While I was slaving away on Nueva Era Kindergarten and much, much more’s website Sita was off listening to a talk by legendary Mexican Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos. My camera is notoriously fickle in indoors situations especially on full zoom, but she snapped a few nice shots. Who knew that Marquitos was a chain pipe smoker? Anyway all this on Benito Juarez’s bicentennial, which is a holiday for the country, except I had yesterday off instead. If I’d realised that I could have listened to a lecture on neoconservatism from the revolutionary lyricist himself I might have changed it. Hey ho. So we’re off this evening with plan C: watch the footy in a pub. Fernando should be round any second, and possibly Sr. Valdez too…
Had a bit of concerning news about my gran’s health yesterday, but she’s doing much better today. Email me if you’d like to know more.
So last night I didn’t get around to V for Vendetta but stayed in and watched Brokeback Mountain with young Sita. She’s too far ahead of me with the whole Lost malarkey so we have to find times when we can fit it in solo style. I didn’t think Brokeback would be my kind of thing. And I was right. All a bit too slow moving for my liking, I preferred the Brokeback mountain in 30 seconds. With rabbits.version. And I wasn’t too keen on that neither… Anyroad, a review to the right soonish, if I get a chance… Today I’ve been starting on Jose’s mum’s school web site, there’s a few pages up here but most of the links are broken for now. I was fairly happy to have the CSS menu doing what it should and the resizable page width. I’m trying for a cleaner white-spacey look and I’m happy with how the pictures are coming along. I think I’ll need to go by the school to take pics of the kiddies in action.
I met up with Fernando and Ana again this evening to give him back the memory card he lent me and there’s a chance that tomorrow evening will be spent at a football match or the lucha libre & Fernando’s doing the organising. Que buena onda… Either’s fine by me… It’s a good little city this one…
After seeing far too many Che Guevara T-Shirts at last night’s Fiesta de Musica in Av. Chapultepec, i was inspired to follow this tutorial: www.family-portrait-artists.com/ and give Victor Jara a makeover. Shame he looks a bit simian, but it’s my first attempt…
Definitely a fun night, the only band anyone had heard of was Los Amigos Invisibles, who cancelled, so Fernando, Jose and me walked the length of the street a couple of times and decided to adjourn to El Muro, then La Barba Negra. Sleep caught up with me around 2am, so I wandered home, gutted to find my favourite taco stand had packed up and gone home already. I got an episode of Lost in (Sita’s new record: 8 episodes in one sitting) , about 4 pints of water and half a loaf of bread, and crashed out. Today I’m up to web designery and hopefully going to see ‘V for Vendetta’ later this evening. It got rave reviews over here, it had a mixed reception in Blighty, though.
Fair play. Jose can cook and his bragging was entirely justified. He made an astonishingly good shrimp based dish involving chiles, tortillas, calabaza sauce and stuff. And it was enough for 7 of us with some left over… Have a look around Flickr if you fancy seeing some of the steps in the creation of this dish. Sometimes, lent is a good thing.
I’ve got Monday off from work so tonight the festivities continue at the “Fiesta de Musica” (terrible name if you ask me, the party of music) where there’s going to be 6 stages and young people ‘aving it large, all a mere 10 blocks from our lovely little house. Expect more photos…
Any excuse to repost this image from two years ago of our patriotic bunnies enjoying a quiet pint. I like to think my photoshop skills have come on a bit since then, but hey ho… Other news… Mum’s commented to say she’s had a grand time in Salamanca this last week, which I already suspected. See you on the skype maana, mamá. Jose’s coming round this evening to cook a speciality shrimp dish. He’s worried though, with his usual modesty, that if we taste it we’ll end up sleeping outside his house under newspapers begging him to cook it again. Time will tell, but I’m looking forward to it… Maybe some more bloggin’ later. Cheers like.
