In which I am mature and serious

Oooh, I’m excited!

Matthew the Obnoxious Englishman* has asked if I want to be the centre's barperson while he is away (in Northern Mexico where they have another growing season) for six months.

The downside is there is actually some barpersonning involved, which means spending some of my time at social functions behind the bar instead of on the dancefloor.

The upside is The Power! Specifically, the power to organize more social events on Friday evenings – at the moment they’re pretty few and far between and most of the time the Rincon (our bar) is dead – and hopefully even form a social committee. I’m seeing dance nights, themed parties, I’m seeing dominoes and poker and bingo evenings, I’m seeing lists of people willing to DJ and work behind the bar and all that stuff…

He’s given me a day to think about it, but really, woohoo!

Already I am afraid if my social-event-organising skills are up to the job. Agh.

On another note, I felt guilty about moaning about the coldness of the weather here in a previous post, when it’s probably pretty miserable at home. Until I spent a whole day (Friday) shivering and feverish and clinging to my heater then an evening at home feeling sick because of the gas fumes from the heater of doom, and all the skin on my hands went weird and sandpapery, and my lips cracked into a million pieces, and I think I got a small chilblain but am not entirely sure because my primary knowledge of them is through literature, and when I did a google image search I got horrifically advanced cases I was afraid to look at. So I promise not to moan any more unless my fingers turn blue and fall off (and then I won’t be able to type, so not even then. Or maybe I will moan very slowly with my nose…) but really if Father Christmas thinks I haven’t been good enough for presents and brings me coal instead I might just not be sorry…

I went to a famous market on Sunday at a town called Chiconcuac, where there are literally thousands of stalls selling (mostly cheap) clothes and enormous crowds of people come to buy them. It’s quite an experience. I discovered why lots of Mexican women seem to wear poorly-fitting, too-tight clothes – most things come in one size, or two or three at the most. Which is odd, and a little bit depressing when you are shopping with the girl with the perfect body, my friend Isabel (and she’s gorgeous too…pchah). I did however buy the coolest poncho in the world, which would be helpful for the whole keeping me warm whatsit (which was sort of the aim of the exercise) if I didn’t feel just a bit too silly to wear it on an everyday basis. It is in fact a Little Red Riding Hood cape in bright red fleece, with a hood and tassels and ribbons to tie it up at the front, and it makes me feel like I am in a fairytale and it’s entirely brilliant. Isabel bought the black one, so she is the wicked witch.

I also bought some fuschia pink tracksuit bottoms. I am such a practical shopper.

Oh yeah, and I was very amused by the brand name ‘Willy Jeans’. I’m mature too.

* In a Funny way, not a Bad way. Anyone who can write this paragraph in an email to the Director General gets my vote:

"However, this year I have identified a willing volunteer to take over the responsibility of opening the Rincon during my absence that being Eloise [my name] the new intern from communications. English barmaids are well known for their authoritative, no-nonsense manner and so I have complete confidence about her ability to maintain the tradition. In addition she has a love of Latin music and is the proud owner of several pairs of dancing shoes, so she tells me."

Pictures and no pictures

Today (Saturday, not now today due to the evils of Blogger, which have been causing me much rage) I went to a village, San Miguel Tlaixpan, to go to a place that turned out to be closed. (Most villages have two names – a saint and a difficult-to-prounounce-when-you-first-hear-it.) Which was irritating, but I had a little wander and took pictures of bougainvillea outside the church, rich and brilliant in the sun. It seems that here they put the dead elsewhere entirely, and in front of the church there is often a beautiful ornamental garden. It makes a difference – I think the church seems joyful rather than sombre, without the immediate proximity of the terror, mystery, solitude and sadness of all those inscrutable graves. And I can’t help thinking – rather, feeling – churches should have something of sombreness about them, and mystery, and perhaps even a hint of the terrible. I like graveyards very much, though I suppose I can like them just as much elsewhere.

I also took this photograph:















These flags were not as pretty as the ones in La Purificacion, and were sun-faded and wind-tattered – but they still fluttered and still made me happy. And I finally have a picture so now you know I wasn’t imagining it.

On my frustrated way back I decided to stop off at Parque Nacional Molino de Flores. I have been there briefly before, for a meal, but not really seen beyond the car park and the place we ate.

There is nothing like visiting late in the afternoon, when the sunlight is golden and slanting and when most of the visitors have gone home, for falling in love with a place.

