Fiesta Americana - Guadalajara

... light in time to identify my assailant as a fair sized cockroach! However by the time I grabbed a shoe to batter it with, the ****er had disappeared beneath my wardrobe.

I have since become somewhat paranoid. Where will it crawl next time I sleep? Not my face? Or will I awake to find a scorpion in my bed or a tarantula spinning its web around me? Tonight I'll be applying plenty of insect repellent before bed and sleeping with a loaded gun beneath the pillow...

... at salsa dancing I decided that it might be best to take some of the lessons available in the bars here. We arrived back late so the next morning I decided to skip classes in favour of a birthday lie in. This gave me plenty of time to catch up with a few friends from home and recover in time for the festivities that night.

Alba is an extremely liberal hostess; kindly allowing me to throw a house party here and invite whomever I ...

... of Tequila and Mariachis it is still a distinctly Mexican city.

On the first weekend I took a walk with Isobel and a few of the Americans down the railway tracks near our house. After about half a mile we reached a shanty town next to the line, where we spoke with a few of the local inhabitants. One was a former gang member from East Los Angeles, who had been deported from America and was living estranged from his family there. His story was just one of many similar ...

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Maria Theresa is my new host family, although she lives by herself. She´s about 65, and spends most of her days in the house, cooking, cleaning, and watch TV. She has a big family, all of whom live in Guadalajara, so most afternoons I end up playing soccer with her 6 year-old grandson, Mauricio (they call him Mau, pronounced like Mao, which is a pretty bomber nickname in my opinion). Maria has been so friendly and generous since I moved ...

... named "Wing's Army," a bar decked out in olive and camo decor, and last but not least, the famed Calle Los Tacos...more on that later) . Also, weirdly, there are tons of stores selling office furniture. The main avenues here are broad and feature fountain-laden medians that are paved with orange tiles. Most of the streets are lined with oak and palm trees...definitely a beautiful place!
The historic district lies on the other end of town, a ...

... in a shop, and a hairdresser near the bookshop. Going to the hairdressers was the biggest mistake of the day. I couldn’t speak Spanish and the hairdresser could not speak English. I showed her a picture of what I wanted, she refused to do it. Maybe she thought it would look bad, but more likely no one ever asked for it because it was not a Mexican style, and therefore she didn’t know how to do it. Sick of the communication breakdown, and excited by ...

... better. As I explained last week, I get miserable when I'm not feeling well- a misery that fuels loneliness and spirals down, down, down. In an attempt to minimize that yuckiness, I e-mailed a lot of friends during my snotfest, and, nice people that they are, friends started e-mailing me (even some that I hadn't e-mailed first! Serendipity!). As I was reading updates and well-wishes, I got to thinking about what an incredible group of ...

... euros) so it was really good value. Off we went looking for a bar, and found a very tipical Mexican Tavern, which had a massive collection of Bullfighting memorabilia on the walls, including some massive stuffed Bulls heads. The beers flowed long into the night, and even the odd Tequila too, so I'm writing this with a bit of a light head! The beer came in buckets of 6 bottles filled with ice, so they were going down a little too easy! From what we can remember we ...

... of the teachers, used to make people come back to class crying after giving observed lessons over at the IMAC Center every night. I was highly praised after my first teaching practise, observed by him - although he ripped me up the next day! That night, I went back home swearing about him! Hehe... My time in Mexico was really good, although I don't think I made the most of it as I would've liked to, and I couldn't really travel to ...

... parents' home town about an hour and fifteen minutes from Guadalajara. I had been there once before, about seven years ago. I must confess that back then I didn't think much of the town, but this time I came away with a greater appreaction for it's small town charm and pace of life (must be my old age). : ) The first thing we did was drive by the piece of land Susie's mom still owns. Sometime during the beginning of this trip we began talking about how great it would be to ...