August 30, 2008
This week’s column was supposed to appear in the Vallarta Tribune as usual, but it did not. So those of you who are reading me on line will get to share my unedited comments about the week that was.
There is something I forgot to mention in my column last week, which I really intended to share with you. When I was visiting the mezzanine / check-in level at the airport, I heard some beautiful music, which I recognized, one that I love. It was by that wonderful duo, “Arcano”, broadcast from a little stand with a screen showing their performance. A little group of people were standing around it, waiting to pay for the group’s CD, which a gentleman was selling. I went over to ask him WHERE the duo was playing, as I had not seen them anywhere for a while now. He told me that they’re at the sMall Vallarta shopping center downtown, just about every evening. So now you know too. (Unfortunately, the Department of Culture doesn’t even bother advertising them at all.) If you haven’t heard them yet, do give a listen. You might just fall in love with them and their music, like I did.
I have often described or listed the many reasons for which I love Puerto Vallarta, and one of the most prevalent ones is the unpredictability of events in this town. We never know what will happen, but something always does, something new, something we haven’t experienced - no matter how long we’ve been here.
A couple of days after moving down here from Montreal, some fourteen years ago, friends and I were having dinner at La Palapa, on the beach, when one of those humongous sea turtles came up on the beach, right beside us, where she proceeded to dig a hole where she then laid her one hundred or so eggs. It was magical, like being on a natural set for a National Geographic documentary feature. As the years went by, I realized that some folks have lived here for much, much longer than I have, and yet have never been lucky enough to witness this awesome event.
I consider myself blessed. Never does a day go by that something, no matter how small, doesn’t happen to make me thank heavens for being here. Sometimes it’s pleasant and sometimes it’s not, but it’s always the kind of thing that would probably never happen in Montreal. And when it’s something unpleasant, it usually makes us laugh, or at least smile, which always reminds me of my friend Barry’s statement to me so many years ago: “You either laugh, or you leave.” So I’ve learned to laugh - even though sometimes I don’t until “it” has already happened.
Example: As we were negotiating the Grand Slalom course along the infamous Libramiento (the one with the potholes described in last week’s cartoon) on our way to our last fabulous dinner at Barcelona Tapas -until it reopens in October- my friend who intends to settle in Vallarta casually ventured, “I don’t understand why they bother putting in all these speed bumps… What with all the potholes around, you would think that folks would be driving very carefully…” We both laughed. He’s got the right attitude.
Ah, yes, attitude. We see all kinds of ‘em in this town. This town has more interesting characters than a fiction writer could invent in his wildest dreams, and more tales to tell. It’s no wonder that so many books have been written about this place. I remember one acquaintance of mine who wanted to write his memoirs of life here (after only eleven years) and title it “The Last Resort”. For many it is.
By the time you read this, I will be getting ready to leave for my yearly week-long visit with my children up in the Great White North. This column will no longer be published in the Vallarta Tribune, so if you want to keep up with my weekly blather, you’ll just have to read it in this blog …for the time being.
About five years ago, the then President of the Tourism Commission at City Hall was wondering if “Vallarta was losing its magic…” Councilman Agustín Alvarez considered that the main problems that were beginning to damage the city were the deterioration of its image as a “typical pueblito”, public safety, and the tranquility that have all characterized it for so many years. “I think that when it comes to streets, we’ve already gone past the eleventh hour, we are way behind in matters of visual order and efficient transportation, for tourists and locals alike. They have managed to achieve this in other towns and we must preserve downtown Puerto Vallarta as our main attraction.”
Back then, he also qualified as “strange and inexplicable” the decision of the President of the Urban Development Commission of the LVII legislature, regarding the revocation of the license number 190/05, suspending the work, and totally demolishing the Grand Venetian development.
Five years have passed since then, and not much has been done in those respects. The Grand Venetian is just about completed, as are all the other humungous towers whose building permits were illegally acquired. The Mayor who issued them wasn’t even given a slap on the wrist, and neither were his cronies in the municipal government. So what else is new?
