I Love Capoiera

I don't know how to slow down this video. Hyperforce.

El Mariachi

Whoah! So, I met this guy who plays violin in a mariachi band (he went with us to the strip club) and we were supposed to go out on a date Monday night, but that night he told me his father suddenly got sick and that we would have to postpone it. This was ok with me because I wasn't all that excited about going, though I'm always down to practice my Spanish, and he's pretty cute. He also calls me "preciosa", which is what I call small cute children and that is what the nurses call us gals in clinic. Not really something I want my date to call me. Soooooo anyway, Monday he asked my if I could go out Tuesday (yesterday) and I said I wasn't sure (posiblemente).

LAST NIGHT: Mariachi man called me SEVEN TIMES IN A ROW and never left a message. WTF? I ignored every call because it was weird. I got an email from him this morning. Story goes, he came to my house, knocked on the door, no one heard him, so he sat in his car and called me a million times. He told me he saw a man come out of the house and leave in his minivan, all jealous-like. I was OBVIOUSLY sleeping around with this guy, right? The man, it turns out, was Jesus. The 40 year old guy who owns the place I live in. I'm such a puta!

I told him, with an email reply, that I didn't like his tone and I thought it was weird that he called me so much and NEVER called me prior to stopping by the house. These guys can be so possessive here! I might be turning asexual in Mexico (again) after all. Damn. So much for dating Mariachi men...

On Becoming Mareada....

Yes, of course this weekend was fun! I went to the town of Tequila, Jalisco. And yes, this amazing town exists. The gals and I bought tickets to ride the "Tequila Express", a train ride that included all the tequila, beer, and NEW MIX (an amazing combination of soda and tequila in four saborosa flavors; Sangrita, Vampiro, Paloma Mango Picante, or Toronja Squirt!!!) we could hold down, snacks, a mariachi band all day long, lunch, a tour of the new and old Casa Herradura tequila factory, charros, baile folklorico, and a dance contest...OH MY!!! I think the best thing I saw was the cutest littlest charro boy really killin it with his tiny little lasso. A charrito I guess.



¡Tan effing precioso!

I love New Mix. I am going to come back home with a huge New Mix panza. Word on la terraza is you can buy a 2 liter of the stuff for only 40 pesos! Beats the hell out of Mad Dog!

It was great seeing how tequila pura is made, even better that we were sippin on 'quila and juice as we walked the tour. The lunch and show were excellent (well, Krystel has been barfing all day since, so I guess the lunch wasn't all that excellent. Sorry sista.). The mariachi band was on point. I got to hear Celito Lindo, which is the only Mariachi song I can sort of sing along to (and I did "sing" along to it). Best of all, minus a minor headache towards the end of the trip, I felt great the whole time! I mean, really great! Before we left I was worried one of us was surely getting alcohol poisoning....

...So we drank on the Express tour from 11am to 7:30pm. Then Monica and I went to Balibar where we continued the cocktail hour(s). We managed to break up a relationship while we were there! Goes like this; oldish dudes want to hang out with the guera girls (that would be us) because "they're bored". Mister Receeding Hairline in dire need of hair plugs (maybe possibly wearing hair plugs?) starts hitting on us a little after his really cool girlfriend shows up. Hairline asks me if I want to kiss him when I am asking him how to nicely blow off his girlfriend's brother who has been hounding me all night and keeping all the attractive men from dancing with me. Girlfriend sees Hairline skeezing on me and asks me whats up. I tell her exactly what happened and Moni confers the girlfriend's man is a puto. Moni and Girlfriend go talk to the cuter Venezuelan guys across the bar while I go dance with someone else and they ask GF who she came with. GF says she came with her brother and her EX NOVIA and scores the cutest one's phone number plus my email address, "So that me, Monica, and homegirl can go someplace cooler and pick up guys sometime soon." Ain't that some drama?! Love it. Although I can't remember her name, I hope we hang out with that chick again.

The guys we met were super cute. Super cute, and super young. The guy buying me drinks the rest of the night was 20. I am such a Cougar!