It’s made a huge difference having a decent hosepipe. My tip for the day is ‘You’ll always remember the quality but soon forget the price’. I reckon the front garden is as good a place as any to meet people. Folks park in front and ask if it’s okay, I’ve been asked for directions a goodly few times, and I’ve chatted with Seora Tere from next door about horticultural issues. No philosophical debates just yet. Maybe if I start weeding though… Maybe I’m tired, or maybe I really am posting an entry about watering the front lawn… anyroad, there’s also a Mexican tradition I’m glad to be keeping up that involves filling plastic bottles with water and distributing them round the garden to stop cats coming and crapping there. It doesn’t work. But they’re a cheap and tasteful alternative to gnomes and now the garden fits in beautifully with the other houses in the neighbourhood. Other garden news? Well, Sita decided that cilantro/coriander and basil is a faster growing alternative to grass for those pesky bare patches in the lawn and it’s coming along a treat. We’re going to have the best tasting lawn in all of Guanatos.
All the design projects I hinted at earlier are out of my hands for a day or two so I’ve been chillin’ listening to Top of the Pods and playing guitar along to VH1. And now, dear weblog, I’m writing again. Hang on, just been called to light the oven. Sita’s still ovenphobic after her near death experience 2 months ago… wish me luck… back again with just minor burns. Sita cringed in the garden while I lit it… Maybe this is why she wants a microwave. Laters…
I’ve got a fair few projects on at the minute, so the blog’s on the back burner for a bit as it were… In the meantime, consider this a chance to explore the site, there’s the gallery, our rabbits, our dog, and the immediate family. Oh and book and film reviews. Some of those pages were even updated within the last year. Off you go now, Ah, go on, go on, go on…
First off, the web designery is picking up nicely. You wait for 6 months then 3 come along at once, just as you’re about to leave the country for a bit… Not complaining though.
Last night, thanks to the magic of bittorrentary, we watched the first episode of the BBC’s latest flagship documentary Planet Earth. Now that’s what nature documentaries should look like. None of this half-arsed french/dubbed penguin rubbish. They’ve got their hands on some new fangled military technology that probably wasn’t originally designed for sneaking up on packs of coyotes and following them chasing their lunch. Great photography, understated but informative narration, and packing in the locations like nobody’s business… even Space… what’s not to like. I’m can’t decide which was the best bit, either the chase scene or the baby teddy polar bear cubs learning to walk. Or was it the killer whale leaping from the sea with a seal in its mouth in 40x slow motion. All interspersed with beautifully-rendered time-lapse photography over 3 years. Quite a start. I’m guessing there was a fair bit of hype surrounding it in the UK, but it came as a wonderful surprise here in Mejico. Looking forward to catching the rest of the series and am extremely glad to have something to watch between Lostathons.
Friday was a latish night, Jose, Sarah and Fernando were round to see what it was like living in a house with 4 bathrooms and no water. I’d spent the best part of the evening trying various raindances and even having a go at getting the hose pipe to reach the water tank on the roof and then the kitchen sink. With zero success. Anyroad, apart from the drought t’was a nice evening that ended a little late (02h30) given that we had to get ourselves to the meeting point near Plaza Galerias for 09h00. We were second to arrive there after Sarah and could easily have had another hour in bed as we waited for everyone to arrive. sometimes I forget we’re in Mexico. We got the directions and organised the purchase of essential supplies (beer, tequila, quesadilla/taco ingredients) and headed on down the road to Tequila.
On the way, as I mentioned earlier, I was well chuffed to see my designs on billboards and the like, although they seemed to be outnumbered by other candidates with slogans like ‘Together we can do it’, ‘Trust in my decision’ and ‘Zero kidnapping’. Reminds me of the recurrent Monkey Dust sketch with Tony Blair intoning ‘A bicycle for every baby. multiple cures for cancer. an end to all suffering… etc’ over it. Anyroad, we couldn’t find Dr. Jaime’s farm so we parked and called for help/directions. 45 minutes of poring over Sarah’s celebrity gossip magazines later, the reinforcements arrived and we convoyed (our recently washed car) down a dirt track to the El Columpio tequila factory that’s jumped straight out of the 18th century. A bloke was outside cutting wood with an axe to fuel the ovens and inside they were unloaded the roasted piñas into the tahona. Hang on, here’s a quick Tequila Production 101:
Agave plants take a good few years to grow. Some tell you 7, some 10 it all depends on who you ask. When they’re ripe the jimador comes along and cuts off the leaves (pencas) with his coa (sharp knife thing on a stick) leaving you with the agave pineapple (piña). A load of piñas (that start of white then get honey coloured) are cut into halves or smaller and slow-roasted for 24 hours in the aforementioned ovens. After that they’re usually shredded in a machine and squashed and the resultant mixture is fermented, then distilled, then barrelled.
