Day 86

Palabras.
Spanglish is ugly.  You know, where "ignorant" people think they can add an "o" to the end of any English word to make a Spanish one?  Well, in typical fashion, stereotypes DO generally come from somewhere, and those "brilliant" people were totally light years ahead of me.  Quick examples of what I'm talking about:  American becomes Americano, Mexican becomes Mexicano, etc.  To be perfectly correct, you add an "o" AND try not to pronounce it like a gringo.  But it doesn't stop there.  Here are a few examples of the times I felt the stupidest for asking ¿Como se dice...

• traffic = trafico
• graffiti = grafiti
• space = espacio
• idea = idea (particularly embarrassing...)

There is a funny story about someone (as in, not me...) asking how to say "cilantro" in English.  After several attempts to explain, in a situation resembling Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First" skit, it wasn't until someone finally said "cilantro" in a redneck accent that she understood it was the same word.  But not like that's never happened to me...

In general though, I'm finally at a point with my Spanish where I can use it to communicate clearly and easily.  There are times at work where I still get stuck on technical issues (i.e. my Spanish hasn't yet grown enough to encompass technical discussions about welding processes).  But one-on-one, outside of work issues, I actually hold pretty decent conversations in Spanish.  In groups, there are times when I lose the thread of the conversation, but I usually pick it up again when I realize I'm the butt of a joke.  In cases like these, my Spanish is luckily strong enough to crack a good joke, and then change the subject.  So while I definitely wouldn't say my Spanish is fluent, I do feel like I could accurately call it functional.

My favorite is talking to taxi drivers.  Since i don't have a car of my own, I do find myself in taxis pretty often, and it's kinda funny that these conversations always follow a similar pattern:

Me: "Eres de aqui?"  (Are you from here?)
Cabbie: "No, soy del DF" (No, I'm from Mexico City, Districto Federal)
Me: "Jaja, hay bastante personas aqui de Mexico.  Te gusta Queretaro?"  (Haha, there are tons of people here from Mexico City.  You like Queretaro?)
Cabbie: "Ooo, si.  [y much mas, muy rapido, que no pude entender]   Tu?"  (Ooh, sure. [and then a lot more, super fast, that I couldn't understand]  You?)
Me: "Por su puesto!  Queretaro es bonita, tranquila...  me gusta mucho.  Solamente falta una playa, nada mas."  (Of course!  Queretaro is pretty, laid-back...  I like it a lot.  It's only missing a beach, nothing else.)

The conversation then usually turns to Mexican beaches, but sometimes changes all together to talk about sports, work, etc.  But it almost ALWAYS starts off just like that.  And it's really funny, because a vast majority of the taxi drivers I've met are all from Mexico City.  [Side note: there are signs all over the highway, pointing you simply towards "Mexico"...  cracks me up every time.]  It's my guess in general that Queretaro has a huge population of people here from Mexico City.  Queretaro is actually supposed to be the fastest growing city in Mexico, according to the unbiased Queretanos that I have talked to.  So, assuming they're right, it would make sense that there are so many people coming here from Mexico City and other parts of the country.  It's kind of rare to meet someone who was born and raised here.  And not because it's a terrible place--it really is beautiful--but more because it's had such an unbelievable influx of people and rapid expansion in the last 10 years or so. 

Speaking of the beautiful city, I took the picture below while walking around the town one night with some folks from the Peace Corps.  Towards the top/right of the picture, you'll notice Los Arcos (The Arches).  They are Queretaro's second most famous monument, and are a set of aquaducts that were constructed way back in the day by a rich guy who was trying to woo a nun.  She promised they'd be together if he brought water to the city, he called her bluff, and she reneged.  As you can tell, I know this story real well.  But anyways, if you follow Los Arcos to the left, off into the distance, my house is located on the backside of that hill.  Just an FYI.

Ok, so I also promised an update about a really important soccer game and a really big party.  Really big party: didn't go.  I was at the really big soccer game, and by the time I got home and was able to head that way, my friend was too far into the party to hear his phone.  Oh well.

