A Word About Tequila

The above picture pretty much sums up our experience so far, here in Mexico. It's not that we've been drinking constantly, but when we do decide to take part in a little bit of alcohol, the options are mostly limited to...you guessed it. Tequila (Oh yeah and beer). The reason for this is that Jalisco, the state in which Guadalajara is located, is where the liquor originated. Our first couple of days here we went to the grocery store and scanned the liquor aisles. Of all the options, 90% of the available spirits were Tequila (I looked for vodka for 5 whole minutes before finally spotting 4 choices and that was it) and there were sooo many choices. We grabbed one of the cheaper bottles and hauled our stuff home. We popped back out to run an errand and when we came back, Moizes and Raphael (another guy who lives here) were both in the kitchen. We brought up the question concerning quality of tequila to which Moizes replied "Oh yeahhh...we saw what you bought. No bueno." So Raphael, the in-house tequila connoisseur gave us a little lesson. Good quality Tequila must be made in Mexico and bear the certification of the Tequila Regulatory Council (cue employment envy). It also must say "100% Agave" in order to be considered worthwhile and true lovers of the drink prefer to sip it, which Raphael insisted we do. Luckily, the good stuff is still crazy cheap (we paid 7 dollars for a bottle that seemed large enough to bathe a burro) and we'll be able to put all those tequila lessons into practice.

Hasta la proxima!

Hasta la proxima!

La Tequila

Our table was on the open-air top level, with some nice views of the city. 

Ever since we've gotten to the city, I've started compiling a bucket list of all the cool places and restaurants I want to check out while we're here. Needless to say, I was pretty excited when Danny got back from class and announced that a big group were meeting at La Tequila, one of the places I'd been wanting to try, for Caroline's birthday. She is one of the two girls in his program who are here in GDL and she organized a big dinner to celebrate. We took a taxi and met everyone there at 8:30. The restaurant is enormous with three levels and a large wall full of tequila bottles when you first walk in the door. The place is very chic, very hip and pretty touristy, but perfect for a big group (they even had menus in English, a sure sign that the place is tourist-friendly). Dinner was excellent and we split the chalupas and the lamb tacos (again with the lamb). I had a couple Palomas, which is a common drink here involving, reposado tequila, lime juice, and grapefruit soda. Pretty tasty and makes me feel less like a Gringa than when I order my usual diet coke & vodka.

In front of the tequila wall. The security guy at the door offered to take it for me.

After dinner, we headed to a bar near Minerva, called Black & Blue, also multiple levels with sort of a New York City theme. Here, we proceeded to order and finish an entire bottle of Don Julio tequila (I'm starting to see a pattern here.)

Hasta la proxima!!

Dos Bicicletas

Sunday morning, we woke up late in a Tequila-soaked daze. The weather was beautiful so we decided to sweat out the alcohol and take a bike ride around Guada using the Hostel's bikes free of charge. Every Sunday, for the past 7 years, the city of Guadalajara shuts down it's two largest and busiest avenues, Vallarta and Chapultepec and allows pedestrians, cyclists, and skateboarders to ride all around the city without worrying about traffic from 8am-2pm. It was amazing how many people were out on their bikes and walking their dogs. There were volunteers every block controlling the crossing traffic. I'm sure it costs the city a lot of money to shut traffic down like that, but you could tell all of the citizens really enjoy it.

approaching Minerva, the street paint is left over from the Pan-American Games that took place in Guada this past fall

We set out from our place at 10:30 in the morning, biked all the way up Vallarta to Minerva and then back down to Chapultepec. By the time we arrived at Parque Metropolitano around 12:30, I had done an intense amount of whining and complaining. The hills were tough and I hadn't been on a bike in...quite awhile. We rested at the park and had lunch while we watched the kids jump on trampolines and roll down the hill in giant clear plastic balls that tumbled them around like tennis shoes in a dryer.

