Roadtrip!

On Sunday night I returned home late from a very 'mexican' weekend. I impulsively took up the invitation to accompany my mexican friends to Aguascalientes, a town 6 hrs north of mexico city, for a weekend of parties and seeing friends. This group of friends I had met at the beach a couple of weeks ago, and they were heaps of fun -so I was really excited about this trip! And yes, it was a wild time.

It was a weekend of learning plenty of rude words, dancing, screaming our hearts out to spanish pop and passionate rock music at night on the highway and generally just being young! I have to say, even if you're not a passionate person, there is something about spanish rock that disarms everyone, and before you know it you are wailing like a sentimental desperado. It's priceless.

The random factor was quite amusing. On the road we passed through the town of Dolores Hidalgo, where in 1810 the 'Grito de Hidalgo' (Cry of Hidalgo) was sounded by a local priest, thus starting the war for independence from Spain. Of course we passed through the town with a jubilant wave of our arms and a grunt of 'argh, Gue', as all Mexicans seem to say. We also had to pay 200 pesos ($20USD) to a policeman on the highway... just because. But we played a trick on him by giving him a 200 peso bill that was ripped in half, so useless. We really stuck it to the corrpution, eh?

Anyway, here are some ´poser´ shots of me and Nuri, Pepe and Joselita at the Ranch of our friend where we partied, as well as a photo of the extended gang of merrimakers.

In other administrative news - I have been having orientation this week with the other international students (a mountain of french people! we chide them for not speaking spanish, he he!). Today we visited Coyoacan, a gorgeous quaint colonial suburb where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera lived. Loved it. The whole life story of the pair - Frida, a crippled, suffering artist, and Diego, a celebrated muralist with a firey temperament - could not be more interesting. Add to this their fanatical Marxism, Frida's affair with Trotsky, and the brilliant art, and it certainly is one for the history books.