Big soccer game: Queretaro (Gallos Blancos) vs. Guadalajara (Chivas).  I asked what a "chiva" is, and I think I've deduced that it's more or less a billy goat.  So, the Billy Goats of Guadalajara took second place in La Cope de Libertadors this year, which more or less should signify that they are the second best team in all of Latin America.  And when you add that there are a lot of people living here from Guadalajara, you can see why the game was a big deal.  We over-achieved and tied them 2-2, a very respectable result for us.

There was another--more important--game that took place this last week as well.  On Tuesday, our Siemens team had our last regular season game, which we needed to win to qualify for the post-season.  After securing a quick 1-0 lead, we even quicker conceded the equalizer (1-1).  We held it down at 2-1 until halftime, our first goal coming from Alejandro on his birthday, and the second from Roberto on an impossible volley.  In the second half, Roberto notched his second goal in equally impressive fashion, and then unsuccessfully attempted a bicycle kick and hurt his hand (he returned to the game after some medical attention).  So, with 10 minutes left in the game, we held a lead of 3-2, with visions of glory before us.  Plagued by injuries (I was head-butted in the temple pretty hard and refused medical attention like a real man/idiot, Robert hurt his hand, and Oscar nearly broke his collar bone), however, we conceded two quick goals in the last 5 minutes or so and lost, with a final score of 4-3.  And thus ended our first, tragic season.  Now I get to focus on my American football career... blah.  I need to find another soccer team.

Day 77

Bicentenario, Bulls, & More.

So I haven´t written in a while?  A lot has definitely happened since I last put anything up.  For instance, I went to a bull fight, I celebrated Mexico's Bicentenario de Independencia, and I also got to go back to the US for a week.  Even though I was working the whole week in North Carolina, everyone in Querétaro asked me how my vacation was... whatever, I'm totally not bothered by it.

Bicentenario.  Boomshakalaka.  I actually got the opportunity to celebrate Mexico's 200th anniversary of independence, which is also conveniently the 100th anniversary of the end of their civil war... which is where Zapata and Pancho Villa became famous, on an interesting side note.  Anyways, Siemens gave us Thursday and Friday off to celebrate this bad boy (which helped make up for working over Labor Day, when all my friends were vacationing real hard).  "El Grito" was Wednesday night at 11pm, which meant that all the good parties started sometime that afternoon and definitely didn't stop til...  Well, I know I tapped out around 330am Thursday, and there were many abuelas still going strong at that point.  My good friend Alejandro said he didn't get to bed til 7am or later.  Needless to say, in addition to the altitude, there are plenty of other things to which this gringo has not adjusted.

El Grito ("The Scream") to me is pretty much the Mexican equivalent of what Paul Revere did for our Revolution.  This one was all in Spanish (obviously), and finished with a bunch of Viva's:  Zapata, Villa, and then like 6 "Viva Mexico's."  The president led the cry from the window of a government building in Mexico City, and this was immediately followed by a worthy fireworks display.  Not saying I teared up myself (I totally did), but I felt honored to be able to sit in on something so monumental, and to see so many people be so proud of their country.  Regardless of one's views on immigration, drug wars, or jalapeños, I think anyone would have been impressed in a similar way if they had been able to stand in my shoes that night.

Right right, so that was El Grito, late Wednesday night.  Earlier that day, I went to my first bullfight!!  And it was awesome.  It's a tradition to buy a bota (wineskin) to drink out of during the game, and then perhaps throw to the matador if he does real well.  [Actually, if he does REALLY well, the matador wins the hoofs and tail and maybe ever ears of the bull, and depending on how generous he feels, those very same trophies are then tossed into the crowd.  The website I looked at made this sound like a good thing, but I was sure as hell that I was going to dig deep and pull out my best "Dodge Bull" skills if a bloody hoof came flying into my half of the plaza.]  When in Rome, or in a bullfighting ring in Mexico, you have to do like the locals.  Needless to say I bought a badass bota, that I knew I would never be selfless enough to share with any matador.  What I did not know, however, when I bought my bota the day before the fight, was that it takes a full 5 or 6 days to prep a wineskin before you can actually drink out of it.  Undeterred, we also purchased a super crappy bota at the event so that we could fulfill the cultural mandate.  For some reason, "fulfilling the cultural mandate" felt more like "not wussing out on a dare." 

