Mi Gusta La Comida

It´s been a week now and I've seen quite a bit more of Mexico City. The centre is very impressive, especially the main boulevard (Paseo de la Reforma) which is modelled on the Champs Elysees and so is very wide with many modern high-rise buildings and trees along the pavements, and it certainly wouldn't look out of place in any major European capital. I also visited the Templo Mayor, which was the main Aztec temple in Tenochtitlan (the ancient Aztec capital on whose foundations Mexico City was built) and was, for them, literally the centre of the universe. Only the foundations remain as the building blocks were used by the Spanish to build their own buildings, which is a pity as it must have been a sight to behold. I'm also glad I've kept my old student card as it allowed me to get in for free (at the Templo Mayor as well as the fine arts gallery) even though I haven't been a student for more than 2 years, but hey, you've got to milk it for all it's worth.

Yesterday my cousin Kamiar invited me to a restaurant where they had live mariachi music, which was an exciting experience. Although what probably impressed me most was the food, or more precisely how they cook it: it's called barbacoa (where our word barbecue comes from) and they wrap the meat in maguey (agave) leaves and place them into ovens dug into the ground ... and then leave them slowly cooking there overnight. This makes the meat really really tender (although unfortunately I wasn't feeling too hot so couldn't eat much) and tasty. That definitely has to be something that has been a revelation: Mexican food is much more diverse and interesting than what we are peddled as being authentic Mexican fare back in Britain (where it's basically enchiladas, tortillas, burritos and the ubiquitous chile con carne; none of which, apart from the tortillas, I've actually seen here). Instead here you have delicious tacos (corn tortillas wrapped around some sort of stuffing), my favourite being al pastor - with pork (just don't ask which part), coriander, onions and plenty of lime; or tortas, which are very filling sandwiches that can be served with an almost infinite number of fillings (all of which seem to contain jalapeno peppers); tamales, which are patties of corn paste mixed with meat and chilis, wrapped in corn husks and steamed; and my favourite of all, elotes. Elotes are basically corn on the cob, usually lathered with mayonnaise, sprinkled with cheese and perhaps a dash of chili powder. Nothing special perhaps, but the corn here in Mexico is the most delicious I have ever tasted, and no wonder because it originated here. But best of all is that the food is everywhere: on every street corner you can find a stall selling some tasty morsel at bargain basement prices.

Other things on my "to do" list included visiting the city's main university (UNAM) with a friend of my cousin (thank you very much Ana Paula) who studies psychology there. As universities go it is absolutely enormous, with about 300,000 students it totally dwarfs all the London universities put together. It also has a very strange mandate as the police are not allowed to enter into the grounds of the university and it is completely independent from the government, which means that it is full of lefties and commies. A few years ago this led to a mass strike that shut down the whole university for a whole year, just because they wanted to increase fees from 50p to less than 4 pounds! You certainly wouldn't get that from our apathetic students back in the UK whose only worry is that the beer at the union is sufficiently cheap.

¡Hola Gringos!

Hey everybody. So here I am in Mexico City and my first impressions of it are good. So far I've gone to the central square (the Zocalo) and the markets behind it which are absolutely packed with little stalls selling all kinds of cheap kitsch, pirated DVDs and tacky clothes, as well as a plethora of food stalls. I've also visited the anthropological museum, which is absolutely hayuge and needs a whole day to give you even a remote chance of seeing most of it, and it taught me that there was a far greater variety of indigenous people here in Mexico than I had previously thought. And finally I also visited the house that Trotsky lived in when he was in exile here and where he was eventually assassinated (with a pick-axe to the back of the head).

Today is also Mexico's independance day and so there are street fairs and processions and music and all sorts of other stuff going on. Then in the evening apparently ther are fireworks and more music and drinking, so I'll let you know how it pans out.

Oh yes, one final thing that I like about Mexico: it is the first country that I have ever visited where I am of above average height, wahey! I´ve never seen the tops of so many heads before.

Waiting

It's Saturday night and tomorrow afternoon I'll be in a plane over the Atlantic heading to Mexico. I can't wait to be heading off, not that I don't like to be with my Mum (with whom I've staying this past week), but I just want to start doing something constructive because I get absolutely nothing done at home due to the innumerable distractions on hand. I've packed my rucksack and am proud of the fact that there's still a good deal of room, although it may also mean I've forgotten something very important (not that unlikely a possibility either!). Which is what worries me most about this trip: that due to my scattiness I'll end up forgetting something vital somewhere, or will just make some really obvious, stupid faux pas. It's at times like these that I wish I was one of those anally organised people (like you Adrian), but then, we can't have everything.

