It had a very strong start, with one of my students in my last class bringing 'chilaquiles' from his restaurant for me - really tasty: mushy tortilla chips in salsa and refried beans with cheese and onions... Then followed by a solid gym session, only to return home to 'enmoladas' for dinner, basically cancelling out all the calorie burning I'd done in the past hour haha. These were SO good I remember making the 'mmmm' noise even though nobody else was around (I eat late on gym nights). 'Enmoladas' are rolled up tortillas in mole - the chocolatey, nutty, chilly sauce. It's so rich but absolutely incredible I loved it.
Once I'd returned to earth following this wonderful new food experience, I gathered myself together and headed down to the main square to meet the rest. We sat in Los Portales (one side of the main square where there are lots of lovely little restaurants) drinking clericot - similar to sangria but with pieces of melon and papaya - and watching the traditional dance of Veracruz: El baile Jarocho. It's a really beautiful dance with steps a little like Flamenco but a cooler dress. Following that, after a slight cockraoch trauma which left Laura and me with our legs up on the chairs for fear of more appearing and crawling on us, which ultimately led to me getting the chewing gum from the side of the chair (who does that?!) stuck to my trousers, we headed to the little park in the area of San José to try the best 'esquites' in Córdoba. 'Esquites' is a kind of sweetcorn chowder. It's basically sweetcorn, hot water, chili, mayonnaise and cheese, and you mix it all together to make this incredible snack which also definitely counts as one of your five a day (though nobody in Mexico seems to care about this). To our utmost disappointment, possibly due to our late arrival due to the necessity of the 'esquites' and the fun we had playing in the free park gym beforehand, Chelacháchá was full. Despite us now knowing all the bar staff and being possibly their best regular customers, they have not yet decided to have a table constantly reserved for us, so we had to head a few minutes up the road to Billiards, a sports bar where you can play pool, to have our chelas (beers). They showed the WWE fights which I was really shocked at until Matt told me yesterday that they're all choreographed and not real... Had a good time but it was no Chelacháchá and in fact I miss it now!
Saturday was a beautiful sunny day so Matt and I went to the ecological park mentioned in the guide book with blankets and a picnic. It was so lovely and the food was delicious, though the ants seemed to think so too... we had to strategically place crumbs to lure them away from the good stuff! We had a wee sunbathe and watched the world go by. It was so nice. We also laughed as it looked so much like a date. We are spending far too much time together that we have actually started to say the same thing at the same time which can be a bit freaky. It's a good job Matt isn't into girls cos otherwise I think Peter would feel slightly uncomfortable about all of this haha.
Caught up on X Factor (of course - now that Ashley's in it, it's a must see!) on Matt's computer as he has this special thing that allows him to watch British TV that I haven't yet found for Macs. Enjoyed making bitchy comments about the contestants and felt very proud and excited every time I saw Ash - it's so exciiting!!!
In the evening we went out in Orizaba, another city about 20 minutes away in car where we met Fabian, another English teacher at UTCV who lives there. We spent most of the night in a funny little bar which had strange pornographic comic strips on the wall and showed Jackass type videos but which had £2 cocktails. Not that I'm still converting to GBP all the time but so that you all understand the price :) It was great cos not only did they keep bringing us snacks but they had Mexican bingo, which we WON (prize was a big bucket of cocktail!) AND they put on KARAOKE! We all had lots of fun and had a little boogie. When we finally left the bar at about 3am Fabian took us to another more quiet bar where they carried on drinking but I was already drunk and being a good girl did not have any more! Matt and I got a taxi back which got us home at about 5am - totally gonna be able to stay til the end of Cindies now, no problem. I'm hoping Mexico will make me more hardcore in this respect haha.Today was more relaxed. Matt and I went for a dominoes hangover cure, then called for Los Danielles at their house. Chilled with them for a while then went to see a play at the theatre. It was a stage production of the Diary of Anne Frank which was quite good and I feel good and cultured now after last night's shenanigans haha! There was a cute little craft market on in the main square which we wandered round a little bit and I tried sweet maize cakes. Really liked them - reminded me of coconut cakes in texture. We then walked to the Casino and I lost 50 pesos :( it wasn't like the casinos back home but just those machines where you try to get a line of the same fruit or number etc. Matt doubled his money and Daniel won too, but us girls just lost our money which was sad but it was quite fun, especially when I won a line but it gets gambled away so easily! Only downside really was that we ordered food and my salad arrived an hour and fifteen minutes after I ordered it. Matt got his like straight away and the others got theirs at staggered intervals. Safe to say I wasn't best pleased, despite it being a nice salad when it eventually arrived (and full of lots of goodness to make me feel less bad about being mean to my body over the rest of the weekend) so I did not tip. Big statement in Mexico. Oh and today a crazy skinny long-legged wasp stung me. This was the first time I'd ever been stung so it was a big shock and Matt laughed at my massive overreaction but it is still hurting me over 12 hours later. I hope this is normal...apparently insects here are more poisonous than other places because of the heat. Great.
Anyway it is bedtime. Night night xxxx
p.s. I've skipped telling you about last weekend in Mexico City. Will come back to it at some point.
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