Mexico '06 Day 1

Since I was a little kid, I've always wanted to go to Mexico City. Kell was traveling last summer so since she was flying from the DR, I ended up flying by myself down to Mexico City. The flight was fairly unenventful. It was a 4 or 5 hour direct flight down to Mexico City. As we were preparing for the final descent, I could see the city limits. Huge. I don't think there's anywhere in Mexico City where you can see the whole city at one place.

I made it through customs, and asked about taking a taxi versus the metro. I was told to just take the metro. I wasn't sure how it would be, as every guidebook and the State page on mexico advises people not to take the metro, or at least be careful about it. And that women traveling alone shouldn't do it. Well, since it was the middle of the day, I thought I could handle it. Needless to say, I went to the front train which is for women and children only and had no problem.

However, at that point I realized I had thrown away the directions to the hostel at Baltimore. I remembered which metro stop I was staying at and just went there. I found an internet cafe, looked up the direction-asked someone where it was and made it to the casa de amigos--the Quaker hostel we were staying at. I dropped off my stuff in our room and headed out to get lunch. I went for a lunch that was less than $2.5o american and was a 3 course meal. The highlights of the meal were the fresh corn tortillas (made to order) and the green sauce. I fell in love with the green sauce. Of course I had to have a licuado. I think I just had a banana one.

I still had several hours to burn until Kelli arrived at the hostel. Our hostel was a few blocks from the museo de revolucion (Museum to the 1910 Mexican Revolution). I ended up on a free tour and got a history of Mexico that was a little different than what I was ever taught. Very, very interesting. Afterwards, I walked around where we were staying, bought some snacks and bottled water and then headed back to the hostel.

Kell arrived back to the hostel and we had a happy reunion. We then went back out and walked around. We metro'd down to the Zocalo and took a look at where the temple of the sun was. The main street of Mexico City down to the Zocalo was emptied of cars and full of protestors. Needless to say, the protests actually had a family feel to them (there were carnival rides for little kids etc) and we decided to just walk back to our hostel since we really weren't that far.

We were both kind of hungry so we ended up getting tacos. The guy charged us about a dollar for the tacos...needless to say, we didn't go back to that vendor. Gringo priced tacos? Lame. We
walked back to the hostel and crashed.

MexicoDayOne

Mexico Day 2

We started out the day with breakfast with the Quakers. Upon arriving at the Quaker hostel the day before, (our mothers were happier we were staying with them) we found out they did a 15 peso desayuno. It was fruit cereal, egg with zucchini and water or coffee. We ate with the Quakers(Hippy Gringos and a few Mexicanos...good discussion) and then took off for the metro. We arrived at the stop for the museo anthopological and then accidentally went the wrong way. We turned around, asked for directions and made it to the Anthropology Museum.
The Anthropology museum in Mexico City has captured my imagination since I was a kid in Vernal. The museum was huge. I'm sure I could go back and still learn just as I did the half-day we were there. There's 23 rooms in the museum. We walked in about half of them. Kell bought a English audio guide which was worthless and I piggybacked onto a tour. We saw so many amazing pieces. It was the first time I ever experienced museum overload between the pieces, the stories, and it all...it blew my mind. The Aztec and Mayan rooms? Phenomenal. Oh yeah, I want to go back.
Anyway, we left at about 2 and got lunch by the "lake." I had an avacado torta (sandwich) which was just so-so. Afterwards, we headed to the Basilica a Guadalupe. Talk about a crazy ol' time. We got there in mid-day (one of the few days it was hot!) and our jaws dropped. There were 5 different churches dedicated to the Virgin; the new church, the old church, a little church on the spot where Juan Diego had the vision and another one that we never went down to see. All of this is on a hill overlooking part of the city. We went into the old church (which had visible earthquake damage) and then walked up the hill to the church which was on the spot where Juan Diego claimed to see the Virgin. In that church, I really liked the murals on the walls. Anyway, before we left, we walked up to the new church to see the mantle where the image appeared. Interesting, it looked just like a 17th Century religious painting. That being said, I'm really glad we went there.
Afterwards, we decided to walk to the plaza de tres culturas. While walking, we realized that we were walking in a part of town that we probably shouldn't be walking in. We found a bus and went to the plaza which was amongst housing developments. It was a little sketchy, but in reality--parts of DC are much more run down. We looked around, and then jumped on a bus and jumped back off at a metro station. We went back to the hostel and Kelli took her clothes to the laundromat and then had dinner and licuados de leche.

75 And Counting Down the Minutes

The NCLEX is finished - for better or for worse. I was photographed, fingerprinted, shook down, and escorted to my testing station (by very nice Pearson Center employees) for 75 questions to determine whether or not I can practice as a nurse. I spent last night looking up stuff on the internet from people that failed the test as a way to pre-emptively console myself that it was going to be okay if I sucked it up a little.

So with 75 questions, I either passed with flying colors or failed miserably. The beauty of the test design is that you can't tell which you did because everyone finishes only answering 50% of the questions correctly. The key is that you finish at 50% on a higher difficulty level. For more on that you can read about the test here. Surprisingly, reading about other people that had failed was comforting.

With 24 hours until I find out if I passed, I decided to list a few things that involve the prodigious number 75:

1) 75% - a Gentleman's C. Good enough to get you out of Yale and elected to high national office.