I came across a quote I find most appropriate at this time: “The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.” ~ Josh Billings
Nevertheless, in spite and despite everything, we should consider ourselves lucky. Besides, our weather is a whole lot better than so many of the destinations with which Vallarta competes for the almighty tourist dollar, and we have so many more conveniences than they have - while still being a beach resort.
To all my readers, local and first-timers alike, I wish a wonderful stay in this very special place we like to call home. Enjoy yourselves, visit as many places and as many of our wonderful restaurants as you can (of the few that remain open this month), and if anyone asks you what time it is, just tell them that the time is NOW … none better than the moment itself. As my favorite late night talk show host likes to say: “tomorrow’s just a future yesterday.” So live today to the fullest ...and do take care of each other. Hasta luego.
Please note that I have a new email if you want to communicate with me:
sheis@ymail.com and remember you can always read me online here.
August 23, 2008
This was originally intended to be a diary of a couple of days in my life in the «paradise» that is Puerto Vallarta, but it’s turned into a little more...
It all started at noon on Thursday, August 14th. The thermometer showed 36oC (that’s equivalent to approximately 98oF in the U.S.) in the shade. I had to go out to the airport to pick up a friend of ours. As I had some time to kill (even without knowing that his flight would come in late), I figured I would take the day’s issue of the Tribuna de la Bahía with me, to read while I was waiting.
By the time I got there, the car was hot, despite the air conditioning unit working at full force. True, she is 8 years old… I noticed -again- that they corrected the sign that used to read «Nice Trip», which never made much sense to me. Now it says «Have a Nice Trip». That’s better. I walked into the terminal, expecting -and looking forward- to be hit by a wave of cold air, like usual, but that was not to be. As we were all standing there, madly fanning ourselves with whatever we could as the drops of sweat trickled down our faces, I got two different explanations from a couple of the young men waiting for clients of their travel agencies. One was «the air conditioning is not turned on», while the other was «the air conditioning system can’t cope with the all the hot air coming in each time the doors open» …which is every few seconds. Whatever the case, it was most uncomfortable.
I looked around for a place to sit. No such thing. I looked for the screen that normally shows arrivals, it was dark. Nothing there. I asked one of the airport employees if any of the screens were working, she told me that the one at the other end of our now expanded, huge international airport did. As I had already walked the entire length, upstairs and downstairs, looking for Starbucks and a cup of espresso, I was in no mood to undertake the trek again, especially considering the fact that I had put on high(er) heels to look nice for my friend.
I still wanted to sit down, so I went to the little bar nearest the time share enclosure through which all international passengers must pass before entering the airport lobby per se. Having already had my espresso while perusing the various shops on the upper level, I figured a would ask for a Coke Zero, for my friend, which would entitle me to a chair. They don’t carry Coke Zero, and no, I could not use one of their chairs if I didn’t want anything else.
Two gentlemen, airport employees both, were sitting there. They invited me to join them, despite the waitress’ menacing looks. I accepted and we started chatting. «Isn’t is stupid,» one of them asked, «not to let anyone sit down? The other day, I had to go up to my office to get one of the chairs there and bring it down for an old lady I thought was going to pass out. We do our best to welcome the tourists so they’ll have only nice things to say about Vallarta, and look what these bar and coffee shop owners do!» He’s right of course. But who you gonna call? The airport authorities obviously don’t care. I saw an «older» couple sit on the floor. They just couldn’t stand any longer.
«And when are they going to install a clock?» I asked the two fellows. They burst out laughing. The older one asked me if I remembered the huge digital clock that was up on the wall above the now disappeared escalators. I remembered. It was never connected. I think we have the only airport in the world without at clock anywhere. On the other hand, that shouldn’t surprise anyone, especially when we’re talking about the only city with a parking garage built on prime beachfront property.
