing it.
Rocío and I went out dancing with Amanda, her roommate Melanie, and former ITTO companion Kit, at a fresa club called Klio. After waiting a little bit at the entrance, we got in, presumably because we were four women and one guy (a desirable ratio at these clubs). Entry for women was free before 3 a.m. Entry for men was 220 pesos (about US$20). We split Kit’s entry fee. With his 220 pesos, we each got ten tickets for drinks, so we didn’t have to pay anymore like we thought we had to. (Normally at these fancy clubs, you have to buy an overpriced bottle of liquor in order to sit at a table.) With ten drinks each as well, we were pretty liquored up. I of course did not order all ten drinks allotted me, because if I had drunk that much I’d have ended up on the floor unconscious.
After sitting around a while, the dancing began, and Rocío and I danced almost the entire time we were there. Part of this was because there was no more space to sit at our tiny little table. Rocío and danced through lots of punchis-punchis (electronica) and later some reggaeton and hip-hop and even cumbia. It was a lot of fun. We all ended up dancing on the seats near our table, because there was more space there than on the dance floor. I got tired at around 3 am. They had started playing more punchis-punchis, and I was not getting into it. Rocío didn’t stop dancing. All of us were tired and we had to ask Rocío if it was OK to leave. We left at 3:30. We got in a taxi, and as we were hungry for tacos, the driver took us to a nice place by the Olympic fountain. We scarfed down tacos with lots of onion and then went home to sleep.
I left at about 1 on Sunday to get back to Arandas. Rocío and Amanda went to the airport; Rocío to pick up her boyfriend and Amanda to pick up her parents. All in all, it was a very successful trip to Guadalajara for me. I hope it wasn’t too boring for Rocío, though, because she doesn’t speak English and Amanda and Melanie were speaking a lot of English, even though most of the time we tried to keep the conversation in Spanish whenever Rocío was around.
I was happy to get on the afternoon direct first-class bus to Arandas, cutting travel time down a lot. I was the only passenger. I tried to sleep most of the way, since I hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before.
Once home, I slept some more, and then I went to a birthday party at a ranch. It was the birthday of one of the students in my swimming class. I was kind of regretting going at first, because everyone was joking around and I wasn’t understanding most of it, and I hardly knew any of the people there. I was also groggy and tired, but after a while it was OK. At the ranch, we ate snacks and birthday cake and drank beer, then played ping-pong and pool and cards. By the end, I was kind of sad that we had to leave, even though it was already 11:30. On the drive home, it started to rain like crazy. By the time they dropped me off, the streets around my apartment building were like rivers. It didn’t flood like it did in other parts of Mexico, as I saw on the news tonight, but it was a great deal of water nevertheless.
I was hoping in the morning that perhaps everything was flooded, so I wouldn’t have to go to work. But everything was fine, so I went to work.
After lunch I napped more and then I went swimming. I haven’t been doing yoga at all for days, and I’ve been wearing stupid shoes, so all the muscles in my legs feel tight. Of course instead of doing yoga once I got home from swimming to relax and stretch my tense body, I watched my telenovelas and ate dinner and now I’m writing my blog entry. Tomorrow the students have their Olympiad thingie so I don’t have to give class, and we get out early. I’m hoping to have time to do some yoga as well as do some lesson plans before my afternoon classes start at 3. I leave my work later and later as time goes on. I am really ready to go home.
We stayed with my friend Amanda in her crazy apartment ruled over by a crazy landlady. We were going to see the Panteón Belén, which gives night tours, but I found out that there are no night tours except on Wednesdays through Fridays, and we were too late arriving to make the day tours. We had lunch at El Fénix, the outdoor place in the plaza of the cathedral Expiatorio, where we had always gone when I was staying in Guadalajara in September and October. Then we had my favorite raspados (shaved ice with fruit or other toppings) nearby. Unfortunately for Amanda, she got lots of bee parts in hers. We had the same toppings, so I might have consumed some bee parts as well without knowing it.
Rocío and I went out dancing with Amanda, her roommate Melanie, and former ITTO companion Kit, at a fresa club called Klio. After waiting a little bit at the entrance, we got in, presumably because we were four women and one guy (a desirable ratio at these clubs). Entry for women was free before 3 a.m. Entry for men was 220 pesos (about US$20). We split Kit’s entry fee. With his 220 pesos, we each got ten tickets for drinks, so we didn’t have to pay anymore like we thought we had to. (Normally at these fancy clubs, you have to buy an overpriced bottle of liquor in order to sit at a table.) With ten drinks each as well, we were pretty liquored up. I of course did not order all ten drinks allotted me, because if I had drunk that much I’d have ended up on the floor unconscious.
After sitting around a while, the dancing began, and Rocío and I danced almost the entire time we were there. Part of this was because there was no more space to sit at our tiny little table. Rocío and danced through lots of punchis-punchis (electronica) and later some reggaeton and hip-hop and even cumbia. It was a lot of fun. We all ended up dancing on the seats near our table, because there was more space there than on the dance floor. I got tired at around 3 am. They had started playing more punchis-punchis, and I was not getting into it. Rocío didn’t stop dancing. All of us were tired and we had to ask Rocío if it was OK to leave. We left at 3:30. We got in a taxi, and as we were hungry for tacos, the driver took us to a nice place by the Olympic fountain. We scarfed down tacos with lots of onion and then went home to sleep.
I left at about 1 on Sunday to get back to Arandas. Rocío and Amanda went to the airport; Rocío to pick up her boyfriend and Amanda to pick up her parents. All in all, it was a very successful trip to Guadalajara for me. I hope it wasn’t too boring for Rocío, though, because she doesn’t speak English and Amanda and Melanie were speaking a lot of English, even though most of the time we tried to keep the conversation in Spanish whenever Rocío was around.
I was happy to get on the afternoon direct first-class bus to Arandas, cutting travel time down a lot. I was the only passenger. I tried to sleep most of the way, since I hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before.
Once home, I slept some more, and then I went to a birthday party at a ranch. It was the birthday of one of the students in my swimming class. I was kind of regretting going at first, because everyone was joking around and I wasn’t understanding most of it, and I hardly knew any of the people there. I was also groggy and tired, but after a while it was OK. At the ranch, we ate snacks and birthday cake and drank beer, then played ping-pong and pool and cards. By the end, I was kind of sad that we had to leave, even though it was already 11:30. On the drive home, it started to rain like crazy. By the time they dropped me off, the streets around my apartment building were like rivers. It didn’t flood like it did in other parts of Mexico, as I saw on the news tonight, but it was a great deal of water nevertheless.
I was hoping in the morning that perhaps everything was flooded, so I wouldn’t have to go to work. But everything was fine, so I went to work.
After lunch I napped more and then I went swimming. I haven’t been doing yoga at all for days, and I’ve been wearing stupid shoes, so all the muscles in my legs feel tight. Of course instead of doing yoga once I got home from swimming to relax and stretch my tense body, I watched my telenovelas and ate dinner and now I’m writing my blog entry. Tomorrow the students have their Olympiad thingie so I don’t have to give class, and we get out early. I’m hoping to have time to do some yoga as well as do some lesson plans before my afternoon classes start at 3. I leave my work later and later as time goes on. I am really ready to go home.
