¡Esto es Carnaval!

i got back from carnaval in veracruz two days ago and have yet to put my pictures up, but it was an experience to be had. once. veracruz itself is sort of awesome in a terrifying industrial/post-colonial/edgy beach city way. it was where cortés landed and was the first spanish city in new spain, but today it is mexico's main oil port which has created a thriving and exciting urban nightmare on the water's edge. I hear that the city is generally fairly mellow as most beach towns are, but carnaval is anything but. i will put up pictures eventually but over the weekend i sighted trannies, masks, crowning the queen, huge/loud parades, sol (the beer and the sun), fights, dancing, the pemex hq, and a pay toilet where i had to give an attendant 50 cents for the privilege pee against a wall in a stairwell, and believe me when i say i am underselling that story. seriously, though, veracruz is intoxicating, even minus the alcohol, and i'd gladly go back sans carnaval to wile away some days on its beaches or malecon cafes in a technicolor city that definitely does not dress up for visitors.

this is the link

i forgot to put the link to this article in the last thing, which makes it substantially less interesting and more confusing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/americas/07mexico.html?hp

aaaaaahhhhhh

in the middle of all the talk about scary mexico tumbling towards being the somalia of the americas, i think this is something interesting.



mexico city is about to become more progressive than most of the united states. mexico has issues, but it is not collapsing. an article we had to read in foreign affairs said, "esta histeria nubla el verdadero reto: la creciente violencia es efecto de la democratización de México —y la única solución verdadera es continuar fortaleciendo la democracia mexicana." she means that when mexico was supposed to have been safe, it was essentially a dictatorship, and that the violence is not about drugs but rapid democratization. it is a very interesting time to be here for sure. mexico has a good sense of humor about its 20th century, though. in spanish, a dictatorship is una dictadura, but in mexico they call the PRI's rule for 80 years the dictablanda because it was the most boring dictatorship in latin america

¡Feliz Dia de la Constitución!

today is a monday, but as is obvious i didn't have school thanks to constitution day, that well know mexican celebration where you...i guess just don't have school. it celebrates the mexican constitution's ratification in 1917 and is easily in my list of top 5 mexican state holidays (fun fact: article 123 guaranteed an 8-hour workday, the right to strike, and gender and race equality, all in 1917. very progressive. they're still working out the kinks.). it is the last day of my four day weekend in which i saw a good deal of puebla and cholula. these cities are quite amazing and wildly different. puebla was one of the first european colonies in the americas, and cholula is the oldest continuously inhabited city in all of the americas. these facts might seem boring, but in fact im nerding out just thinking about it. i saw forts (where the battle commemorated on cinco de mayo was fought), cathedrals, and colonial houses, even a museum about fear which was bizarre but awesome. also i took a picture of popocatepetl the volcano, which reminds me of all the good nahuatl i've been learning. in the smaller cities around here people still speak nahuatl and a lot of the words have crept into colloquial spanish and english. por ejemplo, a tomatl is a tomato, ahuaca-molli is guacamole, and a coyotl is a coyote. fun stuff.





also this weekend, my new friend from school took two of us around the city to see old houses and eat tacos and, perhaps most importantly, visit la pasita. la pasita is unique in every sense of the word. calling it a bar would oversell it, as it is literally tucked in an alley with doors that open directly into the counter. no seating, no place to mill around inside, which means everyone huddles around on the cobblestone street outside, but the conversation is loose and friendly because everyone is somewhere between buzzed and pedo (drunk as a skunk en español). this is because la pasita has been serving for about 100 years its specialty drink native to puebla, pasita. its a liquor made from raisins served in shots with cheese and a raisin, and its delicious. also, the drinks were traditionally sold as '4 cuadros, 3 cuadros," etc, meaning that is how many blocks you would be able to walk after drinking them before collapsing, and they are not far off. the drink is incredibly alcoholic, cheap, and lacks virtually any alcohol taste, meaning that for 100 years this place has been a beacon for poblano artists, intellectuals, politicians, and of course gringo international students.



one last update of note: i am now a regular guest on the radio on tuesdays from 13:30 to 14:30 and fridays from 10 to 11 my time, its very exciting. the radio kids here are super cool and would give any u.s. hipsters a run for their money. i have to do homework now. hasta pronto