New Blogger

Well, I've got the new Blogger account. so I guess I'll soon see if it's anything different. So far it looks pretty much the same. I was actually trying to do some manual editing to my site earlier in the day, but it proved a lot more difficult than I thought. Now I know why people get paid good money for that sort of thing. Still when you look out there on the internet at all the well designed pages and blogs people have, it's pretty surprising how many look slick. I thought I could get all photo-centric with the layout and stuff, but once I started moving stuff around. It got pretty difficult to put things in the right places. I guess I just take computers for granted sometimes. Hmm... beta indeed. Looks like I'll need a few more hours to work out the bugs.

Sorry no pictures

My camera is loaned to someone else so there won't be pictures here for a little while. I was performing on a children's park ride as a swamp creature through out October and that just ended so it's nice to take a breather as it's quite exhausting being gregarious and happy for 4 hours in a row. I'm also a cashier at a grocery store so between the two jobs there was a lot of insincere happiness that I had to dole out. Tiring stuff but now that it's over I can relax and only be insincerely happy with the usual 30% of the people I deal with. Remembrance Day is today and people seem to be doing a fair amount of remembering or "never forgetting" or however you want to look at it. Lot's of depressing war and slaughter on the news webs to make it easier too... If the rain would relent here that'd probably put me in a better mood in general. There is no end...

Five Buck Bus Stop Umbrella

Daily drizzle punctuated by slicing winds and hard rain. Ahh... yes, Vancouver and the familiar "ssssss" of cars on wet streets. It's 10 o-clock in the morning but the sky looks like it should be 7 in the evening. Well, my stint at the Vancouver Ghost Train has ended with little fanfare, but a slightly wetter and heavier wallet this month. I think I've probably spent the difference on draft beer and wines around the hood already. Hmmm, what else is new? Not much. I've been kinda sick lately; colds, sniffles, indigestion. It's all been adding to my malaise-o-metre. It must be part of that problem they talk about in Finland and Sweden where despite the fact that you have a great job and clean running water, it's so grey and dark during the day- you just wanna commit suicide. I'd forgotten how much it rains here in November. Well- I'm off to work. Hopefully I'll have more photos and stuff to post soon.

UBC Leaders of Tomorrow!!!

Here's one picture I have of Vancouver, sort of... In case some of my readers in Mexico want to know if Ale is truly going to UBC or not. Here's actual proof that she's been attending. She's standing in front of the UBC rose garden and that's the ocean out behind. UBC is in quite a nice spot. Actually, we see little of each other because she's quite busy reading and writing all the time, but she seems to be doing well!

Back in Vancouver

I'm back in Vancouver and I still need batteries for my camera so I don't have new pictures, but, well, they will be there soon. I'm writing this in a coffee shop that has free internet! Woah. It's great, but it's made everyone into internet addicts here. People seem to expect you to get back to them the same day if you receive an email. The weather has been really cooperative though- so that's nice. So have a lot of other things... I've got a pretty decent day job and a really nice, although cold apartment. I guess the excitement factor will be toned down a bit now that I'm in Vancouver and not somewhere where many who read this blog aren't. Grey today. I went out last night and performed in a plastic costume made to make me look like the Creature From the Black Lagoon. Pretty good costume. I was swarmed by children though and it's exhausting work especially in the cold, damp climes of Stanley Park at night. I'll explain myself. I'm part of a theatrical installation that is put inside the parks nature train ride every halloween to amuse families. Basically, I'm a professional Haunted House performer, but I hang out outside the ride where all the kids run around eating sugar and pulling on the fins of my plastic costume. Some parents think it's funny to see me swarmed by children pulling at me (I am paid after all) and laugh as I hold back the desire to become physically violent. Don't worry though. I'm really good at holding back.

Solo to San Miguel

San Miguel is nestled in the mountains near Quéretaro Mexico in the state of Guanajuato and one of the most popular non-beach tourist destinations in Mexico. It has become a kind of mecca (in a world of meccas) for artisans, artists and people who love them and want to buy their wares, especially people from the US.



I took the bus there alone and the journey was nice. In Querétaro I decided to get a second class ticket to San Miguel as I had sprung more for the 1st. class ticket to Querétaro.



Second class busses to San Miguel weren't quite as clunky and funky as the ones in Oaxaca and other states, but it still stopped everywhere and packed in people from the countryside until it was standing room only. There was a guitar player for awhile who saranaded us with the classics.





When on the bus in central Mexico you spend a lot of time climbing and descending mountains while looking at small, impossibly insignificant villages, dry scrublands, lush tropical forests, pine forests, and busy cities. All this could be in fairly close quarters. If you're riding second class a lot of people pile in over time, usually carrying stuff or just going to work, or both.