In the past, rather than putting the roasted agave through an industrial shredder, they were shoved into a circular mill called a tahona which has a huge stone grindstone dragged round in circles by a horse or donkey. Well this Columpio place (I looked up columpio and it means swing, not trampoline as we first thought. which is a shame.) uses the olde worlde tahona and horse set-up and looked fantastic in the medieval glow of the ovens. Dr. Jaime and the owner of the place gave us a guided tour of the room and then we tried the 100% (not-yet) tequila straight out of the still. It tastes of alcohol more than anything and needs to be mixed with a bit of water to let the agave taste come out. Still, it’s a great mouthwash and takes the edge off your hunger.
Next up over to Dr. Jaime’s agave plantation where they’ve been building a house, folly and dining patio. El buen doctor explained what the various varieties of agave were that he had growing there and took us on a tour round the fields pointing out the hijuelos (little clone plants that the agaves put out after 3 years of so, Sita took one home, ready to plant), telling us the local legends (ghosts of hanged men who didn’t want to fight for Santa Anna protect certain parts of the plantation), and identifying the colourfully-named weeds (tumbavaqueros, a local bindweed). All during this little tour we were sipping on the good stuff with the occasional beer for quenching thirst.
The next stage involved hopping in the back of el Dr’s 4×4 and heading off round the incredible little local villages to see the ruins of old tequila factories. A highlight for me there was seeing the women washing their clothes in the stream. The photos probably tell this part of the day best. We headed onwards through the fields and had another tequila stop under the shade of a huge tree and took a few photos, then on to more factory ruins. In the ruins there were tons of chile plants, apparently started from seeds in the salsa people eating tacos there.
Back to the dining place and we feasted on quesadillas and carne asada. Plus a bit of tequila for good measure. As the sun set, Dr. Jaime produced a rifle and everyone got a go at shooting targets in the field. What could possibly go wrong, as young sita said before waving the gun around. Sarah took a few photos, hopefully I’ll shove ’em up here soon. We went into the town center (knackered by now) found the hotel where sita’n’sarah’s friend works and got a couple of rooms. I tended to my sunburn and had a cold shower and then went out for double espressos. To celebrate El Dia de la Mujer (last Tuesday or so) the main square (zocalo) was full of little stores especially for the ladies offering such feminine delights as depilatory treatments, shopping bags, earrings and breakfast bars. Viva la igualdad. anyroad, we met up with agustin a kid from the tequila course and he took us round the bars of Tequila ending up eventually in El Cielo, a v. cool place with a view of the entire town center. I was knackered by then but it was a fun evening and a fantastic day. Tequila, photography, steak and guns.
Sunday, in brief: fruit for brekky, drive home, fall asleep watching Pedro Paramo (1965), gigante, soup & spuds, Jose, 9 Canciones (reviewed right)… luckily next weekend might be a puente.
See the post below for links to the photos sets… or buy the calendar come october 🙂
Ah, Tequila. Such a great place, I’ve always liked the town itself and had been wanting to go exploring around the outskirts. I had a fantastic time yesterday and I’ll blog about it properly once I recover from the experience. In the meantime, I’ve put the 260 photos I took up on Flickr but if you’d rather see a selection, well then here are my favourite 50. A million times better than the Tequila Express and no mistake.
I was highly chuffed to see my political propaganda hanging in the streets too…
I was browsing through B3TA.com’s weekly newsletter and they had a picture of a l33t road sign painting. Not too amazing in itself, but it got me to thinking about another US/UK difference. Obviously there’s the left/right side driving thing (It’s easier to use your lance if you’re driving on the left, or deliver milk, or something…) but another thing is that you read US road signs (in California at least) up the page, so to speak and UK ones from top to bottom. Ie. in the UK it’s “Slow, All traffic turn left”. and in the States: “Turn left, traffic all, Slow”. I’m pretty sure about this one but keep an eye out in case…
UK signs Artist’s impression of US signs (it’s too early to be photoshopping…)
I remember when me little sis was in Oakland for sita’n’me’s wedding and she saw XING painted on the street and assumed it was Chinese. Each language has its quirks. Pelican crossings, anyone?
