Miércoles, veinticinco de febrero de 2009
If you want time to accelerate, just go on vacation. I began my winter sabbatical, what seems like yesterday, on Jan 12th, and I now have only 3 weeks remaining. I might not gather much sympathy from my readers, but HEY! It’s all about me! (lol)
I was talking to some friends before departing the frozen tundra and asked if they had ever been to Mexico. Many had an affirmative answer but upon further questioning I learned a completely different perspective of “Mexico”.

1. Were there high-rise condos in your Mexico? Oh, tons of them. All up & down the beach. And there was always somebody trying to sell us a timeshare.
2. Did they take your American dollars or did they only trade in pesos? Oh, we never even exchanged our dollars. What is the value of the peso now anyway?
3. Did you have to order in Spanish or were most of the people bi-lingual? Heck, we don’t know a single word in Spanish, but where we stayed you didn’t have to. If they want my money, they should learn English. Oh, we know the word for beer. Isn’t it: Cervasa?
4. Was your local tienda strictly Spanish speaking? What’s a tienda? We ate out every meal.
5. Did you wander through any of the local neighborhoods? Heck no! Are you crazy, you can get killed walking the streets. We stayed at our hotel the entire time. It was all-inclusive. Why would we want to leave?

My response was, “You have never been to Mexico! That might be your perspective of it, but that is not Mexico. It is more like a gathering of thirsty sun-starved lemmings.” I got a haircut yesterday at a local salon where no English was spoken. That is a great experience. My friends all said that it looked good. (and I believed them) I will add that if you haven’t travelled to the interior of Mexico, you have not experienced the real Mexico. If can pronounce the names of the towns, you are doing well. I am guilty of the lack of such travel, but that will be corrected with next year’s plan.