 By 1pm, though it was time to head back and neither Danny nor I were looking forward to the return trip. Somehow, we got a little turned around and ended up at a busy intersection with no friendly traffic-controlling volunteers in sight. It was at this point that we decided to abort the mission and take a cab home. The first cab we stopped said "No dice", because he didn't have a rack to put the bikes on. The second guy, however, loaded the bikes up and said it would be 700 pesos to take us home. Fine by me. At that point we would have paid 10,000. We made it home, took the longest and most appreciated nap of our lives, and then limped around the entire next day.

Hasta la Proxima!

Saturday Night Fever (these post titles aren't gonna get any less cheesier, so get used to it)

Saturday morning, we woke up and were told: "Still no power. Maybe a few hours?" So we set off to find a coffee shop with WiFi and espressos. We found this place, El Sorbo, super close to our place and settled in for several hours of uninterrupted internet. Later in the morning, Danny ordered a little cornbread cake which, to my surprise, tasted exactly like the cornbread we eat in the South. There's a good chance we stole that dish from Mexicans, but who knows?

We grabbed some sushi on the way home and ate up on the terrace, while Danny enjoyed a nice, cold, Mexican beer.

Saturday night, we met up with some of the people from Danny's program at their aparment near Minerva. In typical Mexican fashion, the place looked like nothing special on the outside but then as soon as we walked in, we were completely blown away. The place was amazing and was actually an old bar that had been converted into 9 apartments. When you walked in, there was a living area and then a HUGE tiled bar area that was completely open air and the back patio even had a large stage. Their downstairs bathroom were also EXACTLY what you would imagine a bar bathroom to be like (stalls and everything). The rooftop also had a sweet view of Minerva.

 After several bebidas, we decided to set out to conquer the night. Several of us took cabs to Lola Lolita, a popular nightclub (which we found out later was conveniently located only 4 blocks from our place). The DJ was on the stage in a blue retro car and he was pumping the typical American pop songs and cheesy Eurotrash music that I would never listen to on my own, but is the ONLY thing I want to hear when I'm at a place like this. We quickly ordered an entire bottle of tequila for the group and to our amazement a table was brought in for us and put right next to the DJ onstage. We finished the bottle off and danced the night away, grabbing some street tacos on the walk home.

Rockstars

The bar at Lola Lolita

You are Young and You Must be Living

Danny, featuring the brick oven in the background

This past weekend, Danny and I had a lot of fun kicking around the city and enjoying the beautiful weather. Friday afternoon, I met him at Plaza des Armas in Centro Historico after his tour of the city and he showed me some of the highlights of his tour including the murals by Orozco and some of the beautiful municipal buildings downtown. We walked around the city center, where all of the Christmas decorations are still up! It's crazy but Mexicans celebrate all the way up until February 2nd, so we will end up having three months worth of Christmas. Afterwards, we went and saw another apartment, which I believe Danny talked about in his post already. More importantly, after that we ate dinner at this great place around the block from us. It's a brick-oven pizza place that has artsy decor and interesting lighting. Annnnd delicious pizza. Oddly enough, the place was pretty dead. Apparently, most of the action takes place on Chapultepec which is a couple blocks up from us. Most Guadalajarans rarely venture away from that main avenue for dining or nightlife. Moizes, our hostel friend, told us that Pig's Pearls (the place we ate the lamb burger at the other night) has just begun to attract people off the main drag. So we ate our delicious salad and pizza in solitude until a few other customers trickled in. One interesting thing is that they don't bring the check to you in Mexico until you've asked for it as they consider it rude. So we asked for our check, and then walked the short distance home. Upon our return, we saw/were told that the power was out due to a tree limb being cut and then falling on the power lines outside the building. Soo no internet and no lights, but we did fall asleep to the sounds of the hostel staff drinking and singing cheesy American pop songs in the lobby.

Wall mural at the pizza restaurant

The bar, featuring sweet lighting techniques

Getting our Bearings Around Town

Oooookkkkk! Now that I feel like I can finally breathe again I figure it's about time for me to start posting. Sallie's been great handling things while I've been a little sick and trying to get organized here.

