Mexico Observations Part 2

Most of my observations from my post in January still hold true except for the stuff about the weather, but I have some other interesting tidbits that I thought I'd share.

• If you need patience, then Mexico is a place for you to learn. If you're trying to improve your ability to be prompt, then going there is not so much for you.
• It's normal to sit outside in 95 degree Fahrenheit weather and have hot soup as part of your meal.
• Oddly enough, on my fourth trip there I finally learned the Spanish word for chips: totopos. The kind of chips they have there are almost as to-die-for as their salsa.
• The music there is very eclectic. I heard a variety of music that ranged from the latest hip-hop to Kenny Roger's greatest hits from the 70's and 80's to M.C. Hammer's "You Can't Touch This". Oh yeah, and I also heard some "Denise B" and some "Lerwick Home" in someone's car on the way to GM. I wasn't aware before that I knew so many celebrities.
  
• Who would have thought the first time I would do pilates would be in Mexico? It wasn't too difficult to follow along because of the visual aids, and it was a good way to learn the Spanish word for "legs". I'm also a master now at counting to ten.
• When meeting someone for supper, it's acceptable to say "I'll meet you at 7:00, 7:30." Now that's my style. I can handle having a half hour time window where you're considered to be "on time". And, when they said that, what that really meant was that we ended up meeting them at 8:15.
• We say General Tao, they say General Chow.
• I got some great tips on how to make salsa. Now all I have to do is get around to trying them....
• The German in me still wants to recoil every time some Mexican wants to do the kiss greeting thing, particularly when I don't know that person from Adam or Eve. If I know the person well, then the German just cringes slightly. And, it's a little bit awkward to determine whether the person wants to give you the Mexican greeting because you're in Mexico or if they want to give you the staid American handshake because they know you're an American.

Now on to my favorite part - the delicious food:

• pan de elote (a kind of bread cake thing made with sweet corn...mmmm...mmm...mmm)
• trombo (sometimes called al pastor - it's pork BBQ'd on a spit usually eaten in taco form)
• totopos and salsa
• guacamole and limes
  
• fajitas, tacos, and aracherra - I had some average ones, but I also had some that were so good I couldn't quit.
• mangos
• grapefruit soda/pop
  
• The two things I missed the most were peanut butter and pasta. I did manage to get a pasta fix a couple times (once at an Italian restaurant), but apparently George Washington Carver didn't indoctrinate the Mexicans. I was told good old PB is expensive down there.

And finally, we get to the people and pictures. Here's yours truly being her usual goofy self.




Angela, Benjamin, Jean, and Karina were kind enough to take me to some meetings and to the Cola de Caballo.

















While at the Cola de Caballo, we got to see some interesting wildlife. Here's a picture of the tadpoles that had partially formed into frogs.




Contrary to popular belief, I actually was in Mexico on a business trip. Check out the cool (not literally) smock you have to wear for static discharge protection. Modeling in the picture was done by the assembly line workers. The plant did have air conditioning, but it didn't make the plant feel "cool", mostly it just made the temperature in there bearable, and sometimes at 3 or 4 in the afternoon it wasn't even that. You could sit in a chair doing nothing and feel the sweat trickle down your back on a couple particularly hot afternoons. When I went upstairs to the engineer offices, they had the full AC treatment, and it felt like the arctic there.

Below is a picture of some of the engineers (and one of the engineer's wife) that I worked with while I was down there.

Here's the challenge question: Which one of these men in the picture is not a Mexican?





The strangest wildlife that I saw on my trip was actually not in Mexico, but at the O'Hare airport as I was waiting for the rental car bus to stop and pick me up. One of the strains of cicadas was hatching in Chicago, so I got a picture of a cicada on the sidewalk. You only get to see that strain once every 17 years. Not only that, but I saw a guy take his suitcase across the lanes of traffic over to a grassy area on the other side, and then he proceeded to change from jeans to shorts right there where everyone could see him. I almost took out my camera for that too, but in the end I refrained.


That's it for the marathon post, folks.