The major excitement in the last two weeks was undoubtedly my trip to Guadalajara. It was a very pretty town with some nice buildings, cool art and good food. We arrived later than we were supposed to and crashed at the hotel at about 11. Around 3 we went to a Mariachi restaurant because, as they told us several times, Guadalajara is pretty much where that whole genre started (for better or for worse). The meal was very good (which was nice as we ate at 3 or so without an earlier meal that day), and the Mariachis were interesting to say the least. That night we took a double decker bus tour of Guadalajara which was really cool, albeit very cold. Here's the town's church:
Here's a roundabout road sign. "
You can go around the outside and take any of these exits or, if you like, you can go right across the middle. Whichever's fine with us."
The next day was to be spent in Tequila. I will grant you two guesses as to which fine Mexican product is made in Tequila and no, it is not tortillas. We rode a train down to the town sampling a variety of unique cultural beverages then toured the factory where this unique cultural beverage was made. Needless to say there were samples available.
The ride back was very similar to the ride out, but with more dancing for some reason. I'm sure it was a celebration of the unique cultural beverage and it's positive impact on the local economy. Also some Mariachi showed up. Towards the second half of the train ride one side of our car, note here it was
not the side
occupied by somewhat inebriated college students, began ambushing anyone daring to walk by with dancing. Also note the other side of the car was occupied by very lively middle-aged couples. A one-dimensional conga line appeared. It was a very special train ride.
The night of the Tequila train extravaganza we headed out on a 45 minute bus ride to a club in town. For some reason the organizers felt we wouldn't get in but by that time the bus had grown restless and so we waited elbow to elbow for a while and eventually got into the place. It turned out to be a pretty sweet club (and from a nerd perspective the lighting was really cool too) and fun was had by all. The next day we went to Tlaquepaque, which was a very cool town filled with art. For instance, here's some art:
We had a very nice meal at a restaurant in town. Here are my (blury) enchiladas poblanas which were very tasty:
Aside from the art and a whole bunch of art vendors there isn't too much else to comment on in the Guadalajara trip (expect perhaps the 30 extra minutes we spent driving around town looking for lost students). We arrived back at Tec at 7:45, giving me just enough time to brush my teeth and show up for class. Yay college! More recently, it was flag day in Mexico and they had a nice but brief ceremony. Mexico's going through some tough times right now and so the speakers were all quite optimistic which was nice. They even had a shoutout to us international students and how important we are to the country etc.
Aside from that I attended a birthday party, saw Avatar in 3-D Imax twice (by no fault of my own), went fruitlessly shopping in the worst mall ever and spent a long time studying engine removal on Boeing 737s for my augmented reality project which is looking more impossible by the day. I'm going to be spending a lot of time staring at CAD models pretty soon so please send your last respects to my sanity whenever you have time. Next weekend I'm off to Xilitla which is supposed to be really pretty and really different, I'll be sure to inform you all in a month or so. Until then!
Here's a roundabout road sign. "You can go around the outside and take any of these exits or, if you like, you can go right across the middle. Whichever's fine with us."
The next day was to be spent in Tequila. I will grant you two guesses as to which fine Mexican product is made in Tequila and no, it is not tortillas. We rode a train down to the town sampling a variety of unique cultural beverages then toured the factory where this unique cultural beverage was made. Needless to say there were samples available.
The ride back was very similar to the ride out, but with more dancing for some reason. I'm sure it was a celebration of the unique cultural beverage and it's positive impact on the local economy. Also some Mariachi showed up. Towards the second half of the train ride one side of our car, note here it was not the side occupied by somewhat inebriated college students, began ambushing anyone daring to walk by with dancing. Also note the other side of the car was occupied by very lively middle-aged couples. A one-dimensional conga line appeared. It was a very special train ride.
The night of the Tequila train extravaganza we headed out on a 45 minute bus ride to a club in town. For some reason the organizers felt we wouldn't get in but by that time the bus had grown restless and so we waited elbow to elbow for a while and eventually got into the place. It turned out to be a pretty sweet club (and from a nerd perspective the lighting was really cool too) and fun was had by all. The next day we went to Tlaquepaque, which was a very cool town filled with art. For instance, here's some art:
We had a very nice meal at a restaurant in town. Here are my (blury) enchiladas poblanas which were very tasty:
Aside from the art and a whole bunch of art vendors there isn't too much else to comment on in the Guadalajara trip (expect perhaps the 30 extra minutes we spent driving around town looking for lost students). We arrived back at Tec at 7:45, giving me just enough time to brush my teeth and show up for class. Yay college! More recently, it was flag day in Mexico and they had a nice but brief ceremony. Mexico's going through some tough times right now and so the speakers were all quite optimistic which was nice. They even had a shoutout to us international students and how important we are to the country etc.
Aside from that I attended a birthday party, saw Avatar in 3-D Imax twice (by no fault of my own), went fruitlessly shopping in the worst mall ever and spent a long time studying engine removal on Boeing 737s for my augmented reality project which is looking more impossible by the day. I'm going to be spending a lot of time staring at CAD models pretty soon so please send your last respects to my sanity whenever you have time. Next weekend I'm off to Xilitla which is supposed to be really pretty and really different, I'll be sure to inform you all in a month or so. Until then!
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