Yesterday was kinda an orientation day and my first opportunity to check out my new campus, Tec de Monterrey. The bus ride is 30-40 min and initially freaked me out a bit. I wasnt sure I was on the right bus and so I asked the lady next to me. She said the bus didnt go to Tec. Awesome right? So I stumbled to the front and asked the bus driver. His response was pretty incoherent but seemed to indicate we were heading that direction, although might now have understood me and probably just wanted me to sit down. I figured it was too late to do anything about it since getting off and finding the right bus would be pretty much impossible for me without the internet, so I reconciled myself to to the fact that I was about to be lost in a city of 6 million people. After traveling through the outskirts of town and through some dusty shanty towns that basically confirmed my suspicion that we were heading deep into no man's land (or at least no american's land), a dude about my age with a backpack told me we were at Tec even though I saw no signs of it. I was surprised he knew where I was going until I remembered how much a tall redhead probably stands out in Mexico. I followed him and indeed ended up seeing a friend from my IMBA program walking near me to Tec.

Campus ended up being super state-of-the-art, complete with three banks, a bunch of restaurants, and an Apple store. Thaat's right, a friggin Apple store.

After introductions and touring campus we headed back downtown on a guided walking tour.

Guadalajara Cathedral, the main cathedral in the city and host to many sacred Catholic relics.

Famous murals by Gualajara's legendary one-armed genius painter, Jose Orozco. These were located in the Congress hall.

Remains of an old convent near our hostel.

 More amazing graffiti art.

Floating china man.

After touring downtown Sallie and I walked to a house a few blocks away where we had scheduled a walk-through. The place was absolutely perfect and the price was very low by US standards. It had too patios, a terrace from which you could view downtown, and a private bathroom with doorless shower.

Sallie got some good tips from the owner, Bill, on how to deal with the local guys who like to whistle, cat-call, and sometimes follower her through the streets the few times we've had to split up. Evidently, all the attention is meant to be less aggressive than if it was in the US. It's mostly meant as a compliment, and Bill said that if a guys is really getting fresh she just needs to state loudly "Quiero respecto!" and they will usually fall into the state of utmost respect towards women that has been culturally conditioned into them since childhood. After all the displays of machismo, most men usually turn out to be sweethearts when a girl gets serious. 

This is the patio you see when you walk through the front door. Like many typical patios it is uncovered. The temperature here usually stays between 50 and 80 degrees, allowing most all restaurants and houses to be very open-air. Definitely a nice change.

However, at nice as the house was, the location was not as good as our hostel--being farther from Tec and out of the more artistic, active areas of town. So when we got back and the guys running our hostel offered us a discount if we rent for 4 months we accepted. Not only are the guys extremely helpful, but the place is right in the center of some of the coolest restaurants and bars we've ever seen (a few literally on our block). So here is where we will be living for our stay in Mexico. 

Apartment Hunters: International

Yesterday, after our unintentionally long nap, Danny and I woke up ready to tackle the day. We had a nice little breakfast at the hostel and, after fighting with my old Blackberry, which contains an international SIM card that should TOTALLY work here, I gave up and we decided to just go to Telcel and get a prepaid phone and call it DONE. We asked Abraham for the closest store and he saved us a trip by letting us know that we'd need our passports in order to get phones (Thanks, buddy!). At Telcel, we encountered a person at the door dancing in a moose costume (I guess it's their mascot but, who knew there was such a strong moose population in South America?!). Danny approached a nice saleslady in simple Spanish who then directed us to what appeared to be the only person in the store who spoke English. Again, please forgive my naivete, but whenever I've traveled in Europe, it seems like you can't walk two feet without tripping over someone who speaks English. It's sort of the language of business (possibly to be replaced by Chinese at some point?? who knows) so I just assumed that in a large city such as Guadalajara there would be a fair amount of people who know enough English to get by...not the case. It's actually awesome because just one interaction with someone who doesn't speak any English is enough to send you running back to your room to spend some time on Rosetta Stone. Needless to say, I've got some work to do in the language department. So where was I? Oh yeah, the phones...We did the typical 20 dollar cheap little phone with 950 pesos of credits (about 50 minutes of talking time) to start with and were then on our way, passing by the dancing moose on the way out.