It is beautiful, and I fell in love with it. But, perverse being that I am, this time I wanted my eyes to be enough and I just didn’t want to take any pictures, not today.

It isn’t what we would think of as a national park – a group of historic colonial buildings with a bit of land around it, with food and souvenir stalls and restaurants and a children’s funfair and pony rides. The buildings are gorgeous – half-ruined but with all their grandeur and grace – all steps and staircases; windows in tumbling, roofless walls; doorways and archways; courtyards and rooms that are courtyards now. And being Mexico, all the dangerous ruins that children might possibly fall off aren’t really safeguarded, so you can wander and explore and enjoy it without being fenced off from all the exciting bits.

Then there is a gorge with a stream tumbling between boulders and children playing, and at the top a little waterfall, and everywhere bridges to somewhere and nowhere, and more flights of steps, and in the side of the rock a church that you step into straight from an iron bridge, and tall trees that make you feel entirely at peace.

I bought a bag of biscuits from some elderly nuns making their rounds with their baskets, in cream habits like heavenly robes. It’s a good wheeze: even I can’t say no to a nun, so imagine how the Catholics feel.

Walking back to catch a bus through all the stalls and restaurants couldn’t take the shine off it, nor even the inevitable rubbish all over the place. Three children – two girls and a boy – had taken over an empty stall to play at feasting from a doll’s teaset, carefully pouring juice into the tiny cups.

I walked away smiling.

Poco a poco*

*Little by little

Learning a language is a very humbling experience. Suddenly you don’t know how to say the simplest things: you struggle to express yourself and are hamstrung by not knowing basic words like ‘maybe’, or ‘after’, or ‘must’, or verb tenses. One is as tongue-tied and lost for words as a toddler, only without the innate language-learning ability.

It’s probably good to be humbled—it usually is, or so we’re led to believe. It makes you appreciate language and communication more, I suppose. It definitely makes me appreciate English, and the ease and grace with which I can express the most complicated things; the beautiful alchemy between just the right words; puns and double meanings and implications.

In the meantime, have been feeling frustrated by the slowness of learning Spanish, and by how much I don’t know. I’ve also been stuck in the beginner’s trap of not knowing enough, and being too shy and embarrassed, to feel like I can practice on people. Which is not at all helpful.

Yesterday I went to Mike’s house for a few hours after work, played cards a little with Norma and her friend (Continental, fun but taxing on the brain), ate, greeted Norma’s brothers and their wives, listened to conversation in Spanish, chatted a little in English to Mike and Norma… and knew I should practice my Spanish.

So I took the plunge, struggling (and asking) for words all the way. And actually, it was great. I could talk about where I live, and what I like about Mexico, and food, and what I studied and even how I felt about it. Everyone was so warm and enthusiastic about my efforts and willing to listen to me, patient with my stumbling sentences and just so fantastically nice. It ended up with everyone saying I should come over every week so I can practice—perfect Spanish and the perfect people, somebody said.

As an aside, I feel the need to once again extol the wonderfulness of Mike. We have so much to say to one another. I can talk with him about how we understand language and get all poetic about emotions and meanings associated with words without feeling silly, or about my feelings and feel like he’s interested and he cares. I’m so lucky to be under his wing.

When I left I couldn’t stop grinning like a lunatic all the way home. Because I had a lovely time with lovely people, but also because I know I can say things and I have the confidence to try, and because I’m excited about learning Spanish and getting better and being able to say more and more. Every new thing I learn at the moment is exciting because it makes a big difference in expanding in what I can express.

In other news, it is Fucking Freezing here. Even more than normal, apparently. There was a frost this morning. So do not be jealous that I am not suffering winter chills. In fact the unseasonable cold may be why I think my Spanish is progressing, because it’s all anyone can talk about, which makes conversations pretty easy to follow!

It is horrendously cold at night and in the morning, and all day in my office and in my house even though outside it’s quite sunny and warm. I have been sitting in my office in five layers (vest, long-sleeved top, two jumpers, hoodie) plus a scarf and armwarmers, with the electric heater on, hugging it for warmth. Really. And in my house I have a heater which makes the space a foot around it uncomfortably hot and fills the rest of the house with the smell of gas and no discernable warmth.

