Mexican Holiday

(MALINALCO, MEXICO) Currently in the gorgeous garden of the country home of our friends Nick and Jim in Mexico. We´re in the first stages of our trip which began on Fri. Somewhat weird vacation in that at the beginning of July, I began to get headaches after reading and concluded I needed new glasses for my aging orbs. The same thing happened to me last year before vacation and I had to go through about a few days of adjusting to the new specs while trying to relax upstate.

Anyway, we arrived in Mexico City Fri. Jerry had come down with a bad cold. He stayed in bed at the apartment where we were staying while I went out with Nick and Jim to soak my throbbing brain in margaritas. It actually worked and I forgot the dull ache behind my eyes thanks to the lime flavored booze.

Nick writes a blog on Mexican food (it´s linked on the side, I´m too relaxed right now to put in a direct link) and has written a guide book to Mexico City.

Sat. Jerry was almost fully recovered and we looked around the city. Had breakfast at a place called the Barracuda diner which featured American food. I had pancakes. We went to a musuem and saw an exhibit of a French artist who did nothing but black shapes and designs. We went to the University and saw two Rossini one act operas. The kid in front of us checked his cell phone three times. We decided not to sit through the second one and went for dinner at a very nice restaurant.

Sun. we drove to Malinalco where they have a weekend house. They live off the rents for the apartments they own. We´re thinking, do we (Jerry and I) want a life like this?

Observations: black market DVDs and computer programs are a big deal here. Jim and Nick took us to a place that had dozens of them for 30 pesos or about two bucks. I got Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact for next to nothing. The first was missing the first five minutes, the second was intact but both were in English. People were selling bootleg versions of Windows and Abode for like $10. I still haven´t written up the first episode of Project Runway or the next to the finale of Work of Art.

Nick is a big fan of old movies like me. We might force Jerry and Jim to watch Carmen Miranda.