After getting our phones we stopped at a place called Cafe Providencia that had WiFi so we could begin the apartment hunt. We ordered a couple of juices and ordered food. Juices seem to be pretty big here. They're all freshly squeezed and you can get interesting mixes. I had a "Mixto" yesterday which had at least Mango AND carrot and Danny had some green concoction that MIGHT have had cucumber and mint and who knows what else. Foodwise, I had the taquitos pollo and Danny, I think, had the enchiladas and they both came in a salsa verde. Delicious. One major difference we noticed between the Tex-Mex we get at home is no queso dip (sad...) and they don't drown everything in cheese and sour cream here. The food seems lighter and the portions are slightly smaller, but not much.

Danny ran across the street and bought "El Informador" from Oxxo (a popular convenience store here) which has real estate listings in it's classifieds section. We went through and circled the ones that sounded promising, using Google to check out their locations and the translator to decipher the descriptions as well as to compose Danny's speech he gave whenever we would call a prospective landlord which went a little something like this:

       "Hola! Hablas Ingles? No? Ok, no problema. Estoy estudiante y voy a estar viviendo en Guadalajara durante quatro meses. Es el departamento sigue disponible?"

I was amazed at how well he did. He did spend several months in Medellin, Colombia and studied some Spanish in school, but speaking to someone in a foreign language over the phone, especially about real estate, can be pretty tricky. We ate lunch and drank coffee and spent a few hours setting up meeting times and getting rejected (a lot of people only wanted to rent for a minimum of a year). We went and saw two units in a really nice neighborhood (the landlords assured us in broken english, that there were "No Fiestas, No big men drinking beers"), but the upstairs unit was tiny (one room studio with a tiny dining room table that could only seat one) and the downstairs was dated and gloomy. The price was right at 5000 pesos ($364 USD per month), but we told them we would think about it and be in touch.

Passed by this major roundabout, Glorieta Minerva, during our apartment hunt

 We returned to the hostel late in the afternoon and a new guy was there. His name was Moises and he and his brother run the hostel. After telling him of our day spent apartment hunting, he mentioned that they had been considering renting out a private room at the hostel for 5800/month which we are now seriously considering because we love the neighborhood so much and everything here is within walking distance (except Danny's school which takes a 30 minute bus ride to get to everyday). It's an odd idea, living in a hostel for 4 months, but it might be the best thing. That way, Danny and I will always be interacting with new people and when else during our lives will we be in a place to do something like that? We are here one more night and are going to see one more apartment this afternoon, but as of right now, we are pretty set on staying.

We went and had dinner last night around the corner at this amazing restaurant called "Pig's Pearls" that cooks their "hamburguesas" over a wood-fired grill. It's an adorable place that serves craft beers, tasty food, solid music, and has a really pleasant staff. We had some appetizer which was sliced, crispy baguette with melted cheese in the middle covered in sundried tomatoes and the Lambburger. Yeah, that's right. I said "Lamb. Burger." why doesn't this happen more often, I ask you?

Fuzzy/dark pic of me and my half of the Lamb Burger. They even put little olives on the toothpicks. Cuties.

MMMM...Perro Negro Porter, dipping sauces in the background (Tzatziki, Corn Mayonaise, and Spicy Salsa)

After dinner, we took a walk around to explore and digest. Found a beautiful church, interesting street art and statues and fell in love with the city a little more.

El Expiatorio

Interesting statues in front of Universidad de Guadalajara

Wall mural at La Kalaka Bar in El Centro

That's all for now, folks. Hasta la proxima!!