I am clearly a total wuss, weakened by central heating and functional insulation and duvets. And everyone says that the cold must be nothing for me, coming from Britain! The Victorians would be ashamed….

round the corner and through the looking glass

I’ve been listening to a lot of internet radio recently, mostly BBC7 and a bit of Radio 4. This isn’t unusual – frankly, I’m an addict – but it’s especially nice to have voices to tell me stories and tell me jokes when I am so far from home. I have also been reading a fair amount, though I am currently at a bit of an impasse: I am reading one brilliant book (Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov, the Lolita chap – I recommend it) that I seem to only be able to read in short, intense bursts, and one book that I couldn’t stop reading the first 200 pages of, but I can’t seem to face another 350 pages of Tragedy proper, all slow self destruction…

Anyway, I’m full of stories at the moment, my head filled with the potentialities of characters. I am all the time so fascinated by characters – real people and created ones – how they think and feel and believe – and do things, their lives unrolling in intricate plots. People make decisions, or sometimes decisions make themselves, and things happen, things begin. I’m talking in vaguenesses because the characters and the stories in my head are shapeshifting snatches of nothing, stolen from all the things that wander in and out of my consciousness: golden age detective stories, pirates, tales of love and loss, dancing skeletons and dancing with death, Meera Syal growing up Asian in the Black Country, old marriages, a winged lion the colour of the sky, clowns, the world that’s round the corner and through the looking glass…

I think if any of it would resolve into something solid I could write it down and not feel so restless. I don’t exactly think about this, I’m just constantly aware of it, like a buzz or a glow.

I’m also at the moment aware of the feeling that somehow life is happening without me, or that I’m failing to do all the exciting things I could be doing. This probably sounds ridiculous and ungrateful from one who is living in Mexico, but that’s not my point. Sometimes I’m grateful, sometimes I guess I’m not. I’ve done some really exciting things while I've been here; I’ve also spent hours on tedious work, done grocery shopping and washing up, felt lonely. But regardless of what’s rational, there’s a little needle in my head, and I’m convinced that if I was different, or did things differently, I’d be doing all these exciting things, meeting interesting people, having meaningful interactions, seeing wonders and having revelations. I feel like I could be seeing more of the ‘real’ Mexico, meeting ‘real’ people etc, if only I was not so goddamn square.

I think it must be partly because I was left out so much as a child at school – the suspicion that everyone else is having all the fun somewhere else is pretty hard to shake when you spent your formative years knowing that were true. I think it is also a result of having read so many books and lived so much time and emotion between the pages. In books, things happen to people and people do things; there is meaning and excitement and resolution. The bloody Lonely Planet is even worse than fiction – they always seem to convince you that every country is seething with friendly locals just bursting to whisk you off on fascinating adventures, that every bar and café will be full of characters, every square full of itinerant musicians and charming crafts, that there are forests and ruins and beautiful landscapes round every corner….

Anyway. I’m sure there are other things too amongst all the twists of nature and nurture – those human tendencies towards yearning and feeling inadequate, for a start. But it’s strange to realise that the feeling that there is excitement and adventure and meaning somewhere and I’m not quite finding it seems to be quite deeply ingrained into who I am. I guess it’s all part of being a dreamer, a seeker for the unfindable – the meaning of life, resolution, happy endings – whatever it is that stories convince you is there. But I think it can too easily become something ugly, a parody of itself – when you realise you were looking so desperately for experiences that they didn’t find you, and all you did was spend money on trinkets instead of spending time, and take snapshots that you can substitute for memories…

Pragmatically, I shall try to tell myself to enjoy the moment [insert sick noises], relax and not be afraid of people, and not beat myself up about all the things I can’t squeeze into one lifetime. Reminders appreciated.

I wasn’t expecting this post to get quite so late night soul searchy. Tis what happens, late at night. But this is me… my head full of stories, real and imaginary and the stories of all the things I could be doing, if only… buzzing with the overwhelming possibility of an infinite world of characters who can do anything and everything. I hope I’m not sounding negative. It’s exhilarating and sickening and distracting and frightening and comforting and think of any adjective you like… it’s just a buzz and a glow. It’s just me.

Hospitality, Mexican Style

During my second week here (I’m clinging on to this chronology lark…), Mike, being lovely, invited me to his house. I met his wife, Norma, who is Mexican and vivacious and elegant and generous, properly for the first time, and his younger son.

My expectations were modest – dinner, pleasant conversation, that sort of thing. A nice quiet evening. And I was so very wrong, in the nicest possible way.

It seems that your average Mexican household is a bit like the Mad Hatter’s tea party – everyone changing places all the time, and celebrating an unbirthday every day. People drop in on each other all the time without warning, and there is always plenty of food and tequila ready.

