¡Viva México!

Here's a clue for us Americans: today is the Mexican Independence Day. Not Cinco de Mayo. In fact, Mexicans don't even give a damn about Cinco de Mayo. It's like Presidents' Day for them, except I'm not even sure they get the day off. I don't even know if their stores have "outrageous" deals for Cinco de Mayo. Tonight, I'll be standing in a sea of Mexicans when the Governor of Morelos state gives El Grito de Dolores - México's cry of independence. I, along with a few thousand other people, will shout, "¡Viva México!" just before every bell in the city rings. Should be exhilirating.

I have recovered from the attack. It turns out that it wasn't Moctezuma's Revenge; rather, it was the mixture of pollo con mole and las cervezas I had Tuesday night. According to mi mamá, this is an explosive combination. Something like eating a box of baking soda and then drinking a liter of vinegar. I was an 8th grade science fair project. Anyway, a mug of té de manzanilla and some rest sorted me out pretty quickly. And I actually like té de manzanilla (which literally means butter tea, but I think it's chamomile).

Aside from the fact that I was a miniature El Popo yesterday, I also had some very surreal moments. On the way to school, Pepe was playing the Grease soundtrack. "Summer Nights," "Oh Sandy," you name it. Incredibly bizarre. Then that evening, after I felt better and had gone to a bookstore across town (I'll comment on that in a moment), I got a taxi ride back home. My driver was listening to American music - he had a system installed in his taxi, and I think he was playing MP3 CDs. That's pretty high class for México, I think. Anyway, he had a bunch of American music, and he asked me to translate one for him (since I ripped him off using the trick described below, I felt guilty and agreed). The song? "Hungry Eyes" by Eric Carmen. It was a struggle to not laugh my ass off. I might have pooped my pants a little. He was really into it, though. Incredibly surreal to be sitting in a cab in México translating that song (of all songs) into Spanish. So very bizarre.

"Ojos hambrientes," man. We listened to "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, too, which was much better.

Here's a useful tip for taxis in Mexico: if you know how much it costs to go somewhere, and have a reasonable amount of pesos in coins, you can use the pesos in coins to get a cheaper fare. For example, from the bookstore to my house would have been forty pesos. ¡Chingada! I don't think so. So I dug out my coins, and found I had $26. So I asked a couple of chaffeurs if they would drive me home for 26 pesos. The first said no, but the second agreed. This trick will also work with small denomination bills, but all the bills I had were $100+.

Know how we have an epidemic of big box stores in the US? México - or Cuernavaca, at least - has the opposite problem. Most of its stores are very, very tiny. I'm talking 20' X 10' here. There's a store I walk past regularly that has, I shit you not, eight fish tanks in it. Living room fish tanks. That's a pet store in Cuernavaca.

This is a good and a bad thing, depending on the kind of store. For restaurants, it's freaking awesome. I can get any kind of Mexican food on almost any street in El Centro, and choose from five different places while I'm at it. For bookstores, it's horrible. The best bookstore I've found is a long, long way from my house, and about half the size of an Iowan Borders Bookstore. There are absolutely no reasonable bookstores in El Centro. It blows. You can imagine how hard it is to find books in English.

I think part of the problem with the English books (aside from the fact that I'm in México) is that Cuernavaca isn't a very international town. Despite the presence of gozillions of Spanish schools, there just aren't that many foreigners here. And those who are here, are students without too much money. Cuernavaca just doesn't have any real international community. It's shocking to see another European, Asian or African face on the streets; I saw maybe four or five today in three hours of walking in El Centro.

I think I'm going to México this weekend (if you're in México and you say you're going to México, it means the City. Took some getting used to), so hopefully I'll be able to find a real bookstore. I've been thinking about seeing if I can tour the US Embassy, too, although they probably have security concerns. Should be a good time, though. A bunch of other foreigners are going to Acapulco, but, meh. It's going to be CRAMMED full of people this weekend, not to mention the fact that somebody was throwing grenades at police stations there last week. I'll pass.

Two notes to some special readers:

Iowans, I now have a cell phone. It's up on Facebook. It's fairly expensive - moreso than my calling card - but if you need to get ahold of me, I'll have it on me most of the time (honest!). And if you need to talk to me about something I can't discuss in front of, you know, a family, it's also a good option. And really, I'm saving so much money on other things (like gas - how high is that, now?) I can afford to splurge a bit on communications.

BbB - I now have two Dutch people living in my house, and I would really like to surprise them with a little bit of the mother tongue. Can you help somehow - maybe just write a quick guide to common phrases, or point me in the direction of a resource that's helped you? I realize we don't have each other's email address, and I don't really want to post mine here. Um, we can figure something out. I would reeeaaaallly appreciate it.