Anyroad, last night’s meal was wonderful once again even though we had to wait half an hour for a table. I’m scared to order anything which isn’t caña de lomo though, which has to be the best cut of beef in the world. I was so tired afterwards though I managed to fall asleep half-way through one of the last two episodes of Lost. Which says more about how tired I was than the quality of the episode. I’ll watch it this evening while Sita’s at her last *sob* tequila class. Tomorrow we’re going to Tequila again to visit a friend’s agave ranch/farm/plantation. I’m really looking forward to taking photos there.
And our water’s working again. It ran browny/red for a minute or so then back to normal. I’m thinking twice about carrying on drinking the tap water now. Hopefully the tank will be full in 10 mins or so and I can have that shower I wanted at 7:30 today…
In brief: the water’s not coming into the house again. I’m trying the same tactics I used last time, hitting the mains tap with a big stick and hoping it’ll be fine later if I leave it. It’s probably just some massive system failure down the road… Off to La Matera for steak again tonight, and I was feeling all wholesome for just having a smoothie today. Couple more potential clients coming my way at work. Fingers crossed again, looks like business may be taking off. Touch e-wood.
I get a fair few searches ending up at my defunct webcam page searching for all kinds of strange keywords. I searched for the same string of words and google gives you a list of direct links to webcams from around the world that people couldn’t be arsed to change the title for. If you’re really bored try this LINK
I just sent in a top 10 list to the superlative podcast, Top of the Pods. Wonder if they’ll read it out…
Top 10 US-UK Linguistic Misunderstandings
10. Beverages: For some reason no matter how I pronounce coke or water in American restaurants I have to repeat it several times. Water and ‘wodder’ I get, but the Coke one puzzles me no end. Lemonade’s another, firstly there’s the pronunciation, LEMonade instead of lemonADE then there’s the fact that it’s some kind of water and squeezed lemon concoction not the ‘Every bubble’s passed its fizzical’ proper stuff. And don’t get me started on Ribena/orange squash’
9. Hair styles: Bangs- ‘I like girls with bangs’, my mate told me. I let it pass thinking well, it takes all sorts to make the world go round. I later found that across the pond, ‘bangs’ means a fringe. Somehow’
8. Food: Zucchini / Courgette, Cilantro / coriander, eggplant / aubergine, ground round/ mincemeat, ‘ If you’re buying a recipe book in the states, make sure you have a native handy to translate. Zucchini, I ask you…
7. Adjectives: Mad- If you’re mad in the States, you’re extremely angry. In the UK, you’re insane. It’s a subtle, but important difference. ‘My mate got sectioned after his wife left him’, he must be mad. Discuss’ see also ‘mean’ (evil vs. stingy) and if you’re allowed to say it on the family-friendly interweb, pissed (drunk vs. in a bad mood)
6. Carcinogens: Fags / cigarettes/ smokes- Somewhat frosty reception to the phrase ‘It’s nigh on impossible to bum fags round here (in California)’.
5. Body parts: Fanny/arse: The first time I heard the theme tune to dire 90’s US sitcom, ‘The Nanny’ and it got to the line, ‘What was she to do, where was she to go, she was out on her fanny’ I was shocked to the very core. Of course, fanny means bottom in US English.
4. Car parts: windshield/windscreen, bonnet/hood, trunk/boot, gas/petrol, bumper/fender, lorries/trucks. It’s a mystery…
3. Verbs: Fancy, as in I fancy a pint/your mate is simply not said. My (American) wife thought she understood what it meant and asked me, after I met her parents for the first time, if I fancied her mum. I answered, erm no, and she got extremely upset. She thought I didn’t get on with her mum or something. It took a dictionary and a lot of tact to rectify the situation.