So Long And Thanks For All The Pressies

I have finally finished at work and on Thursday I had my leaving do. Now I'm not one to get overly emotional or maudlin but it has been fun working at Abbey (in the most part at least) and I will miss the other teachers who have always been very friendly towards me (and I'm not just saying that because they're going to be reading this!). It also reinforces a deeply held belief of mine, that to be happy/content it doesn't really matter where you are or what you do, as long as you have friends there. Sometimes the most fantastic job can seem hollow if the people you work with are obnoxious and even the most menial employ can be rewarding (although don't worry Dad, I'm not about to become a street sweeper just yet). Anyway, we ended up going to a comedy club, which I found very entertaining (so much so that the next day my jaw was still aching slightly from the laughter). I would also like to thank the people at Abbey (especially Adrian for picking them out) for the very generous gifts that they gave me as a leaving present and I am sure that I will make full use of them on my trip. However Adrian did make up for it by being a bastard and making me drink a tequila, which, I am sure, was the reason I spent Friday morning praying to the altar of Armitage Shanks.

So, so long everyone at Abbey (even those that couldn't make it out on Thursday like Cherie, Don, Debbie, Marsha, Vanessa, Michael and even Thalat) and good luck for the coming year!

Results

This Thursday my pupils got their A-level results. It's a very strange feeling of happinessand relief to see your pupils get the results they need to get into university and to see the joy on their faces because at the end of the dayI'm a disinterested party and probably won't see or hear from many of them again. And yet it probably feels akin to what parents feel when their kids leave the nest and go to uni or get married, etc. but on a smaller scale. It's great to see dreams being fulfilled and knowing that I helped in part to that. The results were generally quite good with some very pleasant surprises (most notably Kam, whom I told, in all honesty, that I didn't think he could get an A, proved me wrong). Then there was also pity for those who had genuinely worked hard and just missed out on their grades. The emotions, whatever they are, are the reason for working throughout the year and the day is definitely one of the high points of the job.

However the whole experience has made me look at the whole admissions process and see its limitations. There are some good points to it, as it doesn't just take into account bare academic results and can allow people from disadvantaged backgrounds to punch above their weight and favours people with all-round abilities. But when I see incredibly deserving and conscientious pupils getting straight As (and not just scraping them either) and not even being given the time of day by universities it makes me think that the process is far too subjective and lacking transparency. And that's a great pity because many worthy students don't make it and others who managed to get shoe-horned into universities (sometimes through very dubious means indeed) not having the standard necessary and probably dropping out after a year, but in so doing depriving somebody more deserving of a place.

These two years have made me notice a trait that is very common among Indian/Pakistani students (and this is no way meant to be anything even resembling a racist slur). South Asians seem to be fixated by professions. By that I mean that they only consider degrees such as medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, optometry and law i.e. ones that train you for a very specific job to the exclusion of all other degrees. This isn't just pushy parents but almost certainly the whole cultural milieu in which South Asians are brought up, which considers these jobs as being far more worthy, and which also places a great deal of importance on monetary benefit and pays scant regard to personal tastes. To me this seems a great pity as on the one hand these degrees are very limiting because they only train you for one profession and make changing careers very difficult, and on the other hand it means that they close themselves off to agreat diversity of degrees, skills and possibilities that they may find personally more satisfying.

That's about it for this post, but just to let you know I'm pretty much ready to go for my trip (I fly out on the 12th of September). Before I finish however, I must give a shameless plug for my travel insurance company that gave me a quote that was at least £100 less than all the other quotes. So if you are planning on getting travel insurance I'd recommend you check out direct backpacker.

P.S. One of my students insisted I mention him in my blog, so just for you: "shaat it Rishi!"

Back To Work

At the moment I'm back at work for a few weeks (until the end of Aug), but luckily there are no pesky kids around. Yay! Also, to ease us in gently after the holidays, this first week we're only in from 10am to 4pm. This post is quite short and it's just to let you know that I have added a link to my yahoo album which can be accessed by anyone (the link is on the left hand side of the page) and there are a couple of photos from Slovakia (thank you Yann). Hopefully I shall be adding more as time goes on so check it out every now and again.

Apart from that I've bought my plane ticket and have a rough idea of what I'd like to do in Mexico. I'm getting quite excited and can't wait to be off.

Thoughts

So here, in no particular order, are some of the nuggets of wisdom I managed to glean from my travels this Summer:

I have come up with a theory that will probably sound familiar to most people who have done any camping on the continent. An unmistakeable facet of camping life is the Dutch. No matter where you are, there is always a Dutch family at the camping grounds, and I have finally figured out why. It is a well known fact that Holland is a densely populated country. However what most people do not know is that it is so densely populated that the entire Dutch population cannot physically fit into the country at any one time. Therefore they are obliged to go camping for at least two weeks every year to make room, and the reason nobody has found out (until now) is that nobody, but the Dutch, speaks Dutch, and so nobody has been able to infiltrate their clandestine Camping Ministry (or is that just an Amsterdam gay bar?).

I have also noticed a masochistic tendency that seems to appear whenever I go on holiday: I have an insatiable urge to ascend any and every available vantage point, be they towers, turrets, minarets, mountains, hills, steeples or spires; if it's got steps, I'll climb it (and usually pay for the privilege). It seems rather odd, as it goes contrary to my general nature of only doing the bare minimum that is required (and even then I usually do less). It's a very worrying affliction and I was just wondering whether other people suffer from it too, or whether I am the only one.

