It´s been a busy few days, Mexico-side. On Monday, another tenant arrived to rent out Rosie´s top floor room. He is American and has a Polish girlfriend who is staying for a few days... I assume. That or she lives here as well. But I´m not totally sure Rosie and husband know either. I was far too excited about the prospect of another english-speaker living in the house, but so far all my attempts and conversation-making have failed. For example:
Me: So where abouts are you from?
American guy: States.
Me: Cool...
*silence...*
Rosie´s youngest son, Alex, moved out yesterday. It´s a shame- I like Alex, although the house was feeling pretty full what with all the people coming and going at various times of night, loco dogs racing through the house and a whole amalgamation of anonymous toothbrushes in the bathroom (aaaargghhh). I have also inherited Alex´s old bed, which is a bonus- before I was in a bunk bed which I hit my head on every morning.
Rosie seems really sad, and spent most the day sitting on the sofa watching TV. Then the power cut out again, and she sat there watching nothing. It was making me feel really sad for her, but later developments suggest that she might actually have a stomach bug as well. So maybe she´s not that sad, she´s just ill. Or maybe she´s really sad and really ill. Either way, Alex is 33 and it´s about bloody time he moved out of his parents´ house.
On Tuesdays, newspaper bossman drives down to Lake Chapala to catch up with the newspaper contributors who live there. This week, he said I could go with him and take some photos for advertisers, which was exciting, and we arranged to meet at the office at 10.30am.
At 2.30pm, Bossman showed up, ¨real sick¨ from a barely existant man-cold. I will restrain myself from complaining too much, but suffice to say I was irritated and by this point starving hungry. After an hour´s drive to Chapala with the car windows down, I arrived irritated, hungry and complete with a lion´s mane to match my mood. By this time it was close to four, and to my relief Bossman kindly took me for lunch at a really nice restaurant, which I have to say was worth the wait.
Chapala is a beautiful place: one of many towns with surround the huge lake, which in turn is surrounded by mountains. It is also home to the world´s largest population of American ex-pats, a few of whom I had the pleasure of meeting as I took photos of their various businesses for the website directory. I also met a woman named Cecilia: a bit of an ageing hippy originally from Hertfordshire. She had lived in several weird and wonderful places all over the world but had now settled in Mexico with her huge ginger cats and a house full of soveniers from her extensive travels. I wouldn´t be too suprised if I were to turn out like her eventually...
So the lakeside was a good day out. I´d like to go again one day and see some more of the area, although I have to say there is always something a little bit strange about ex-patriate communties... Chapala reminded me a little bit of the town in the film Big Fish- the place where they steal Ewan McGreggor´s shoes in the hope of forcing him to stay, and nobody else ever leaves and everybody wears a huge creepy grin? Yeah...
And onto Valentine´s Day, which in Mexico is referred to as ´El Día del Amor y la Amistad`, meaning ´The Day of Love and Friendship´. Mexicans tend to go all out for days like this, and the town was full of people carrying balloons and flowers. In the evening, restaurants and bars were packed out not only with couples, but with families and pairs of friends sharing dinner and presents too, which is quite nice really and not done so much at home. Single people in the UK seem more likely to sit at home in their onesie, sulking.
Needless to say, I had Valentine´s plans. Yes that´s right, I am a woman in demand... I was sent to the American Society of Guadalajara to write an article about their Valentine´s themed lunch. If anyone has seen the episode of Parks and Recreation, where they all have to go along to an OAP Valentine´s dance, you´ll have a fairly accurate representation of my afternoon.
I met a lot of interesting people, some of whom had been retired in Mexico for 20 years or so. Pretty much everyone asked which state I was from, and when I replied "England", they would look at me for a minute and say "no, what state are you from?.." One woman I sat with got quite excited when she learnt that I was British, and said "Oh! I lived in Malta for three years!" as if they might be the same place...
Everyone was really friendly though. I was given lasagne before being shown all around the building, including the roof to see their new solar panels... quite an experience.
When I got home from work, the power was still out. Everyone was sitting out in the street with candles, which was actually really nice. There is only so long one can sit on a step with a candle however, and I went to meet Cake Boy and his friend to see a free performance from the city orchestra.
Every year, Guadalajara celebrates its ´birthday´ through this week with free performances, exhibitions and street shows. This particular evening was held in the old city museum: a beautiful old building with an open square-centre. The place was packed out and the music was superb... as was the free wine afterwards. The first Mexican wine I´d drunk actually. It wasn´t bad.
This weekend will be another of MA application writing and possibly some shopping. I also want to plan a trip to Mexico City soon... I love Guadalajara but driving to the lake on Tuesday brought back that itchy feeling of wanting to travel around again. Maybe I´ll give up the MA apps and buy a caravan instead. Or a donkey and cart... yeah...
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