Getting back to the events of that day, my friend’s flight finally landed, everyone came out of the time share «obstacle course» safe, sound, and unscathed, and we both drove into town to have lunch at ViteA (he had missed it a lot since his last visit a couple of months ago). As we passed the main square, he exclaimed, «They still haven’t painted over that ugly Hooters sign!» Our lunch at ViteA was excellent - as always. It was a beautiful day.
As the evening approached, another friend -with whom we were going to have dinner at Maximilian’s to sample the special Greek menu they’re offering this month- called to tell me that it was raining way too hard for her to attempt the perilous descent from her aerie up in Amapas. A few minutes later, the cloudburst hit Alta Vista.
Some of you may recall the flooding I experienced throughout the house last year at this time. Back then, it was the water and the mud coming down from the various unfinished construction sites up in the hilly Amapas area. Stuff that had previously been absorbed by the earth, the trees and their roots growing in it, now replaced by cement and concrete. But now it was different. Now it was clean, clear rainwater that came in so fast and furious that the city’s system could not cope with it. So once again, out came the brooms to sweep the current of water out of our living room and dining room, and out the front door …while the big bath towels were pushed up against closed doors to stop the water from entering the various rooms along the way. In the middle of it all, one of my kitties found herself stranded in a tree, during the worst part of the downpour. She was terrified, screaming hysterically, which is why I could hear her above the sound of the storm. By the time I got her down, she and I both looked like drowned rats. As I told my friend after it was all over, I felt as if I had gone through three full routines at the gym, not just one. Needless to say, I slept very well that night.
My colleague, T.J., sent me an email referring to what he called our «monsoon season» (some 6 inches in a couple of hours!!!). He wrote: «As a result of the heavy downpour, it would be interesting to check out some of the local underground car baths, er - underground parking facilities - at the new condo projects in the area.» If anyone out there has any juicy information to share on this topic, please don’t hesitate to send us a little email.
When the rains stopped, and my satellite feed of the Olympic Games reappeared, I heard the frogs sing. What a wonderful sound! The background track was provided by the crickets, or cicadas, I’m never sure.
The next day, when my girl Enya arrived, she looked around the house and said, very nonchalantly, «you had another flood, I see.» «Yes, we did, how can you tell? Just because the floors are immaculate?» «Yup.»
We got another rainstorm two days later, on Saturday, but this time, I was a little wiser. I set up my own version of sand bags (using crunched up plastic bags) to block all the entrances the rain might take into the house. There was no rain the next three days, but we did get one of the most impressive, spectacular sunset I’ve ever seen. We always talk about how many nuances of green the mountains sport at this time of year, but that night it was the blues that were incredible, and the fiery red separating those of the bay from those of the sky and the clouds above.
These last few days, the air has been as clear as could be. Every ridge on the mountains on the north shore could be seen. The mountains that surround us are more beautiful than they have been in years, and the Cuale River is powerfully charging forward, running for the ocean, as if it were competing in its own Olympics.Have a wonderful week, dear readers. Keep well and take care of each other. Hasta luego. pvmom04@yahoo.com
Aug. 16, 2008
SHE SAID...…nothing much about “Living in Vallarta”. The only thing that stands out in my mind is the radar traps coming out of the tunnel, in both directions. Watch out, and keep it down to 40 kph, folks!
I’m stuck on the Olympics this week. There is something definitely magical and beautiful that happens during the Olympics, especially among the residents of the host city. If you were around 100 years ago in St. Louis, Missouri, or during the last century in L.A., Mexico City, Montreal, or at the Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Squaw Valley, Lake Placid, or Calgary, you know what I’m talking about.
Differences -and wars- are supposed to be set aside for the duration of the Games, just as it was decreed thousands of years ago. (The decree during the original Olympiads applied to all cities in the realm, not just the host city.) In my particular case, it was nice to see the French and the English speaking to each other, everyone was happy, everyone was friends when my former home town, Montreal, hosted the Olympic Games in 1976 – just as they had been nine years earlier for Expo, our World’s Fair in 1967.