When I arrived, their next door neighbour was installed at the dining table that is clearly the hub of the house, a sweet lady with a sweet face. She disappeared for a brief interval to see to her children, but plenty more guests arrived in her absence: neighbours, friends, and a subset of Norma’s enormous family (her brother is called Plutarco, Plu for short… how great is that?). And of course, whenever anyone arrived or departed, they kissed and/or shook hands with everyone – I was cottoning on to this by now, and ceasing to feel self-consciously like the greeting line at a wedding reception.

It’s a bit overwhelming in such circumstances not speaking any Spanish, but also there were my boss boss David and an Australian girl who was back visiting Mexico, having lived nearby with her uncle for a while. Anything and everything was talked about in English (in a motley collection of accents) and Spanish, cubes of cheese and handfuls of popcorn were gobbled, tequila was drunk, and at some point there was food – which some ate and some didn’t, and the conversation flowed on.

The next Friday, I was invited over again, this time for a bit of a party (read: more people, more tequila, more music, later into the night). Apparently Friday nights at Mike’s used to be a bit of a legend, back when his old band was still playing. This Friday, Mike, and Victor (djembe player in the old band; Puerto Rican who’s lived everywhere and never stops grinning) were getting together with the catering manager from the centre to try out playing together.

Half of the guests I’d met the last time, and greeted me like a friend even though I could barely say a word to them. They included neighbours, Norma’s old college friends and one of their mothers, more friends, and Norma’s family – her cousin Tere who is now my Spanish teacher and her daughter Veronica who speaks frighteningly good English with an accent like someone in a teen movie; her brother Plu who I’d met the previous visit; and another brother/cousin whose name escapes me but who I’d met at his Italian restaurant. When Mike says Norma is related to half of Texcoco, I’m beginning to suspect he’s not joking.

Norma, Tere and Veronica were kind about including to me and talking to me in English, but when it all got too much trying to follow the conversation in Spanish, I went down to the basement and listened to the boys playing – lots of things I didn’t or vaguely recognised, rock and roll and various kinds of ballad, with a sprinkling of things like REM and the Beatles. They might’ve been playing in a garage to an audience of one, but these boys were gonna rock regardless.

As the pumpkin hour approached I began to think about going home, being an old and tired fogey. Until someone said that if I stayed, Lilia (one of Norma’s friends) would sing some traditional Mexican songs. Of course, I couldn’t say no to that.

It was amazing. I didn’t understand the songs, but they were electric nonetheless. They seemed to me to be full of the passionate, maudlin nostalgia that seems to be a common thread of folk music, the love and heartbreak and tenderness. Not all of the songs were sad – some were love songs, some more rousing. Lilia has a deep voice, powerful and resonant, and often everyone else would join in, sometimes quietly, sometimes lustily. And at some point Norma started handing out a collection of shakers and other percussion instruments, and the whole wide circle around the table began picking out the different beats of each song. They were clearly the songs that everyone knows and always has, kept as snugly inside them as the alphabet or the names of ordinary things.

When the party broke up I got a lift with Smiling Victor in his bizarre red jeep – the windows are done up with zips. Knowing all the beer and tequila he’d consumed I was kinda holding on tight all the way, but he chatted away remarkably cogently. Nonetheless I was relieved when I made it home alive – the perfect end to a remarkable evening.

More balls

Today, I played football.

For, as far as I remember, the second time in my life. And it was surprisingly fun.

I was at a party of people from the centre, and as happens when beer and a garden and a ball come together, someone started haranguing people into playing football. And somehow I was convinced into playing, having been assured that it wouldn’t matter that I was shit. One of the good things about being in a new place is you can say what the hell and just do stuff, because no-one knows the things you’re too shy or embarrassed to do in a million years.

And I was quite shit, but not terrible, which was nice. I even scored the odd goal… which is less impressive once you know there were only four people on each team. It was boys vs. girls, in the dark, colliding with bushes, lots of girly screaming and whooping when we scored, when we got hurt, when we were surprised, when something was funny… pretty much all the time, in fact.

Mexican rules football is pretty dirty – you push people out of the way, grab them etc. So I fitted right in, natural as it is to me to play dirty. I kicked the goalie in the head, so honour was satisfied.

Afterwards an angel in human form handed out doughnuts, and we sat comparing wounds and swellings and passing round a single ice pack. I am now crippled, not in an entirely bad way, as none of my muscles work after running around for an hour and a half and being battered by the boys. I also have an enormous blister on my right foot:













What is the internet for if not for sharing disgusting pictures of your feet with your friends? I did choose image size small...