This morning I got up early to go to El Parque de la Revolución in the City Center. Someone from last weekend told me that every Sunday from 10-12 a bunch of people meet there to do Capoeira. So much fun! The maestro, José, and his 11 year old son, José refreshed my memory on the few moves I could remember. It was super fun. The whole Capoeira group was nice to hang with. I will be back the remaining Sundays I'm here in Guadalajara. Can't wait to back flip on yo ass! That park was great. There were giant chess and domino sets that anyone could play with. Tons of people chilling and hula-hooping. The coolest part, the city shuts down one of the main streets that runs by the park (Avenida Juarez, if you're ever in town on a Sunday) for bicyclists and skaters. Made me miss my little bici soOooOOoOoo much!



So yea, thats it for now. More exciting adventures to come after my tests tomorrow and the next day in school. I am giving an oral presentation on Leukemia in class on Tuesday!

Special Message for Daphne

¡Gane!

This photo here is an illustration of my favorite Spanish drinking expression, puños dobles. Double fisting. Guess who came up with that one? Too bad Sol (Mexican High Life) tastes like piss water.











The girls and I went to a soccer game yesterday. Guadalajara Chivas VS Cruz Azul from D.F. La Cruz beat the Chivas 1-0. It was such a fun game! There was this awesome chick in front of us who kept yelling profanities, and I learned a lot of them. Collecting Mexican slang is my new favorite hobby. One thing we didn't understand, "¡saquen tu lengua!" which means "stick out your tounge!". Huh? My favorite Chivas fan chant was "pongánse con tus huevos"...basically "put your balls into it!" Kind of like that Ice Cube song. You can do it put your balls into it.... They sure did! Professional soccer is a lot more fun to watch live than I ever expected... Yea Chiva Chivas!

We were pretty drunk by the end of the game. God, its sooo much easier to speak Spanish borracha. It was crazy, before the game started, we went to this Big Box-type store called Soriana so the girls could get some warmer clothes. Outside of the store was this "Bicardi Zone" tent where these two really cute guys were giving out free shot samples. (Bicardi makes a tequila. I decided I really needed to take 3 shots of it before I could decide if I liked it.) WTF??? Thats like having a free weed brownie stand outside of Target. As I have expressed so many times before, Mexicans are amazing. This is what happened to my housemates after the game (I was looking pretty much the same by then)




We had a great time at this bar, Mutualisma, after the game. Some guys we hollered at en route in the taxi followed us there and we spent the next 3 or 4 hours making friends and watching the Box Azteca fight on TV. Some of them were awfully cute! We decided we liked them so much, we accompanied them to this high class gentleman's club. It def wasn't the Clairemont Lounge. All the girls were goregous and they defied gravity on those poles. Get it girls!!! Ask me about my adventures there sometime. I certainly do not think it would be a good idea to publish them here...

We started out yesterday around 11 am with the idea of a quiet day of exploring Guadalajara city center. We made it back to our Colonia around 6 am this morning. We had NO IDEA we were going to have such a crazy day when we started it. I'm feeling it today for sure. I have YET to have a boring day here in Mexico!

Recent Developments

I have had a long 24 hours... estoy muy cansada...


It started out at Wall Street. Wall Street, Guadalajara, the club. Salsa night. Whoah. Salsa is pretty difficult to learn. You need just the right partner, the right chemistry, to flow. It took me 4 hours to come across a good dance partner, Jesus. He bought me a chela and told me I would be able to salsa after he was done with me. He was right. Dancing in Mexico is great because you just dance, there are no pretenses with who you're dancing with. You don't stick to just one person all night, and just because you dance with someone doesn't mean the two of you are going to frolic off in to the night to bang. Perfect. Tranquilo. Jesus was great because though he taught me the basic rules of salsa, he also let me add my own flavor (crazy Norte Americana) to our dance. Its like having a conversation. Salsa is hard for me because the man leads, and if any of you have ever seen me dance, you'd know that I'M the leader. Always. Jesus let me dominate some. It was a good balance. Anyways, the gals and I ended up being quite popular with the local salsa instructors at the club.

Of course we did. The babe in the boots below is me, dancing with my new friend Louis from D.F. ¿Que suave, no?



