neděle 18. září 2011

2011-08-13 Tequila trip


Our saturday trip began already on friday evening, because the organisators threw a party so our livers could get used to it...Even though the start was scheduled for half past nine, I was the first of the students there, when I came at eleven. This evening is also the source of my terrible experience with michelada. At about 1a.m. it was very hard to get to the bar, so I, very responsibly, went home at half past one (the bar location was better than ideal, about three minutes walking from my flat).
In the morning I woke up early to catch the bus departure without any problems. After getting a bag with some snack and a great t-shirt "Yo no quiero agua, yo quiero tequila.", I found out there are two different trips that day and this isn't the right one.
After finding my group we hit the northwest road to Tequila. Our actual journey began quite finne, everybody got a can of coke with tequila and half the way there was somebody going round the bus and pouring tequila. Just before stop another delicious can and then the town tour.
excellent drink...
Tequila square
After the walk they drove us to a distillery. They showed us what to do with agave, gave us some samples to taste and a lunch after that. Then some of us participated in a typical mexican entertainment - pinata. The chosen one drank a shot of tequila, was blindfolded, spinned a few times and started to hit the pinata with a stick. I guess the pictures are much better than my explanation.
El jimador
an attempt to hit pinata
So the link to the gallery is here: http://kubakozlik.rajce.idnes.cz/2011-08-13_tequila/
And also a video from the trip I found: 



úterý 13. září 2011

Something about the school

A couple of days ago I've discovered a very nice video from the university, so here it is:

Life in GDL update


So I have a place to stay now! If you'd like to send me something, this is the address: Vallarta 2759C, Arcos Vallarta, Guadalajara, Jalisco, 44130, Mexico (please, no drugs, it's a bit sensitive theme here-at least for the police...)
Zvětšit mapu
It's about 40mins walking to the centre and between 30 and 50mins by bus to school (depends on traffic, driver's abilities and mood). Very close there are many bars and pubs -> the locality is ideal :)
I can go to school only by bus 629B (or by taxi). The problem is it shares part of the route with lines  629A, 629-1 and 629-2, which end in other parts of the city. Considering they told me the agglomeration of Guadalajara, Zapopan (where the univeristy is) a Tlaquepaque has about 7 million of people (GDL itself 4), I have not much of interest in testing where they go.
Of course, there are almost no bus stops, you just wave at the bus and it stops. Or not. For this reason you can sometimes ride a bus for more than a kilometre and then stop four times in fifty metres. Once I took a bus, the driver drove us around the block and told everyone to get out. I guess he wanted to take a nap or buy something to eat.
The drivers tend to tune their buses, so many times you can read a quotation from the Bible or a picture of Jesus. Anyway there's no need for warnings that you must hold a pole...If you don't, you end up probably in blood within first acceleration or braking - they really race here.
If there's a lot of people in the bus you can enter the back door; then you send the money to the driver by other passengers. Sometimes a spicy fruit seller enters the bus and tries to do some business. I must admit, they are successful from time to time.

It's hard to spot, but there are spinners on the back wheels...

In any case it's quite common to see soldiers or policemen driving a pick-up while others stand at the back. They look quite serious with their submachine guns. I haven't seen a single policeman without a bulletproof vest yet...
Local police cars...I haven't had the courage to take a pic of them myself yet.

As for the weather, it's very nice for me almost all the time, from 25 to 30 degrees and a lot of sun. Now the sun sets a bit after eight.

There are some photos from a trip to the local canyon  (Barranca de Oblatos, a valley about 600m deep, unfortunately you can't go down to the river) and some from the school: http://kubakozlik.rajce.idnes.cz/2011-07_mexico

I have to share the worst thing that has happened to me here: michelada. It's a mixture of spices, lemon juice, tomato juice and beer. I can't say it's terrible.It's much worse. To explain how much I was disgusted, let's say I's rather eat broccoli  than drinking this again...

neděle 11. září 2011

First moments in Guadalajara


¡Hola!
So there's a brief review of what happened since I departed from Prague.

I'm alive and the 16 hours spent in planes wasn't so bad. I was just a little bit nervous in Atlanta thanks to a customs officer - still don't know if he did that on purpouse or was incompetent - tha fact is I had to spend an hour waiting in his line (which was disturbing knowing I had only two hours to change the planes).

Landing in Guadalajara (from now on mostly GDL) was without any problems, there was only a storm on the horizon. The customs in Mexico are partially a russian roulette - you have to push a button and a green or red light go randomly on. Although mine was red, the customs officer barely looked into the bag (probably was amused enough by talking to me in spanish...)

After that I started looking for a tourist information centre. What a surprise, there isn't any. As well as any person speaking english. Anyway I managed to get a cab for 270 pesos to the city centre. The driving style is quite different from what you can experience in the U.S. Just after moving off the driver showed me that he's not willing to be slowed down by other drivers, so he took a one-way road in the opposite direction. After that in 60kph limit (where everybody was doing between 80 and 90) he set the speed between 100 and 130.
After a few vain attempts to find the hostel I wanted I ended up in this hotel:


I guess this is enough for the first article. Sorry for the delay of english version, I'll try to catch up soon.
P.S.: link to my gallery: http://kubakozlik.rajce.idnes.cz/2011-07_mexico/