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Published: March 10th 2008
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Church , Celaya
With purple tree. Im lucky apparently cos theyre only in blume once a year right now and theyre certainly very nice Alright Gringos
Last leg of my trip has now comenced. Mexico, or more specifically Celaya, a largish town and hour or so outside of Mexcio City. I am currently living with my Uncle Paco, his wife Koko. their son, also named Paco and daughter Veroncia. Pictures too follow. Theres also two large kinda podgy dogs and we all live very happily in their beautiful marble floored, multi-on-suite-roomed maid attended remote contolled garaged house. We dont have a pool or anything , but hey, you pay peanuts you get shit.
The town itself is kinda odd. it has an old historic centre with your standard large market, genorous sprinkilng of churhes, many statues and oldy worldy looking buildings (see photos). But recently theyve introduced a large flyover highway thing allwoing a quick route to the other cites including the daddy that is Mexico City itself. This has meant lots of commuters passing through and as a result the creation of your standard american suburban fair. We have a Wallmart, a 24 hour Cosco, various drive throughs and a massive Mall thing complete with cinema complex. Its all a bit strange. Convinient though, especially if u need to buy a three
tonne pot of mayonaise at 4 in the mornng.
I went to see another volcano again this week. its become a bit of theme but it makes up for three years of geology not seeing any. infact i saw, climb up (well the jeep climbed) and descended into 5 in one afternoon. Thats not bad going by anyones standards. There all extinct now, infact one of them has a small town in the crator. The picture with the girls playing football was taken in said crator. Theres also a picture form the top of the tallest volcano over Celaya and its surroundings. Someone stuck a cross up there. I dont why but it allowed me to take my deep meaningful symbolic photograph. Something to do with religion lookin down on people probably.
i thought i was doing alright with old spicy Mexican food. This disillusion lasted three days and ended in a taco restaurant, chosen by my auntie Koko and attyended by various new family members who i hadnt met previously. The tacos werent the problem. They were lovely, spicied pork with onions green peppers and salsa and melted cheese. very nice. no, the problem was something i
Man cooking chilly
My camera would have in all probablility melted had i got any closer. The woman spontaneously combusted moments later. didnt order, somethin which came complimentary (i think people the word complimentary must have been lost in translation at some point. At now point during the following events did i feel complimented). It looked harmless enough, it wasnt on fire, it hadnt melted a whole through the table it wasnt served by te devil himself. Just a grilled green pepper covered in melted cheese. I was pretty hungry so took one from the plate and stuffed the whole thing in my mouth. It took about 10 seconds for the full force to hit home. My head started spinning and my eyes went a bit blurry. I couldnt feel my face so the fact my mouth was on fire wasnt a major concern. My auntie Koko who along with her sister found the whole thing very funny and offered wise word to the affect off "if you think it hurts now, wait til it comes out the other end". I didnt think that was particularly appropriate for the diner table but my mouth didnt work well enough for me to put her straight.
The day after was by now means pretty but i had regained enough of my basic human
Church 2
I dunno why they painted it yellow. They have indigenous mummies in there senses (sense of taste, sense of smell, sense never to try Mexcian people again) to leave the safety of the toilet and head down to breakfast. There i was informed by Paco junior, that i shudnt worry too much bout those green chillies, its the orange ones youl be trying at the bbq next week that uve got too look out for. Im writing the days following that bbq off in advance.
At the weekend I went to the town of San Miguel, bout an hours drive away. My uncle and auntie run a catering service and they had a big wedding and reception booking there in a beautiful courtyard. There was some 200 people turning up needing feeding so they had plenty to get on with when we arrived in the morning so i left them to it and spent the day exploring. On my travels i found out the following things; that San Miguel represents the most expensive non beach adjacent land in Mexico; its the birthplace of the Mexican push for independance from Spain; its full of Americans (aparently its a popular retirement home for people from the states as well as a favourite holiday destination).
The churches here are pretty impressive and numerous. It also has art in a big way, with an Artesan Market and lots and lots of galleries and art shops and people setting up easels (ive no idea how you spell that) left right and centre.
In the afternoon I went back to the courtyard wedding and things were well on track. Tables were put out, food being prepared and the guests due to start arrving any time. The service was to take place in the evening on a balcony overlooking the town and the reception diner and disco to follow in the courtyard itself. I took some photos whilst there was still daylight before anyone arrived cause though a candle lit service and diner is lovely and romantic its not good for the pathetic flash of my camera. This is in no way an advetisment on behalf of my uncle but as you can hopefully him and Koko put on a lovely spread (no cheese and pineapple cocktail sticks though, sort it out Paco).
The evening passed very nicely indeed and smoothly as far as the catering side of things were concerned. In many ways the evenings festivites
Girls playing footall in a Volcano
I dunno which part i find more shocking differ very little from what you see at home with some notable exceptions:
1. No best man speeches
2. Indoor pyrotechnics are common with little regard to health and safety. I was standing next to the guys setting them up and the only clue i got as to what they were doing was when one of them lit the tapper and both of them legged it. It took me a second to put two and two together and by this time things had started exploding. I almost lost an eyebrow for christ sake! they also managed to set fire to many if not most of the plantlife in this rustic courtyard. It was certaintly rustic by the time the fires had been put out.
3. Half an hour into the disco, four 12 foot tall puppets supposedly meant to represent the bride and groom and the brides parents entered the dance floor. The bride and groom puppets joined the actual bride and groom on an elevated stage to join in with their first dance (definately one of the more odd spectacles of my trip so far). The father of the bride puppet had found one the pretty
bridesmaides to dance with whilst the mother of the bride puppet had fallen on the steps on her way to the dance floor and was being helped up by a group of groomsman. Unfortunatly the fall had damged the costume beyond repair and she had to spend the remainder of the party sat at on one of the tables. (not that disimilar to an english wedding reception afterall).
4. No kids at all. It was probably a good thing. If i had been a kid there whod just finished an awesome full length slide acrossthe dacnefloor only to turn round to find a twelve foot bridezilla with enourmous breasts and a mans head sticking out of her rude part looking down on me i would have probably shat myself there and then.
Apparently the party went on til 5 in the morning. I was knackered and they had just put on the grease megamix so made a hasty retreat with the catering team at 1ish. That pretty much completes my first week in mexcio. Chat to yal later.
Adios.
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