I’m now being pressed to join the games that happen on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I think that’s a bridge too far – all these Mexican guys who’ve been kicking balls since they were knee-high to a grasshopper, and me? Plus it’s easier to be rubbish at stuff in the dark somehow – you don’t feel so conspicuous.

Still, I played football. It was lots of fun. Curiouser and curiouser.

Me and my big mouth

Bollocks. And for a change, not hamster bollocks.

Somehow a conversation at lunch today led to me saying I'll email my MPhil thesis to one of the social scientists here.

This would be kind of cool, in that he works in the same area and I'm interested in his opinions. And generally it would be cool to be able to discuss social sciency stuff with him.

However,
(1) It's a bit shit. I'm not saying it's entirely without merit, but... it's a bit shit, and the idea of an intelligent professional reading it gives me the horrors.
(2) When I read it a while ago to remind myself what it was all about, I noticed it was full of little errors I was too harried to notice at the time. So tonight, I have to go through it and correct them all. The good news is I'm more than halfway through (page 32 of 54). The bad news is my brain is crawling out of my ears in protest and I need some dinner.

Whinge.

Also, I do think one of my hamsters has bollocks...

The Saga of the Hamsters, or, “Be a girl…please be a girl…you’ll like it...”

The good news is I have my hamsters. The bad news is I may end up with more hamsters than I bargained for.

When I went to the pet shack, there were only two Chinese hamsters in the tank, a bigger browner one and a less big, less brown one with redder eyes, just like on Saturday. I thought to myself disappointedly that they hadn’t got any more in yet. However, I thought I’d check in case my hamsters had been put aside or something like that. So I said to the two teenagers who seemed to be staffing the place that I wanted two the same sex, and they began to catch the hamsters in the tank.

I was fairly convinced that these were the same hamsters that were there on Saturday, but they examined them both and told me they were the same sex. They also dropped one of them from a height of several feet, filling me with horror – falls can hurt Chinese hamsters and you’re really really not supposed to drop them.

So both hamsters are in a cardboard box, awaiting my pleasure. I try very hard to explain that these look like the same hamsters that were here on Saturday, and that the man told me they were different sexes. I’m not sure if I made sense. The teenagers repeatedly insist that they are the same sex, and that they’re sure. I feel confused and unable to express myself; my resistance is eroded.

On my way home with the hamsters, I remembered that Therese, the wife of one of the staff, is or used to be, a vet, so on my return I pleaded for her assistance in (1) checking for horrific fall-related injuries, and (2) scrutinising the poor mites’ genitalia. The good news is, no broken bones. The bad news is, she doesn’t know how to sex hamsters, but is nonetheless dubious about their being the same sex.

The bigger browner one (Hermione) is definitely a girl. The smaller one’s (Lucita/Luke) genitalia look different, though this may possibly be because she is younger. Or a mutant. By the time boy Chinese hamsters are 8 weeks old they have enormous testicles, so it may be possible to tell within a few days. I have scrutinised him/her myself, and I suspect I see the beginnings of testicles, but I cannot know. And s/he wriggles.

So, my troubles are:
- Lucita/Luke might impregnate Hermione while I am waiting and seeing.
- If they are different sexes I will have to take at least one of them back to the shop.
- Probably both, because Chinese hamsters aren’t that sociable and introducing a new one into the tank may well be a recipe for disaster if Hermione/Luke has made it his/her territory.
- Therefore, I can’t let myself get attached to them yet.

I am therefore really quite stressed and distressed by the hamster scenario, and unable to think about anything else. Hence long post about hamster genitalia. Sorry.

Counting down

Aaaaaagh, I have to WAIT to get my hamsters!

I have decided upon a pair of Chinese hamsters, and I have contingency plans for when I leave Mexico. However, I really don't want lots of little hamsters, so they have to be del mismo sexo.

I went to the hamster shop yesterday, and it was closed. Possessing my soul in patience for an hour or so was bad enough.

When the shop did open, I went in and explained that I would like two of the same sex. Man catches first hamster, and turns it upside down. It's a girl. Ditto second hamster. It's a boy. No more hamsters.

So now I have to wait til Tuesday. I may have died of impatience by then. The really annoying thing is that when I first saw them on Thursday he had three.

On an entirely different note, I just googled 'possess' to make sure I was spelling it right, and this website came up second. Given that it is real it is really quite scary, but, also, hilarious (and arguably my sense of humour is slightly skewed).

