Up until last night, I was planning on naming this post "...Are Out of Town" (in conjunction with my last post, get it?): half my class went to Mexico City and the other to Ixtapa. Of course, I was staying in town because my "dadiolo" (as the goofball's been been signing his recent e-mails) is visiting me here. The whole fam's been pressuring him to come down to Mexico to finally apply the Spanish he's been studying for over seven years, and I'm proud to say that my being here might have given him cause to finally pull the trigger.
His Spanish is still pretty uneven, but luckily he's traveling with our friend Mark (pictured above, left), who has known me since the wee age of three (his son was my first childhood friend in preschool) and has traveled to Mexico every year since 2000. We met up at the central cathedral and had dinner in the Jardin de Las Rosas, but they had been traveling all day and are both in their fifties, so they retired to bed before too long. They did get to meet my Rosalinda and Shayla, though, and even dragged them into a predictably-strained conversation about US border control policy, which made for some humorous miscommunications. But Rosalinda told him I was like a son to her, which was a surprisingly poignant moment for me, especially since I'm leaving so soon.
As if that picture doesn't give it away, my Saturday Night was a little more eventful. Liza and her host sister Janeth (also my buddy Evan's girlfriend), along Janeth's friends Jugo and Miguel, took me to my first gay bar (in any country), and it ended up being the most fun I've had here in a while. I was initially intimidated when we walked into the release party for the new gay Mexican lifestyle magazine "Gnutral" (or something like that): everyone was watching several leotard-ed young lads in the center of the bar dancing flamboyantly to Madonna, and the trans gender uh...person in the photo above kept grabbing random guys to dance with him/her. It would seem that the insane amounts of homophobia in Mexico forces the gay youth here to develop a strong sense of community, because everyone in the place seemed to know each other.
There were actually a lot of very attractive women there, but obviously most of them had no interest in me and I didn't feel like too eager to step into that psychological minefield. But as I learned on Wednesday night, sometimes the sense of obligation to hit on girls can totally sink the bar/club experience, and since this obviously a non-issue, I simply danced my ass off to the various disco/electronica sounds of the night and was far happier for it. At one point a rather older gay male started hitting on me rather poorly (I said it was hot in the bar - guess what bad line he replied with?) but luckily Eliza and Janeth (above, to the right and left of me, respectively) danced with me for the rest of of the night to keep him away. I mentioned before that I may have a thing for Janeth, and the endless simulated-sex that is club-dancing didn't help matters, but I'm trying not to let it worry me.
I closed out the weekend with my first Mexican futbol match, between our local Monarchs (perpetually in last place of division one) and Atlante FC. Although it took me and Ethan a half hour to wait in line for the game and it ended with the lose-lose situation of a 0-0 tie, it was a beautiful day and the spectacle of watching soccer where people give a shit (aka, outside of the United States) was worth it. With so little time before I'm leaving this beautiful country, it's hard not to feel the separation creeping in already, but also makes me appreciate it's abundant cultural riches even more.
2 comments:
Cyrusuuuuuu~
I had no idea your dad was studying Spanish! Holy crap. Yeah my dad does self-study, and kinda like your dad, he went with me to China to finally pull the trigger. Crazy! We're like clones, all of us.
Heh... I think we just hopped to a gay bar on Nate's 21st in Santa Cruz. Remember the "blow job no hands"?
Anyway, yeah my last few nights in China went pretty much exactly the same way you did. I was also gonna tell this one girl I liked her but... meh. She told me she's never even had a boyfriend before, so I took that as less of an opening and just thought about it too much. Oh well.
By the way dude, you just totally remind me of Bret from Flight of the Conchords. I think it's mostly the fact that he's a "small" (lol David Bowie) curly black hairy dude, but on a personality level.. yeah. Anyway I purchased the DVD the other day and I am LOVING it.
I'll save you a visit from dreaded facebook and relay you my current status. "Vicodin+Icecream= YumYum (btw I had surgery today)"
~Busuraian
Yeah, the Spanish studying thing is why he's been recording his voice mail in "Spanish" and calling himself "Dadiolo." As eccentric as he is, I don't think he'd start doing that completely out of the blue.
And I didn't know that was a gay bar. Hmm... that explains why there were so few girls.
Speaking of which, sounds like you got a raw deal with that girl. Being the first boyfriend is usually too much pressure for me. It's like George from Seinfeld says: "they always remember their first - I don't want to be remembered!"
And I'm flattered by the Flight of the Concords comparison, actually. I saw those guys perform at Sasquatch, and I don't think I've laughed so much in my entire life. When I return and am forced to sleep on your couch due to unemployment, we're having a marathon of that show (inbetween rounds of the Prince of Tennis video game, of course).
And damn, I may just have to try that Vicodin + Ice cream combo. We have the latter in my house, and since this Mexico, I should be able to pick up the former at my local pharmacy if I tell them I stubbed my toe.
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