2) 75 years ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its lowest level in the Great Depression (you can only go up from here!)

3) In '75, Jaws debuted (and most of the characters survived).

4) Rhenium the 75th element is one of the 10 most expensive metals on earth (if Wikipedia is to be believed).

5) Mona Shaw is a 75 year-old retired nurse from Virginia that smashed up her local Comcast office with a hammer. While we don't condone violence, we commend Mona for her sitcom-esque flourish. Double points if she told the customer service rep "Fo' Shizzle My Nizzle!"

Ziering!!!

I'm going through all my music and listening to all the stuff that I never listen to and have discovered some bands I didn't even know I had. Including the Flaming Lips. Turns out the Flaming Lips made a memorable appearance on Beverly Hills 90210 where Ian Ziering's character said "You know, I've never been a big fan of alternative music, but these guys rocked the house!" What a tool.

To see this amazing lip synched performance - with some awesome head bobbing to the beat by Ian Ziering - check out this Youtube link.

Also, I thought I would put in a plug for allmusic.com, which gave me the information to track down this rare sellout performance. Allmusic is a comprehensive database of musicians, their discographies, and bios of the bands. Nothing says love like comprehensive geekiness.

Jason Schwartzman Knows My Name

As long as I change my name to Sylvia.

The Darjeeling Limited played last night in Georgetown and afterwards Jason Schwartzman (yes Max Fischer himself) came to answer questions.

Best question of the night: mine of course. Because Schwartzman renamed me Sylvia as he chose me to ask a question. I could get used to that name. There's lots of famous Sylvia's in the world: Sylvia Plath, Sylvia ummm....

Most moronic question of the night: "I noticed the Ipod is different between the Hotel Chevalier [the short prologue film] and The Darjeeling Limited. Is that character driven?" All I can say is best fan ever!

So the movie: gorgeous, quirky, touching. And I almost cried. If you see the movie, you'll know which scene I'm talking about. The movie reminded me of all the scariness of traveling; hurtling down a track in a foreign country trying to locate yourself on a map so you can get off on the right stops to get to the must see sites. Trying to connect to a foreign culture and the other travelers around you. Inevitably, the most memorable parts of the trip come when your itinerary is blown to hell.

Darjeeling is not everybody's cup of tea (it's definitely not a Diet Coke). According to Schwartzman, the film was a very personal journey for the writers and I think it's the same for those watching it.

Other observations about the film: 1) The race for the train was a fantastic opening sequence. 2) Favorite line: "I like the way this country smells. Kind of spicy." 3) Why is Adrien Brody so hot in all his gangly dorkiness? and 4) The mustache looks surprisingly at home on Schwartzman's face. Anyway, long live Sylvia!

Invaluable Information for Saving TV

And I have a bone to pick with you America - who the hell is watching Dancing With The Stars? You are ruining television for the rest of us. I have recently found out from the futoncritic.com that tv shows get canceled for 1 of 3 reasons (check out the link for the full analysis).

Futon's analysis gives a run down of all the time slots ratings numbers and reveals that 20.5 MILLION people are watching Dancing With B-List Stars That Nobody Cares About And Doesn't Ever Want To See Again (I'm talking about you Ian Ziering). So when my beloved Pushing Daisies doesn't come up with even 1/3 of the audience, the network decides to cancel the more expensive (and infinitely better show) to run more nights and or re-runs of the inexpensive Dancing With The Has Beens (because talentless hacks come cheap).

By the way, kudos to futoncritic.com for providing lists of stats, tables, and exhaustive analyses for the inner tv geek in all of us. Seriously, check out their "10 things you need to know about the new season" for a full rundown.

NBC or ABC (CBS isn't even in the running)

The fall television season is upon us and I think there has been enough time to evaluate the new fall shows and make a plea to watch some of my favorites so they don't get cancelled.

To Watch in no particular order:

1) Pushing Daisies (if only to hear the narrator say "muuuurder" over and over against a technicolor background).

2) Ugly Betty (if only to watch Mark and Amanda out razzle dazzle each other).

3) 30 Rock (because I can't get enough of that Liz Lemon - Jack Donaghy magic).

4) Chuck (super-spy geeks. What can I say... I'm in love).

5) Friday Night Lights (and I don't even like high school football or Texas (just kidding Texas, but your ego can take it, I'm sure)).

Please don't let them die ("I believe in fairies" *clap clap* "I believe in faries).

Funny how none of CBS's shows make the list. Funny how CBS has put all their eggs into the Reality Show Basket in lieu of an original idea.

Colorado or Cleveland?

These are the hard choices. Both are underdogs (relatively speaking). One has Grady Sizemore, one has an entire infield of some of the most graceful/kickass players in baseball. I know, I know it's premature to assume Cleveland is going to the series, but c'mon, the Red Sox pitching staff couldn't carry them through the Congressional softball leagues at this point, let alone the playoffs (no offense Beckett).

An aside...Is it self-respecting to crush on a player from afar after you find out that he has a groupie fan base that calls themselves "Grady's Ladies"?...

A further note from the major leagues: MLB gameday webcast is much better than ESPNs. Why am I so interested in baseball? Distraction. Up to 5 hr and 14 minutes of study distraction in some cases. There's only one October and there's only one NCLEX.