I believe that many people from "el otro lados" to the north and in Europe who, having realized the great exchange rate and cheaper prices of retirement in Mexico have migrated down to Mexico for retirement or whatever and San Miguel is popular in this vein. There are some stellar houses here. It's a very beautiful, manicured town in the central part and English is widely spoken. There is a peaceful central square with bubbling fountains and some great stores for buying art crafts. Apparently San Miguel was once popular with painters from Europe and elsewhere for it's extraordinary light.



It was grey and pissing rain on the day of my arrival, but the next day when the clouds parted and I could see what people were talking about.





There is an clear and crisp quality to the sunlight. Maybe it's the clarity of the air and the fact that the town is up in the mountains that makes it so. Mexico City sometimes has light like this when the air is clean. At any rate I can see why the place has been popular for so long. It's quaint, temperate, fresh, bright, and peaceful without being dead either. I basically wandered around ducking under awnings to get out of the periodic deluges, bought some coffees, looked at stuff. If you're from Canada or the States then you won't want for anything here. There are veggie restaurants, coffee bars, Jazz joints, clubs, lotsa shops, and even trendy food like pressed panini sandwiches. If you don't swing this way, you can always look for a place over on the other, less popular, side of town where most of the locals probably live. It looked nice there too.

Some people here say that San Miguel is too manicured and I can kind of understand what they say. Many cities have this now. It's like when Chinatowns decide they're real, "Chinatowns" and begin the erection of all kinds of plaques, dragon sculptures, statues, etc... Theme cities and theme neighborhoods. If you ever find yourself in Vancouver or if you're currently there, like me you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about. See the "totally drive certified" embossments in the pavement on Commercial Drive in order to induce wretching. Well San Miguel is still pretty nice. And I recommend a visit and stay in one of the many pleasant hotels around there. You may never leave or at least return with your matured yet insufficient RRSP cheque in the future. If you are lucky enough to have one that is...

Metro Pantitlan

A coupla times a week I teach an early class on the eastern side of the city at the Benito Juarez Airport. I usually take the metro out there and I have to be on the train at 6 to get there at 7. I descend into Metro San Antonio at around a quarter to six if I'm making good time on the western side and it's usually a pretty tame affair. At six the Metro is still tolerable in that neighborhood. It's a long trip and I need to transfer 2 times.



By twenty to seven the train shoots out of the ground on the eastern side of Mexico City and on a good day the sun will just be starting to come up, breaking dramatically over the sprawl of Delegation Pantitlan. Sitting right in the middle surrounded by a six lane highway, baffling traffic glorietas, thru-ramps, a water pump station, steaming taco stalls, Tamale hawkers, and a bus plaza for incoming suburban busses, is Metro Pantitlan.





Pantitlan is the terminus of 4 metro lines, and many many suburban Collective busses. The busses are all private, loud, large, and in all manner of shape. Some are relatively new while others belch diesel clouds. The first indication you are getting near the pantitlan area is the acrid, smell of sulphur. In the surrounding crowded neighborhood light industry and people are packed in tight little streets. By the time I reach it, Pantitlan is in full swing with no signs of stopping.





It seems that the entire city of Mexico is trying to squeeze through it's turnstiles. Everything is grey slab concrete. Papers swirl around in the bus plaza below the platforms as busses, hundreds of busses with names like "Pepe, 'Lucia", and "El Perdido" make thier way through the unorganized lanes. Out on the streets a endless river of trucks, busses and cars are slowly trawling by honking incessantly. Some honk in rhythm others use special "General Lee" styles of musical horns. In places of mass transit there is always an Ad-hoc establishment of food stalls and other market items like cellphones for sale called "Tiangis". Down in the bus plaza a woman is making tortillas, tacos, and quesadillas, while her husband sells fresh squeezed OJ. Dogs abound. There are dogs in the plaza, doggies on the platforms, dogs in the street and a special black doggie that I've named "el pancito" who always wanders in the same place on an overpass stairway I go through.

When I first set my eyes on Pantitlan I realized that here is the Real Mexico City. While the fountains and plazas of Coyoacan and La Condessa are much more attractive and pleasant to actually be in, Pantitlan Station is where all the other millions of Mexicans who're priced out of the downtown real estate index come into the city at 7 in the morning to work. Horse carts sometimes clop along with the traffic and men with cardboard boxes full of plastic cell phone holsters await the next train to the Zocalo. Mexico City has many such "nodes" where people transfer from the State of Mexico to urban transit in the city. Of course there isnt any visible line where the city ends and the outskirts begin. It all seems to be one solid flat slab of humanity. A slab that I am soon to leave after nearly 2 years.





But it will always be here as has been the truth for thousands of years. And I look forward to coming back soon.