Tequila!

More adventures from my first week in Guadalajara.

Tequila is a small town about an hour from Guadalajara. Surprisingly enough, they make tequila there. My camera died before we started the tour so I only have some pictures from the town. This is our drive out. There's hills here!

Guadalajara - week 1

Tomorrow will mark 2 weeks in Guadalajara. I've been pretty busy, thus failing to write much about what's been happening. I'm going to post pictures and tell my story that way. Mostly because it's just easier, but also because Mexico is a such a colorful and rich place, I feel like you can't just decribe it, you have to see it. After getting pictures up, I'll write about what I'm actually doing and all that. So first, we have pictures from my first weekend here. Also Picasa does not like me today and a lot of these pictures are uploading super goofy. I'm just going to get something up, and then I'll try to fix them later.

I'm staying with a host family here in Guadalajara. Saturday we went to a fiesta. This is a shot of the place. Mexican time is no joke. We were there for about an hour before many people showed up.

At this point my comprehension of Spanish was still (and is still) very little so I'm not really clear on: why there was a party, what was going on, or how they knew the people.
I think, it was this man's birthday. At least that is what I assume from the mariachi escort in. See them in the back? There were 10 of them.

My favorite part of the afternoon. The food. Everything appears to be fried here. What they're cooking are kind of like sopapillas, but made with corn meal instead of flour.

This is the final result. So you take the sopapilla thing and put some mashed up potato on one and some beans on the other. You fry them (again). Then, add lettuce, pico de gallo, onion, chile, sauce and top it off with lime juice. It's pretty amazing.

And for good measure, some chulupas too. Con lémon. Everything in Mexico seems to be con lémon. Except apparently for the beer. I find this a little ironic.

This is a tamale. In this part of Mexico tamales are often wrapped in a banana leaf. This one was wrapped in a banana leaf and a chile pepper. It's pretty good, the banana leaf adds a little bit of an earthy flavor to the maiz. It's kind of a bananay hint, but not sweet or anything. Traditionally, the filling is meat but in reality it can be anything. This one was filled with steamed chopped vegetables. I had one today filled with cheese and mushrooms. Yes. I ate it. Mushrooms and all. I liked it, just not the mushroom part.

I'm not really sure where the tenth mariachi went, but he's around somewhere. It was pretty cool listening to them. I have a video, I'll try to get it up eventually. Everyone knows all the songs and all the words and sings along.

 

This is about where I get really lost. All the sudden two nuns came out. Apparently bits involving nuns are popular here. I can see that. Judging by the reactions, it was pretty funny. I understood very little of it. Microphones coupled with really fast speaking are a bad combination for me to understand.

Okay, more pictures to come! Enjoy.

For Andres...

Last week a friend of mine passed away very suddenly. He had a seizure in his sleep and just like that, gone. I graduated with Andres. In a class of around 100, news travels fast. I got a call later that day, a voicemail saying that something awful had happened, call back. I stayed off Facebook, tried to concentrate during the rest of day and finally heard the bad news from a good friend.

I appreciate hearing bad news from someone who loves me. It makes the world seem much less harsh. I still remember the completely out of the blue phone call telling me that not only had Julien's cancer come back, but he had lost the fight and slipped away without telling us. I still cry for Julien. For the person he was, the person he could have been, should of been.

Andres was a good person. He was fun loving, kind and sincere. We were never close, but in a small high school, you're never far from anyone either. Most of my memories are of andres trying to make me laugh, and make me feel welcome in situations where he knew I was insecure. He was that kind of person.

It wasn't until I saw a friend of mine comment that even though he's gone, she knows he's in heaven and that gives her comfort. It's always seemed really hallow to me, saying someone is in a better place. Then I started thinking, really thinking about what that meant. For me, it means that even if Andres isn't with us, even if he can't continue to share his joy with the world, even if we don't get to see what he could do here, it means this isn't the end for him. I'll still get to tell him, one day, about how I meet some awesome Ecuadorians in Brazil. How Quito is on my list of places to work now. These things that, just last week I was thinking I should say.

For me, following Jesus has been a choice I made because I believe he has the best life for me. Now I realize that that 'best life' could end tomorrow. But because of the choice I've made, if my life did end tomorrow, I know what's waiting for me. I made my choice for my life but I have never been more thankful to know of the eternity I will get to spend with friends who didn't get enough time. Until eternity, you'll be missed Andres.