2. Gender of names. Gwyn is definitely a girl’s name in the States (I’m a bloke, it’s a Welsh name and the female version is Gwynne *edit* Gwen), but there’s plenty of other names you’d expect to be girls but aren’t. There are men happily living their lives called Tracy (http://tracylawrence.musiccitynetworks.com/) and women called Charlie.
1. Sweets/ Candy. As you’ll hear on Total Podcastrophe, it’s extremely hard to hold a conversation between an American and a Brit about favourite sweets/chocolate/candy/biscuits without a lot of explanation. Some exist in both countries: Cadburys’ Creme Eggs, some don’t: Dime bars, Crunchies, some have the same name but aren’t the same: Milky Ways. It’s a minefield. Stay well clear.
At work and pretty busy. Went out last night for coffee and wine to Las Palomas and Montjuic. Sita let slip a few of her grand business plans… more of which one day. Anyway, a mere 2 episodes of Lost last night. Aren’t we good?
On a whim, while surfing around looking for attractions on the Camino Real I stumbled across the Gwod Paleontological Museum which had a competition on its entry page. Name a Jaliscan predator from the pleiscean period. Easy, I thought, as I googled Jaliscan pleiscean predators and navegated my way around google’s “did you mean pleiscean, pleascian etc pages” and eventually hit on Sabre Toothed Tigers. Q2: What gets stuck in amber? Didn’t have to google that one. Anyroad, if I go to the museum I’ll get a free “promotional article”. Please be a T-shirt or some amber…
Then I saw another ad in the Publico with a compo for free tickets to the cinema for the first 3 people to email in with who the film Last Days was based on. I had the severe misfortune to watch that particular movie and knew it was Kurt Cobain. I never reviewed it though because (Ed and) me walked out of the cinema after 50 excrutiating minutes (and not before about a dozen other people jumped ship too). Anyroad, the good news: I’ve won ONE ticket to see any film in the cycle this week, the bad news, the films are all pants. Instead of going to get my ticket today I’ll probably just watch more episodes of Lost and see BareBrokeback Mountain tomorrow (Secretos en la Montaña) on 25 peso night in Centro Magno…
Some of my DVD purchases from the baratillo on Sunday turned out to be a bit off. One doesn’t work with XP. One web package’s FTP application is shagged. The other 2 are fine though. The quandary this week will be buying Lost Season II or having a rich and fulfilling life outside of the Cathode Ray Tube.
Due to popular demand, last night was spent very quietly watching the Oscars on TV. Sarah came round with wine (they’ve both gone off the tequila, strangely) and we got some snacks together. Oh how our faces fell though, when we realised it was going to be badly dubbed into Spanish throughout though… I’m not sure if Jon Stewart wasn’t his usual self or if the live translators’ timing was badly off but it was a pretty boring watch… Anyroad, we had our bingo cards with a 60 peso prize for the first line (Sita won with: First Joke about Gay Cowboys, Presenters Enter from Opposite Sides of the Stage, Honorary Oscar Given, Memoirs of a Geisha Wins Any Non-Acting Award, Jennifer Anniston Sighting) Hope she spends it wisely… The big (150 peso) prize was for guessing the actual winners of course. Sita and I drew by getting 11 out of 24 right. And if I’d gone with my gut instinct to choose ‘It’s Hard Out There for a Pimp” rather than Dolly bloody Parton I’d’ve won. But no. So it came down to the length of the ceremony for the tie-breaker. And Sita was closest. Well done, guapa. I took the 4 peso bus money out of her winnings this morning and she made me promise to pay her back… I think the success has gone to her head…
While I was slaving away on Nueva Era Kindergarten and much, much more’s website Sita was off listening to a talk by legendary Mexican Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos. My camera is notoriously fickle in indoors situations especially on full zoom, but she snapped a few nice shots. Who knew that Marquitos was a chain pipe smoker? Anyway all this on Benito Juarez’s bicentennial, which is a holiday for the country, except I had yesterday off instead. If I’d realised that I could have listened to a lecture on neoconservatism from the revolutionary lyricist himself I might have changed it. Hey ho. So we’re off this evening with plan C: watch the footy in a pub. Fernando should be round any second, and possibly Sr. Valdez too…
