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On Friday night we attended the “Corrida de Toros” in the Plaza de Toros here in San Luis Potosí for the first time.  We went with our new exchange student from France and our friend Lillian (who is surprisingly well versed in this subject.)

Bullfights are one of those things in life that you either enjoy or don’t.  Fortunately we all fell into the “enjoy” column and had a great night.

The evening was made even more interesting when one of the bulls sent a torero flying through the air.  Fortunately he was not hurt badly and quickly resumed the bullfight.

I won’t go into all the details—as the pictures below speak for themselves and I’ve also posted a video clip.

If you ever have the opportunity, I would recommend going to a corrida yourself (and if possible invite a smart Mexican friend that can explain things.)

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfighting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torero

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_de_San_Pedro

Life here isn’t always beer and tacos—some days we have to get dressed up and try to behave ourselves for a few hours.  Once such event, was two weeks ago when all the Rotary Clubs in the city held a formal dinner for the annual changing of the “board of directors” for each Rotary Club. 

Things were supposed to start at 8.30pm (punto) with the marching band/honors to the flag scheduled for 9.00pm.  We were running late and arrived right on time at 8.30—only to discover that we were still amongst the first ones there (we’ll never get the timing thing right..)

Fortunately, the speeches were short and the food and music were quite good—so we enjoyed the evening.  Of course all the newspapers were there and once again we ended up it one of them.

We just got back from a week-end in DF (Mexico City) after not having visited for almost two years (other than directly to/from the airport.)

When it comes to being a tourist destination, Mexico City has a very bad reputation (I won’t repeat all the reasons here—but even Mexicans warn you about visiting it…) 

However the more I visit Mexico City the more I am beginning to like it..and this past week-end was one of the better trips yet:

- the sunny was shining both days (I don’t remember sunny days on previous trips)
- it was the week-end making it was much less busy (during the week it’s insane)
- we’re slowly getting the hand of things

We did some touristy things while were—but one of the real reasons for the visit was to check out some restaurants/food places that interested us.

One of the restaurants on our “to do” was the Beer Factory which is a small chain of microbreweries in Mexico City.

They bre six different beers….three of which were really good–Coyote, Coronel and Luna Llena.  (They also do some sort of fruit mix + beer thing—but that just doesn’t seem right to me…) 

However, what really closed the deal for me was that it was “duck season” featuring seven different duck dishes!!!  Danielle and I shared the tacos de carnitas de pato and the pato al chile ancho y naranja both of which were really good (I would have ordered more of the pato al chile ancho if I thought I would be able to eat it…) 

And to finish it off, we had one of the largest and tastiest crème brulees that I’ve had in years.

Probably not a good choice for most tourists to Mexico City—but if you live here it’s definitely worth a visit (even though it’s very strawberry.)

A few weeks ago, I posted about finding Unibroue beer at the Superama here in SLP.  I made a second trip back the next day—and bought up all the Blanche de Chambly in the store

Unfortunately since then I have made several trips back to the store—but they have not replenished their stock of Unibroue beers   I even tried ordering them through the store’s website—but even that didn’t work (which surprised me as Superama is owned by Walmart—and I thought their supply chain would be able to handle my order for only four cases of beer…)

Fortunately this past week-end we made a trip to Aguascalientes (about two hours from SLP) to visit a former exchange student—and while there I was able to relieve their Superama of their entire Blanche de Chambly stock (16 bottles) and find Stella Artois in the Soriana (24 bottles.)

However, this supply won’t last long (too many people know about my “beer treasure”.)  So if there’s anyone in Canada planning a roadtrip to Mexcio—please let me know so that I can make the appropriate arrangements….

Navigating bureaucracy in any country is a nightmare—and Mexico is no exception.  However, after a while you slowly figure out how things work and you’re able to predict what roadblocks you’re going to run into…

Last week, I had a full dose of bureaucracy when I went to file my “declaración anual” (ie. Mexican tax return.) 

Filing a tax return in Mexico is much easier than filing a tax return in Canada—but it’s still not fun.  Most people just need to logon to the website and confirm all their information and then file their return right there.  However, to get your tax refund you need the interbank codes for your bank account—and if your refund is greater than a certain amount, you need to “digital sign” your return with a private key (PKI certificate) that is issued by the government.

Of course, I had neither so I had to make a visit to the bank to get my interbank codes (and at the same time I wanted to be setup with Internet access.)  However I was quickly told that my current bank account could not be setup with Internet access—so I had to go through the process of setting up a brand new account so that I could have internet access.  Of course I had to provide “proof of address” (the fact that I already had an account at the same bank and even gave them my bank card wasn’t sufficient—but I was ready for that.)  And in less than an hour I walked out with a new account, a security token for internet access and an extra 90 pesos (which I won when I deposited money into my new account.)

The next day was my appointment with the SAT to get my private key/PKI certificate so that I could file my tax return and receive my refund.  Once again a lot of paperwork, a USB key for my private keyfiles and about 15 minutes taking photos, scanning documents and then an electronic fingerprint of every finger on both hands (we’re talking serious security—the Mexican government now has more biometric data about me than the Canadian government.)

That night I was able to logon to my bank account and file my tax return!!!

Now I think I’ve been in Mexico for too long…

One of the things that I’ve learned living in Mexico is that availability of specialty foods can sometimes be unpredictable…..

Today I went to the Superama to buy some Dutch ‘speculaas’ cookies that we had bought there before—but was surprised to find that they no longer had them (or even my favorite LeClerc Chocolate-Raspberry cookies.)

However my disappointment didn’t last for too long as two aisles away from the cookie section I noticed some new beer being displayed—and front and centre was “Blanche de Chambly” (my favourite wit-bier—it’s actually better than Hoegaarden) with three other Unibroue beers located near by!!!!

Of course I couldn’t stop smiling and quickly grabbed a good selection for home consumption (as you never know how long it will be available for…)

Welcome to Mexico Unibroue…