I was lucky. I got to see the incredible «perfect 10» performance of Romania’s then 14-year-old gymnast, Nadia Comenici. It made me very proud to be Romanian too. Unfortunately, the previous Olympiad had been marred by the first terrorist attack – against the Israeli team in Munich, in 1972. They had to whisk Mark Spitz and his 7 world record setting gold medals away, just because he was Jewish too. Little did we know what would happen three decades later... We have to hope and pray that these Olympic games will evolve as they should: in the spirit of sportsmanship and universal friendship. Four years ago, as I was watching the Games televised from Athens, I found it very symbolic that the Israeli judo champ should win his medal exactly on the 32nd anniversary of the massacre of his country’s team in Munich. Now I hear that Phelps, the amazing American swimmer, will try to beat Spitz’ 7 gold medal record.
According to AFP, legendary Spitz won’t be on hand in Beijing because, he says, «no one bothered to invite him.» Is he miffed? Darn right, he is! «They voted me one of the top five Olympians in all time … I won seven events. If they had the 50m freestyle back then, which they do now, I probably would have won that too,» he added. Spitz said it would have been a great idea if he could be the one presenting the gold medals to Phelps, who has for years been candid about his ambition to eclipse the mark of seven golds. May the gods on Mount Olympus smile upon you, Michael!
This time around, with the Games being in Beijing, I find myself getting up at 6 a.m. just to watch the events «live». Bear in mind that I am anything but a morning person, so this is playing havoc with my internal clock. Am I addicted to the Olympic Games? Yes. And yes, of course, I will be stuck to my TV until they end. I don’t normally watch sports on TV, but this and the World Cup (of soccer) are different. I also very much appreciate the advantage of legal and «not-so-legal» satellite feeds than enable us to watch other countries’ viewpoints and reports on the Games. With all due respect to the many qualities of American TV stations, I much prefer the other countries’ coverage of the Games. They admit and realize that the Games are for all 204 participating nations, and just because an American athlete isn’t expected to win the gold in any particular event doesn’t mean that such event should not be covered…
Getting back to these 6 a.m. reports, I must admit that the opening ceremonies in the «Bird’s Nest» were unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, nothing short of awesome, incredible, stupendous; I think that even the announcers ran out of superlatives to describe them. The same thing must have happened in India when Abhinav Bindra became the first individual athlete to win the coveted gold medal for India (in the 10-meter air rifle) thus ending decades of Olympic misery for India, the world’s second most populous nation - and a perennial underachiever at the games.
With the internet being what it is today, it is also fascinating to watch replays and read statistics online – as they happen. However, I never cease to be amazed by the continuous stream of spam that I’ve been receiving lately. It is all directed to my spam box, but I still check it, just in case something important has somehow been categorized as spam just ‘cause I didn’t have the sender’s email address in my list.
So Dr. William Smith writes «It me williams please reply your mail», while others have «URGENT REPLY!» Mr. Geir Helmerson tells me «YOU HAVE WON 1,500,000.00 *CONGRATULATIONS*». Others start with «Dearest beloved, please urgent response needed.» Sounds like the beginning of a funeral service… I guess it makes sense, considering that they go on to tell me about the deceased relative who has left someone or other zillions of whatever currency. If even one of the hundreds of such emails I’ve been getting over the years were legit, I would be a multi-zillionaire by now… I also get a whole bunch of «pre-approved credit» card applications, from all sorts of banks …except Santander! Of course. I’ve only been applying for that one for some three years now… And then there’s the newer rash of «Become a CSI, Anna!» What is that all about? Who, other than my friends, knows that I’m addicted to all the CSI programs on TV? Maybe the Mayor of Puerto Vallarta installed one of his 48 surveillance cameras in my living room, aimed at our TV, so that he could report my viewing habits to those Spam generators… Who knows? At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past anyone. By the way, have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
One of the Canadian Olympians is an incredible 58-year old (yes, you read right!) woman called Susan Nattrass who made sports history at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal as the first and only woman entered in the trap shooting event. She’s been an Olympian for some 40 years! Anyway, she stated in a televised interview that her motto is «If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.» What a wise woman! I think I might just follow her motto too.