Remember kids,
Demon Possession is very much alive in this Century and this country...And we're not talking about eating contaminated grain, either!

Adventures in Cuisine

Before I left the UK, more than one person suggested to me, with varying degrees of malicious glee, that I might find Mexican food rather too hot to handle, having something of a hypersensitivity to things like chillies. A foreboding which, I must admit, I shared.

My first real encounter with Mexican cuisine came on the second Tuesday I was here, which was also the first time I met David, my Boss Proper, he having been in Nairobi at an Important Meeting. He’s very funny, sharp and often self-deprecating, full of strong opinions and interesting stories. I don't always find him easy to read, but I like him a lot.

So this Tuesday the whole Communications team went out for a meal en masse in honour of my arrival and the birthday of one of the team, up to El Molino de las Flores, which was once a mill and is now a national park – crumbling colonial buildings and handfuls of restaurants, where hordes of escapees from Mexico City apparently come at weekends.

I was saved from the agonies of choice by Mike, who ordered a load of food for me to try whether I liked it or not. I recommend this method of dealing with menus. First up was some tasters of mole, which is a kind of soupy sauce apparently painstakingly prepared with millions of ingredients, with as many recipes as there are cooks. Mole verde was rather hot, and I did begin to have misgivings, but it was followed by mole rojo, which was also rather hot, but exciting because it is savoury yet made with chocolate, and quite strangely chocolaty and tasty.

It has been suggested to me that Mexican food basically consists of lots of things with different names that are all in fact all tortillas with stuff on, and I can’t really refute that, as all kinds of delicious tortilla-esque things arrived in a neverending stream at our table. Tlacoyos, my new favourite food, are a kind of maize tortilla in the shape of a pitta bread, with refried beans inside (or other things), and on top onions and slices of cactus and cheese and a herb that I suspect is coriander but I’m rubbish at herbs – and man they are so good! I also just had to try a quesadilla (tortilla with stuff in) with huitlacoche, also known as maize smut and a bit of a local delicacy. People thought they would put me off by telling me it’s a fungus that grows on stored maize, and with its murky black colour, but as if I wasn’t going to be excited by the opportunity to eat smut… and very tasty it was too.

No Mexican meal is complete without some form of cheese, preferably fried, so I had a quesadilla with cheese too, and tried some of Mike’s con flors (fried squash flowers, delicious, and both pleasing and peculiar to be eating flowers), and politely declined my colleagues’ offers to try their quesadillas with sheep’s brains. The best thing about all this was that it’s customary to add the hot sauce yourself from a dish on the table, so I could be – very – sparing. I’m planning to build up my tolerance slowly…

All of these delicacies were washed down with bottles of guava juice and tamarind juice in exciting colours (baby pink, dubious brown) – though this being Mexico there is more sugar than fruit involved…

It is also traditional for a motley crew from the centre to go out for dinner on Tuesday evenings, which I have been doing religiously in an attempt to be friendly and get to know people. So obviously I had no choice but to go out for dinner twice in one day… to an Italian restaurant that does decent pizzas and ‘white coffee’, warm tequila in espresso cups (they’re not licensed to sell spirits)!

My other Tuesday night excursions so far have included:
- a Japenese Sushi restaurant, with a distinct Mexican twist. My meal included – of course – fried cheese.
- a superb Italian restaurant owned by one of Mike’s wife’s brothers/cousins, with Mike’s son’s art on the walls – it’s that kind of town. My food was amazing, and I think every course did involve cheese – cheesy herby bread, caprese salad, the best steak I’ve ever eaten (not that I’m exactly a connoisseur) topped with cheese and tomatoes and stuff. I could even have had cheesecake for dessert, but we were all too full. Periodically the lights went out; I thought this was a perfect murder mystery scenario and someone should be found dead when they came back on again, but everyone else seemed to think this was a bit weird…
- a Mexican restaurant, unofficially ‘The Hole in the Wall’ that has apparently had the same menu for at least 17 years. Shockingly, my meal contained no cheese, though they do do a mean starter: a dish of melted cheese, with optionally a couple of mushrooms or bits of bacon or whatever floating in it…

Did I mention that Mexicans like cheese?

a question

Would it be terribly wrong and irresponsible of me to get a Chinese hamster?

They live 2+ years, so I'd have to find someone to look after it when I leave Mexico. I already have a volunteer for short periods if I'm not here!

I reeeeeally want a pet. The other option is a kitten...