In addition to awesome, the bullfight was SHOCKING.  Honestly, I didn't realize that they don't always kill the bulls in bullfights.  Supposedly this is a new thing?  Whatever the case, I double-checked beforehand and was STOKED to find out that they were going to kill the bulls.  Let me admit with some embarrassment that up to this point in my life, I had really only ever witnessed the death of two animals: I once hit a dog that ran out in front of my volvo, and then also accidentally smothered a baby chicken to death in my sleep (kind of a long story...).  But geez, I don't know what I expected the death of a bull to look like, but it caught me WAY off guard.  The process of a bullfight is real long, and I don't want to explain it all, but let's just say that they stab it a bunch of times before the main matador steps into the ring (there are a bunch of mini-matadors who run around with the bull for a while before things get serious).

"So how DOES a matador kill a bull??" you may be asking yourself.  Great question.  Literally, he stabs his sword through the back of the neck, just behind the head, hopefully severing the spinal cord.  That's real hard though, so normally they just stick the sword in the bull's back (bull takes this in stride, super impressive), and then the matador goes to Plan B, which is trying to achieve the same result with a different sword.  Did you know that when a bull dies, it immediately falls to its side and its feet stick out/up to the side??  I had seen so many cartoons portray this when I was little, and I had no idea how accurate they were.  And the most disturbing thing: after the matador successfully kills the bull, a small team of guys runs out of the tunnel to stab the bull a few more times to make sure it's dead dead dead, while the matador walks around the plaza blowing kisses to the crowd and drinking from random wineskins (can't be healthy).  In the picture below, you can see the small team in the ring attending to the bull (off in the distance a little)... as well as the clientele in the foreground.

Altogether, I saw 7 bulls.  There were 3 matadores, each of whom fought 2 bulls.  However, one of the bulls they brought out was young and not a very tough match (didn't charge much), so they let a matador-in-training have a go at him.  And I'm a little surprised to say that after bull #2--bull #3 at the very latest--I was totally okay with the whole thing.  I dunno, maybe it was watching grown men chug wine, as the entire crowd cheered them on, counting for how many seconds he could keep going.  But whatever the case, by the end of it, I was totally a believer.  Well, at least in the bota idea, if not the whole bull killing thing.  There's a guy in the middle of this next picture chugging... he's sort of blocked from view, but you can his blue-sleeved arms holding the wineskin, and also that pretty much everyone nearby is cheering him on.  This was during an intermission?  If you have trouble finding Waldo, the picture should enlarge if you click on it.

Later in the weekend, I also had the chance to go to a ranch in Michoacan.  Some gringos have told me that Michoacan grows some of the finest marijuana around.  More recently, some Mexicans have told me that Michoacan grows the cocaine that the Narco's are smuggling across the border.  I didn't really see either drug (or any at all, actually), but the ranch was incredibly verdant, so I could see why certain people would grow certain cash crops there. 

The ranch belongs to my friend's in-laws, who run a trout farm on their beautiful property.  We pretty much just relaxed for a day and a half, eating an enormous amount of carne asada.  I wouldn't have changed a single minute of it.  Well, except for nearly losing my sneakers when my feet sunk into the mud during a walk to the stream.  Other than that though, no changes.

The Monday following Bicentenario, I flew to NC for a week of training for Siemens.  I passed the evenings at the hotel by jogging and swimming, and avoiding the guy at the counter who kept winking at me without really winking at me.  I flew out early Friday afternoon to FL to surprise my parents for the weekend.  Luckily no one had a heart attack, and in general the surprise was received well by all.  Mom was a little upset that her and Dad were the only ones who didn't know I was coming... Sorry, Momma, but a surprise is a surprise.  Thanks for letting it slide this time.

And so now I'm back in Mexico.  Home.  OF COURSE I had terrible luck again flying back with Delta... I arrived, and then my bags did, 2 days later, soaking wet for some reason?  I still don't even know that would happen.  Did they fall out of the plane over the gulf, and then get retrieved by the Delta Search & Rescue Squad?  Whatever.  This place is really starting to feel like home, and I really am very thankful to be here, just in general, but also specifically at this time in my life and in the life of Mexico.  Now all I have to do is figure out where I'll be living/working in January...  No hay problema.

Miss you all lots.  Tomorrow holds in store a big soccer game, as well as a big party (my friend Alejandro is being christened a Godfather tomorrow).  Hopefully details will follow shortly.  Adios.