Have a fabulous week, enjoy the heavenly sound & light shows, and do take care of each other! Hasta luego! pvmom04@yahoo.com Please remember that you can always find this column here …even if you can’t find the Tribune on line.
August 9,2008
Sorry about my lateness in posting this, dear reader. I'll try to be more punctual in the future...
My original intention this week was to devote the entire column to the breathtaking thunderstorms we’ve been getting every evening recently. Actually, I was going to start it with «It was a dark and stormy night…» just ‘cause I remembered a post on one of the local forums / bulletin boards many years ago, wherein the author wrote about how much he loathed reading my weekly blather, adding that all one had to do to see how self-centered I was, was to count the number of times I used the word «I». Despite the fact that no one forced the gentleman to read my writings, I wondered… how is one supposed to express one’s personal opinion about things without using the appropriate personal pronoun? But I digress…
I also remembered a letter to the editor we received many moons ago in which the author wrote about the summer storms in Puerto Vallarta. She said it all, and very beautifully. However, although she spoke well of the effect these storms have on humans, she didn’t get into the physical (as in physics) effects of the thunder and lightning that accompany these awesome, marvelous meteorological events. Having spent most of my adult life up in Montreal, I was lucky to see the northern lights at this time of year, often. They appear surreal, like something out of a science fiction movie, that’s true, but they’re quiet, totally silent, just undulating up there, way up in some layer of the atmosphere, in soft folds of turquoise and blues. It’s a «sound & light» show ...without the sound.
Vallarta thunderstorms, on the other hand, are anything but quiet. They are full-fledged shows - sound, lights, action! The thunder reverberates against the mountains that surround the bay, amplifying the noise many times over. Sometimes it feels so very close, as if the lightning that preceded it hit the tree next door. And the lightning here dances between the cumulonimbus clouds ...parallel to the horizon, not vertically like the «common» kind! Sometimes it starts at one end of the bay and streaks across to the other.
A few nights ago, there was no rain. But there was a storm raging somewhere way out there, to the northwest. All we could see was the lightning illuminating the huge clouds in that particular area, while overhead the sky was nearly clear, with a bright moon accompanied by myriad stars. And all was quiet - here.
There’s another reason I love this time of year. I’ve gotten in the habit of putting a clean pail outside my door when it looks as if we’re going to get «a good one». The next day, I strain the water into empty bottles that I refrigerate. You think bottled water is good? You haven’t tasted «good» water until you’ve drunk rainwater. It is truly special, clean, pure, and very soft! I do not look forward to the end of the «rainy» season.
Meanwhile, those streets in Vallarta that have been the topic of discussion for the various successive administrations over so many years continue to flood every time we get a big downpour. I saw cars nearly floating on Morelos. By next morning, the sun comes out and the steep streets are dry, but not Francisco Villa Boulevard! I have heard it said that correcting the problem would involve so much tearing up of streets around that area that no administration wants to even contemplate the cost, both financial and social. Nevertheless, someone will have to do something sometime. Maybe mañana... And maybe mañana, the buses and taxis will remember that people –locals and tourists- are the ones they soak as they race through those flooded streets with complete impunity.
Before I forget, thank you to all of you who continue to call me and send me emails to inform me of their encounters with frogs, especially the gentleman who called me to tell me that he couldn’t walk through his patio because a whole bunch of those cute little guys were having a fiesta there, between the street and his front door. After I finished laughing at the image it conjured up in my mind, I recommended that he shuffle his feet, slowly, so as not to step on one of those endangered little amphibians by mistake.
Still on little creatures, my grandson noticed something I hadn’t seen in years, literally: a single little firefly, flitting around my front door, all by itself. What wondrous creatures they are! Years ago, they used to be all over the place in the summer time. I used to turn out all the lights and just sit there, watching them perform their luminous little dances. I wonder if they’re on their way to extinction too, like the bees.