So after dancing, we had a bite at the Mexican "perros calientes" stand right next to Wall Street and headed home. We got there at 4:30 am. Just in time for 2 1/2 hours of drunk sleep before class. Daphne ditched class completely. Moni and I managed to keep our eyes open during the classes, but we all bailed on clinical today.

Unfortunately, shortly after we got back to Leticia's house, we were evicted from it for reasons so highly personal (no, we didn't do anything wrong) that I don't need to write about here. It was really sudden and shocking. It kind of reminded me of last Spring when my house burned down. This added to my already taxing day. I'm pretty sad about it, the family is really cool. I probably won't see them again, and we had to leave so suddenly without much of a goodbye. What a bummer. I will miss them, especially Paco and Bronson. The coolest dudes.

So now us gals live with this guy, also named Jesus (that makes the total number of Jesuses I have had the pleasure of knowing come to 4 in 2 weeks. I am going to keep a tally of them throughout this blog). He doesn't live with any family, but he now is the proud parent of 4 gringas and 3 Mexican medical students also studying at the Universidad Autónomo de Guadalajara (Jesus, Oscar, Manuel). The place is really nice. There is a roof terrace to hang out on. It seems to be in a busy part of the city (really really close to Wall Street! Full circle!!!). Jesus is a cook (YES!) and he runs a to-go restaurant out of a window at the front of his house. He is also the first man in México I have seen wearing short shorts. All very good signs. Speaking of signs, this is Jesus' restaurant sign:




So its Friday. Friday the 13th actually. I should be doing something fun with Moni, Daphne, and our newest extrañera addition, Krystal, but we are all beat and I am going to bed. More adventures to come tomorrow. I am excited to be spending my first weekend in Guadalajara!

La PlaJA!

Paco and his cousin took us to some artsy fartsy fresa bar Friday and we killed two bottles of tequila and ended the night at 4am singing DOMO ARIGATO MR ROBOTO. 3 hours later, Paco's friends, Diego y Diego (the dudes from the Red Bull Back to the Future movie) plus two super hot Argentinian chicks Emma y Elina, came by to round us up for the beach. It was pretty hard getting up, and I never actually slept more than 30 minutes or so until the next day, but it was (of course) completely worth it. We ended up in Playa Maruata, Michoacan. So beautiful. So chill. Que perro!!! Only bad thing, Argentinians speak the most convoluted Spanish I have ever heard. They make their Y's and LL's into JA sounds and that was the easiest part to figure out. I barely ever understood them so I kind of stayed quiet most of the time trying to understand what the Eff they were saying. I felt suuuper gringa a lot of the time.



And I ate the best ceviche. I saw 4 shooting stars. I learned a lot of slang. I got to scope out Leticia's son half nekkid for 24 hours. Kind of a perfect weekend.



Kensey, I have homework for you miss scientastic... identify these animals for me. I thought of you while I was taking their pictures.





Today was the first day of class for me. We were told in our Medical Spanish class that we are going to have a final project at the end and I want to make an exercise video with the other two ladies. I think that would be pretty funny. I like my roomies lots.

I didn't think I was going to have clinicals until the final two weeks of class, but I was wrong. We have it 5 days a week for 4 weeks. I am going to have Spanish coming out of my ears when its all done. I think every day we will be in the same clinic, a small one outside of the city center in Tlatepaque. All of the Doctors and med students seem pretty chill. The patients are great too. Jaqí, one of the Doctoras, told me that unlike in the U.S., Mexicans don't have super anal privacy laws. The best part about that place is the one nurse, Señora Margarita, who works there every day. I think she loves me already. As soon as I got up with her, she had me taking off the sutures of a cut from a 3 year old and taking notes for her while she checked a urine sample. We're going to get along just great. My Spanish skills need sooo much work and the vocabulary ain't quite there but I sure don't mind trying! I told this preggo lady that she weighed 150 kilos...thats over 300 lbs. She and La Señora laughed at me. Of course. I laughed at myself.

One of the first things I learned in Spanish was numbers and I still don't get them right some of the times. Que pedo!

Allright! The Fresh Prince is on and totally dubbed in Spanish! El Principe de Bel Air! You're so jealous!