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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

It’s been 4+ months since I last posted–but I’ve decided to start blogging again…

This past Sunday Danielle and I attended our second concert at the Teatro de la Paz in the center (picture below.)

The concert the SLP Symphonic Orchestra performing the music of Queen.  We attended a Orchestra London “Jeans and Classics” concert back in 2004 which was very similar–but I would have to say that the concert here was actually better (even though Orchestra London allows you to have beer and pizza while enjoying the concert.)

Now that I am blogging again…keep watching for lots of “old” content over the next couple of weeks…

from http://mexicotoday.blogspot.com/2007/05/sad-but-funny.html

President Felipe Calderon of Mexico has announced that Mexico will not participate in the next Summer Olympics . He said that, “Anyone who can run, jump, or swim has already left the country.”

Funny–but the part about everyone leaving the country is sadly true.  When talking to people here (outside of Rotary and the university) it’s amazing how many have either spent time working in the US–or have family there right now. 

Emigration to the US (both legal and illegal) has a major impact here in Mexico.   Economically speaking, remittances from the US to Mexico are >12 billion USD and reach almost 20% of the population.  The social impact is also significant–many families are split up with the parents working in the US and the grandparents taking care of the kids here in Mexico.

This past week, Danielle and I were planning to have a few days of quiet, normal life (last week-end was pretty tough on us.) 

However, on Monday afternoon Barcelo caught me online–and invited me out for cochinita pibil with the “guys” (“solo varones”) on Wednesday.  As I have a serious weakness for cochinita pibil (it’s the Mexican equivalent of pulled pork) there was no way I could turn down the invitation. 

The “guys” were an interesting group–most were in their 50-60s and it included the harbour captain, a lawyer that we always seem to run into and a few retirees.  There was lots of beer and brandy to drink as well many interesting discussions.  However it was the cochinita pibil that truly made the afternoon.  As Barcelo is originally from the Yucatan, it was made in the traditional way (lots of anchiote chile, slow cooked in banana leaves and served with marinated onions and homemade habanero sauce.)  I somehow managed to eat six large tacos and a small baguette loaded with cochinta pibil (yeah…I really, really like it.)  Lunch went on a little longer than I expected (I didn’t get home until approx. 8pm) but it was definitely worth it.

Fortunately, Barcelo has also promised to make cochinita pibil for us when he and Mari come to visit us in Canada. 

Saturday was quite the endurance event–we had no idea that we would be at the vela for almost 10 hours (that’s a lot of eating and drinking and dancing…)

Here are some photos that I took.  As always, we had lots of fun!!!! 

Danielle has already posted about the Fiesta de Pueblo / Salina Cruz that took place this past week-end–however there’s so much that happened that I thought I should post as well….

Below is a picture of the main square this week-end.  They put up a thatched roof (to provide shelter from the sun) over a large portion of the square in front of the stage and then setup hundreds of tables and chairs.  As we were with one of the “princesses” of the fiesta, we always had a a great location (albeit with the same uncomfortable wood fold-up chairs as everyone else.)

The most incredible part of a vela is always the traje and jewelry worn by almost all the women present (fortunately men only had to wear black pants and a guyabera.) 

Of course, they planned the unofficial song of the Isthmus a few times.  You can see them dancing to La Sandunga here.

(There were also fireworks–but that’s a completely different posting!)

If you noticed the lack of postings over the past week, it’s because Danielle and I did the “semana santa” thing this week.

Semana santa (“holy week”) is the week before Easter when good chunk of the population of Mexico takes a vacation.  Prices anywhere near a beach increase between 50 and 100% and even the beaches near us that are normally deserted see thousands of people over the course of the week.  From a Canadian perspective, it’s like March break and every summer long week-end all rolled into one!!!

Knowing that the beaches near home would be insane, Danielle and I decided that we would visit Chiapas for the week and avoid the crowds.  However we quickly discovered that it’s not just beaches that Mexicans flock to during semana santa–and instead they’ll go anywhere that has water.  Fortunately we survived our 2,000km road trip around Chiapas without being trampled by the tourist hordes.

We’ll be posting stories and pictures over the next week.

Our favourite sentence is now “Chiapas…es llenado de mexicanos”….