Stuff

Blog a little…

In the meantime, a photo can tell a thousand words and Dad´s pix are worth a look too.

I`m told it takes one day per hour of time difference to get used to the jet lag, which gives me 3 more days of excuses for naps and waking up in the middle of the night and eating twiglets and cheese sandwiches.

David Bowie and Bing Crosby are singing in the background and we’re heading to Oakland tomorrow…

Season’s Greetings y’all

…for the turnout yesterday, quite the night. Many, many thanks and indeed, gracias. Needless to say it pushed the time we set off forward by a couple of hours (5am was a bit ambitious…) and a flat tire on km 4 on the toll road to Tequila didn’t help along with repairs in Magdelena… Still, we’ve made pretty good time considering and are now in Los Mochis, about 500-600 miles from Gwod. It’s dark and we’re too knackered to go exploring. I have it on good authority (from a bloke called Mochis, named after his hometown, no less) that it’s not amongst the wonders of modern Mexico…

Still thinking about all our many despedidas and fine friends from along the way.
And, more prosaically, also thinking about where we can grab something to eat…

Best wishes to everyone, y sobre todo a nuestros amigos queridos de Guanatos.

Some things are easier to cancel than others. In the spirit of public service, here’s the list:

CFE: Electricity. You can read the metre and they’ll tell you how much you owe, however you can’t pay it until the next bill comes along unless you want to stop the service completely.

Megacable: Basic cable is easy to cancel, you have to do it in person at one of the outlets and you just pay the percentage of the unbilled month. A day or two later they disconnect you and you never have to suffer The American Network or Holy Channel 22 again.

Gas: Zeta gas, since there seems to be no gas pipes to anyone’s house in Gwod you just fill your tank to whatever level it was at when you arrived. It’s probably for the best given that entire streets have blown up in the past that were meant to only be water drains… Minimum order for a tanque estacionario 300 pesos.

SIAPA: Water. Easy, bless them. You go to your nearest office with the metre reading and pay it and you’re done. They’re just happy to be paid at all it seems, as half their advertising campaign right now starts “Are you one of those people who don’t pay for their water?” And has a fresh faced young lad with an admonishing stare saying “Qué poca…” which means You´ve got some nerve, more or less.

TELMEX: Phone and interweb. This is a heady mixture of going to offices and fighting to not get disconnected from their labyrinthine phone menus. They´re split into different corporate sections, each with a different phone number, “Your call is important to us” muzak and wildly varying degrees of professionalism. Removing extra phone services was easy enough, just a question of 7 menus and a 10 minute wait on the phone, but to cancel the interweb tubes they gave me another number which didn´t even get answered when I rang the first 10 times. Then I finally got through to a human, then he said “un segundo” and disappeared for 20 minutes and I got cut off. All the conversations start badly when they ask you for your name and I have to spell out Gwyn and explain my lack of a 2nd surname… Anyroad, I could go on, but basically you have to take the complimentary modem to the Telmex office with a “victory” code that you earn if you win your phone battles and then they´ll cancel it. Sisyphean, I tells you.

Because of the aforementioned trials today we didn´t make it to Tequila, which is a shame but it would have been a long day…

Bit tired now, in 4.5 hours I´m making sure powerpoints work… saludos!

… ever since visiting Aranza´s house in a street named after a salmon

Sita is at pains to point out that she liked the song before I did. And therefore wins or something.

Ever wondered how people avoid slowly cooking themselves to death while dressed as Dr. Simi or, in this case, ¿¡Barney!? (from Farmacia Generi-K in Tonalá) what with Mexico´s high temperatures?

Today I can reveal all with this AgaveWeb exclusive aerial shot…

So today we went to get an 8 piece dining set of ceramics from Tonala, just to give them one more thing to inspect as we cross the state lines on Monday. Lovely they are. Almost as good as the Provencale ones from a couple of years ago. I might have to leave my guitar behind to fit them all in the car. We won´t know till Sunday though.

Also, the Sauza family granted us a last minute interview and so we´re off to Tequila for the last time tomorrow afternoon before our last meal for a good while in La Matera and then other stuff.

Still to sell on the furniture front: 2 x computer desks, 2 x chairs, 1 kitchen cabinet, 1 folding table and kitchen bits and pieces. Sunday is going to be hectic. And tomorrow. And Saturday. And not to mention Monday…

I can´t post without mentioning Monday´s entertainment, as you´ll see in the post below we were expecting a quietish meal with our Flickr friends, we got there and all was calm then one by one the patio filled up with familiar faces dressed as angels, devils, kings, shepherds, and er mermaids… I didn´t know what the merry hell was going on for a good few minutes. It turns out they´d all got together and planned a Pastorela, a nativity play crossed with a Christmas panto in our honour. It was hilarious and such an unexpected and lovely send off. My appreciation for the peeps in this good town knows no bounds. I promised not to make the photos too public, but if you´re not in my Flickr contacts shout out and I´ll email you the link, and if you are a contact, then click away hence.