Here’s some trivia for you for this week: Fireflies were a part of ancient Mayan mythology, often being associated with the stars. They were also associated with cigar smoking and may have had at least one representative in the pantheon of Mayan gods. The ancient Chinese sometimes captured fireflies in transparent containers and used them as lanterns, short term of course. At one point, the State of Indiana seriously considered making the State’s insect a firefly, but the legislature never put the measure to a vote…
Ah, yes, legislatures… wouldn’t it be amazing if this town really did end up with a state-of-the-art waste disposal system, for real? I think it might just suffice to counterbalance all the negative points our mayor has been accumulating lately… Well, maybe not. I forgot how many there are.
What else have these legislating bodies done lately? Well, I understand that they’ve reinstalled some of the parking meters downtown, the ones they installed and then removed a few days later, a few months ago. Personally, I’ve given up on trying to find a parking spot downtown, so I haven’t even noticed their reappearance.
On the other hand, I must admit that I find this project of setting up video cameras all over the place … a little unnerving, to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those many exhibitionists I’ve seen around town. No video «watcher» in city hall is ever going to see me walking around the Malecon in a G-string. (I would never subject anyone to such a scary sight.) However, this is getting very close to George Orwell’s vision of 1984, a little delayed perhaps, but still unnerving. It’s okay to promote Vallarta all over the world with Big Brother episodes filmed in luxurious villas up in ritzy Conchas Chinas, but that’s where I draw the line.
On the other hand, if the system is going to function as well as the video cameras they supposedly installed in the police’s patrol cars a few years ago, then we have nothing to worry about. They were never put into operation, despite all the hullabaloo that was made about them at the time. Perhaps there was no one at city hall who could read the instructions…
By the time you read this, the Olympic Games should be in full swing. I hope and pray that no unpleasant events take place. May the best athletes win!
I wish you all a wonderful week, filled with sunshiny days, and thunder-filled nights. Hasta luego. pvmom04@yahoo.com
August 3, 2008
Vallarta is like everywhere else, people share bad stuff. They write letters to the editors about bad stuff. The top items on the news programs and on the front page of the big daily papers …are bad stuff. While the good stuff gets relegated to a sound bite at the end of the news program - like an oddity - or a tiny little insert tucked away somewhere in the back pages of the daily paper.
And every time I note this - consciously - it makes me think. Why have so many, many of us chosen to live here? Why would so many, many of us live here for years and years, and sometimes die here, if there weren’t something so very unique, so very extra-special about Vallarta? What IT is, I couldn’t say. We’ve tried to «put our finger on it», to define it, over and over again. Everyone I know has. But like love between two people, IT is something that is ethereal, impalpable, abstract. It’s an overall feeling. It grows on you and before you know it, you find that you’ve joined the rest of the folks who always have something to complain about whenever you meet them, but who all end the conversations with something akin to «Well, this is where we’ve chosen to live, isn’t it?» Yup. This is indeed where we have CHOSEN to live, and the key word here is CHOSEN. We made our decisions as logical, rational, thinking beings. In most cases, the decision was neither a rash nor an impulsive one. We knew what we were getting into, so there is no one to blame …other than ourselves.
Most of us would like to have all the so-called comforts of «back home» but also all the charm and laid back lifestyle we enjoy here. That’s tantamount to having your cake and eating it too. I used to say that it doesn’t happen. But it does, here in Vallarta. And every time the Tribune publishes a letter of complaint from a disappointed visitor, there are literally thousands who go back home thinking that Vallarta is the best! The Tribuna de la Bahía conducts regular polls among tourists at the airport, so I know this to be true. But these contented visitors don’t write to tell us about it.