Rio de Janeiro

Last Saturday I woke up very early, drove to the airport, said goodbye to my family and spent the next 20 hours flying. It was a long trip, getting off one plane, walking to the next gate, and getting directly on the next flight. Twice. Anchorage - Seattle - Atlanta - Rio.

First, about training, because it's what I spent about 50 hours of my week doing and I genuinely enjoyed it. Our class was 38 people coming from 10 different countries. Mostly Latin America, but also two other Americans, a Chinese girl and a Saudi (and a few from Trinidad which doesn't seem very Latin) We were 33% women. Everyone was an engineer, most were assigned to their home country. Being the minority is something that doesn't happen to me often. I felt like the only one not fluent in another language, one of the few for whom English was a first language. If you like diversity, meeting new people, strange, new and exciting experiences, I would definitely apply for a field position with my company!

I thought the training was very well done. They spent the majority of the time focused on health and safety, which I expected. They flew in a French guy (Norbert!) just for our training. Not only did we learn how to (hopefully) not lose a finger, we learned the reasons behind why we should use our bodies the way the company asks us to. In addition to being terrified of losing a finger, I know my body and the way it works better. This is something I enjoy more than simply being told to do something. 'Why' is important to me.

I had many small experiences in Rio. I'll just write about 3 of them and put up pictures!

Steak!
For the first time the company took a training class to a local Brazilian steak house. It was supposed to be one of the nicest steak houses in Rio. I believe it. It was right on the water and we got to drive past the beaches at night and see them all lit up. Beautiful views. We ate first from the salad bar then waiters brought huge skewers of meat out and slices pieces for us at our plate. At first I just said yes to anything then I realized that I was going to have to slow down and wait for the really good pieces to fully appreciate the experience. Simply put it was the best steak I've ever had. They don't give you steak knives because you can cut it with your butter knife. Yum. We also had the strongest caiparinhas I'd had up to that point. It was awesome!

Samba!
On Friday after our training was finished some people had to leave right away to go to the airport. The airport is on the other side of the city and to get there you must travel on the highway that goes through a favella (slum). My company's security policy doesn't allow travel through these areas late at night. Anyway, so our group ended up split up, but prepared for the field as we are, it didn't phase us. At 9 we went and got dinner all together. Steak, beer, French fries (truly the most international food EVER) taken care of we left for a samba club at around 10:30. It was practically empty when we got there and playing American hip-hop. Upstairs was women only with a free drink until midnight. Truly brilliant. That taken care of, and another strong caparinha later the samba music started.

For anyone that's ever seen samba it is VERY fast. In Angola, a friend tried to teach me but I just couldn't keep up. I bravely attempted again. After almost an hour I think i was starting to get it. Apparently the bouncers agreed. The band asked for three girls to go dance on stage, my friend Cecilia ran up immediately as did two other girls. Okay fun. And then my Brazilian friends started explaining that they were asking for me as well. Very specifically. I'm still not sure if it was because I'm American or because of my bad dancing. I think I prefer not to know. Anyway I figured it's not something you do twice so I went. Cecilia is Argentinian and generally can figure out Portuguese so I figured she could help me translate if I needed it. Somewhere out there a video of this exists, but with luck the rest of the world won't be subjected to my bad samba!

Pan de Sucre
Literally translated, this is sugar loaf! A most famous icon of Rio (next to Christ the Redeemer) This is a large jutting mountain with cable car access to the top. From here, all of Rio is visible. After getting back from the club at 4 am and making it to bed around 5 (after many goodbyes), I was agreeable but less than enthusiastic about a 9 am breakfast and 10 am departure to the mountain, but I agreed. I do it for you dear audience. After checking out and leaving my luggage in my friends' room we set out.

We took a taxi to the base of the cable car. The experience is best described in pictures simply because the view was so amazing.



This is sugar loaf mountain! Look at the tiny cable car!


The first stop. You can see a favela!


More of the city.



The very famous Copacabana. Of course it's winter in Rio right now, and the beach is not very appealing. Thus why it's empty.



And my favorite picture from the top. I actually have better ones. Just not anymore awesome ones.

Anyway I have more pictures, I'll be putting them up in a web album is anyone is curious.

Now my interactive question of the week: if dismembered, which finger is worth the most (in terms of company payout)?