We´ve really been spoilt for friends here in Guadalajara, more than anywhere I´ve ever lived and I sincerely hope we can return the favour wherever we find ourselves next.

Righty, we´re off for tacos then down the pub cantina.

No news from Colorado yet, for the record.

Been well busy. As of this very minute, here are our plans…

Tonight: Flickreros Tapatíos Despedida round Aranza´s
Tuesday: Photography course, last day… Presentation
Wednesday: R&R, packing, goodbying
Thursday: Packing, Down the pub. To be decided.
Friday: Cancelling internet, cable, phone, water, gas. Paying bills, Behrnard´s arrival at Amour Fou
Saturday: SIT 2007, drinks at Famosos Equipales
Sunday: Packing, furniture distributing, handing over keys, final quiet despedida at Chop on Av. Mexico around 8pm.
Monday: Hit the road, probably Culiacan, possibly further
Tuesday: Nogales and beyond… Immigration fun.
Wednesday: Arrive in L.A. Reunion with la familia (+ Atticus)
Thursday: Unpacking, packing, shopping…
From this point on things get vaguer:
Fridayish: L.A. fun
Saturday: L.A. to Oakland
Sunday: Unpacking, getting Sita installed in her temporary office
Monday: Buy a new computer which works (expect a lot of blog silence in the interim)
Tuesday: Packing for England
Wednesday: Leave for UK from SF.
Thursday: Arrive in UK, bus it to Taunton…

3ish weeks of catching up with lovely peeps in Taunton + Bristol + (possibly) London
Back to the States. Immigration fun.
New Year´s Eve and all that…
Find job / set up business. Take it as it comes.

There´s still furniture up for grabs, and also some new satisfied customers pix. Tell your friends!

Hugo and Pati finally kindly took Monica and Daniel´s beautiful banana painting off our hands, and some other stuff.

…

and now I´m a little tired.

The picture accompanying this article from yesterday´s Mural made me Laugh Out Loud…

They were caught stealing people´s credit card details and pins with a laptop and card reading thing. According to the last line they also moonlight as exotic dancers. Check your bank statements if you´ve been to a “Teibol” in Michocan lately 😉

Looks like I forgot to mention Sunday´s Flickr Photography tour. There were 20 of us and it all started wonderfully then from blue skies the clouds appeared and drenched us. Even the squirrels and turtles made themselves scarce. Other parts of the city got hail mind so we got off lightly. We were all in the same boat though so afterwards it made for good story telling in Tortas Toño, Providencia´s fresa torta ahogada emporium, and finally los Famosos Equipales.

More pix here.

I didn´t end up making it to the concert last night, it was cold and I´d been standing for hours already listening to a presentation on the Sony Alpha camera, which looks good for an entry level camera. Instead I bought cakes and we opened a fine, fine bottle of wine from Meg and Matt (Thanks M&M!) that we´d be saving to celebrate Sita putting another chapter of her dissertation to bed. Also played a bit of scrabble cos that´s what you do when the nights draw in…

I picked up the car this morning and it´s running like a charm, all ready to deal with the thousands of speed bumps that lie between Guadalajara and San Francisco…

Ah well, Thanksgiving tomorrow courtesy of Victor and Jana. I´m on spuds. Expect a photo or two. All the best y hasta pronto!

…but then at the last minute I got an email from Karla from Laboratorios Julio inviting me along to some kind of Sony camera promo thing at the same time, so that´s where I´m off in a minute. I´m also popping by a place that transfers LPs to CDs and afterwards, probably hitting a concert in aid of the Tabasco peeps who are going through a living hell right now after the floods. Them Plastiko folks are going to be there, and since I know the words to one of their songs it´ll be worth a go.

Yesterday was a national holiday, to do with revolutions and the like. So among other things I took advantage of the relatively carless streets to cruise around on a friends bike, went to McDonalds to fully engage in the essential mexicanness of the day and then, as atonement, went to see Fraude in the cinema with young Sita. A documentary all about how Lopez Obrador was robbed. Although there was an obvious bias it was still compulsive viewing and highlights just goes to show that it´s not just the gringos who know how to rig elections. Then we got interviewed by some internet radio-podcast peeps afterwards. Sita shone, and I think I said something intelligible, but it was a long day. I´ll keep an ear out for in the interweb.

Took the car in to be serviced today before the off. It´s going to cost a fair bit to fix all the little things apparently. Anyroad, got to go. Help finance the trip with our for sale page…

Sita sent me this link about an attempt to come up with a slogan or motto for the UK…