Many just come back year after year, and tell their friends about everything they loved about Vallarta, and these friends come down and they too fall in love with our little not-so-perfect-all-the-time paradise. Then they buy some time share, or rent a place, and many eventually buy property here, and that is how and why the number of local expatriates keeps on increasing. And then they experience the little trials and tribulations that we all complain about and they start to complain too. However, if you are among the lucky ones who have made Mexican friends down here, and you sit down to chat with them about all this, chances are excellent that they will respond with something like «You think that’s bad? Do you want me to tell you what happened to me when I was in (insert the name of any big city in the U.S., Canada or Europe here)?» And they will counter your experience with the defective ATM machine with another story that is much more hair-raising, if not scary.
And if you’re talking to someone up north who’s complaining about the cold, or the snow or the ice, you tell them «So why don’t you come down here and warm your bones for a while?» And you respond the same way when they tell you how fed up they are with their job, or how inefficient the local/state/federal government is «there», don’t you? I know I do. Because I know that every one of my friends and relatives who has come down here has left refreshed, relaxed, re-energized …and in love with Vallarta.
So what am I getting at here? I guess what I’m saying is that every once in a while, I feel that I have to step back, take a good long look around, maybe close my eyes for a while before re-opening them to see the beauty around me in a more clear, fresh way, and then remember why I fell in love with this place to start with, way back then. So what if the fellow who was supposed to come repair my computer never came? So what if my friend had to wait two weeks to have his refrigerator repaired after being told it would be ready in «a couple of days»? In the grand scheme of things, it really isn’t a big deal.
My friends and I often joke about what we considered to be «big deals» over the years we’ve lived here. Fourteen years ago, it used to be super special prices on toilet paper, then it became the variety of great cheeses the Mexican dairy industry began to market, then the appearance of new ethnic restaurants in town, but then, with the arrival of Sam’s, Wal-Mart and Office Depot, we had to find other topics of conversation …like the fact that, quite often, something we remembered seeing at Sam’s was no longer there the next time we went. That quickly became a common topic (of dissatisfaction) among the local expat community.
World events are something that I try not to touch upon too often in this space, but with all the natural disasters happening around us, like hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes and floods, I cannot help but think of that movie, «The Day After Tomorrow». And I remember the National Geographic issue with the cover that screamed «Global Warning» in big, big letters, back in 2004. It is filled with satellite photos and glacier core samples, showing the damage we’ve done to our beautiful little blue planet over the last 50 years or so. And then I think of the fight being waged right here in Vallarta by the Ecological Group, and other environmentally-conscious organizations ...and the fact that no one in authority appears to be listening. And then I think of «Soylent Green».
And talking about movies, one of my friends (who shall remain unnamed to protect the «innocents») lent me some of her pirated DVDs she purchased so that I could see the movies that no one else wanted to go see in the theater. Wow! Some of those DVDs are really, but really, bad! I guess that at two bucks a shot, we shouldn’t expect HD quality. Another bit of trivia -which I noticed on the internet- shows Christian Bale at the premier of his Batman movie …in Spain. Over there, they call the movie «Batman: El Caballero Oscuro», i.e.: The Dark Horseman / Gentleman / Knight, as opposed to the title used here in Mexico, which is «Batman: El Caballero de la Noche», i.e.: The Horseman / Gentleman / Knight of the Night. Different countries, different words, different interpretations.
And still on pirated stuff, did you see where China has sold over one million cases of Cerono beer last year? Yes, you read right. The bottles look exactly like the Corona ones, so folks don’t even notice… And I assume that the Corona folks have no recourse at law, otherwise …well, who knows what they could do? By the way, have you got something very special planned for this Friday, the ultra-lucky 08/08/08 day? I guess that if I were a gamblin' man, I would ... Just make sure you have plenty of popcorn and other snacks -and real Corona beer- as you settle in for 10 days of Olympic Games coverage on TV. I wish those beautifully trained athletes a lotta luck as they attempt to survive the incredible levels of air pollution in that part of the world. I don't envy them...
I wish you all a wonderful week. Get out there and enjoy the manta rays and the dolphins in the bay. They are truly a sight to see! Thank you for reading us and …hasta luego! pvmom04@yahoo.com