Another thing that I have noticed is that as Czech continues to develop economically, tastes are beginning to change, especially culinary tastes. As far as I'm concerned, the knedlik (dumpling) is the cornerstone of Czech cuisine. It's very much a comfort food and is very cheap and easy to make, and therein lies the problem. The knedlik is probably thought of as being a poor man's food and is therefore being weeded out of restaurant menus due to this stigma. Ten years ago it formed the basis of every meal, nowadays there are few restaurants that will even offer it for dinner; so for those of you who have not yet been to Czech I'd urge you to go while there's still time before this culinary gem disappears from eateries completely. All of which just goes to show that although the march of progress is inexorable, it is not without its victims.

On a more serious note, it has been a useful practice run for this coming year, and has highlighted some things that I need and some that I don't. Before leaving for South America I shall need to invest in a torch (very useful in a tent at night), a mirror (for getting those pesky contact lenses in) and some hand-washing powder (because laundromats are not always at hand, even in Europe). On the other hand I won't need as many socks (wear sandals instead) or trousers (take up too much space and don't get smelly as quickly as other clothes). I was also well impressed with the usefulness of bungy cords (despite Mark mocking me for reading too many backpacking travel guides and likening me to Robinson Crusoe) as they can be used for a great variety of tasks, such as tying extra equipment to bags and as washing lines.

Furthermore during our travels Yann and I had ample time to watch the people go by and (as you do) we got to comparing the women of the various countries and ranking them accordingly. So therefore I am thinking of following in the footsteps of the illustrious geneticist (and cousin of Charles Darwin) Francis Galton (who has the dubious distinction of inventing the field of eugenics) who made a beauty map of the UK by travelling to various towns and cities and giving the female population a score out of 5 (for some reason Aberdeen came last). Since I'm going to be visiting a number of countries I thought I might do the same, although, of course, it won't be a very rigourous or scientific study (although if somebody is willing to fund me...) but I shall nevertheless sacrifice myself for the advancement of human knowledge.

Grievous Misfortune

The past few days have been spent doing a bit of sightseeing in Czech and just generally lazing, although the sightseeing has been a bit hit and miss.

First off we visited Hradec Kralove, which is about 100km NE of Prague. I wasn't expecting much to be honest, but I was pleasantly surpised. It used to be the dowry town of the Czech queens (That must have been some chat-up line: "hey gorgeous, if you go out with me I'll give you this town". And what did the queens do with the town? it's not like you can wear it, eat it or play with it.) so it has a charming old town, with plenty of renaissance and baroque buildings, and even the new(ish) part of town (from before WWII) is really pretty. And that's another thing that I really like: even though the buildings from the turn of the century are all built in the same style, they are all individual due to their facades which have little statuettes, reliefs and other forms of ornamentation that make them unique. You just don't get that these days. Definitely worth a day trip, although my day seemed to be punctuated by a catalogue of minor mishaps: walking into a bike rack (don't ask!), hitting my head against a low doorway (and I'm not that tall to begin with) and stepping in some dog crap being some of the more colourful.

The next day we decided to visit Telc, which is a beautifully preserved little town with an exquisite old town square (which is deservedly a UNESCO world heritage site). However we didn't manage to get there on our first attempt, as our bus broke down half way there. And since there wasn't any hope of a replacement bus the driver gave us back our money and advised us to try and hitch hike (even though some of the passengers were elderly or very young)! Needless to say the next day we went by car.

Yann left this morning and I've got another 4 days to catch up with some local friends and buy cheap booze before I head back to Brum and work.

Losses And When To Cut Them

Here I am back in Prague much earlier than planned and without having gone to Croatia. "How come? what happened Erik?" I hear the sorrowing multitude implore. Well, it seemed as if the gods themselves were conspiring against us (OK, I'm an atheist, but I like the fatalistic sound of that phrase).

As I mentioned in my previous post it was already a battle to get to Slovenia, but once there we had pretty much the same problems that we had in Slovakia. None of the connections and transport possibilities down to Croatia were favourable for us. We had even managed to figure out a super itinerary, but when we got to the train station at 6:30 in the morning (which meant that we had to get up at 5:20 to pack the (wet) tent, pay for the camping and get a bus into town) to get the train to Pula we were told that it only ran on the weekends; aaarrrggghhh! Anyway, we decided that, instead of making some half-assed compromise to get down there in a round about way, we thought it would be better to cut our losses and return to Prague. On the way back, not to be completely defeated, we also stopped at a Slovenian town called Bled (which the francophones I'm sure will find amusing, at least I did anyway) with a castle (on a hill, of course), which was overpriced (no student reductions!), and a lovely little lake  with a tiny island monastery in the middle.

Despite the trip going pear-shaped towards the end, I am an eternal optimist and like to see the good in everything, and therefore am not wholly disappointed with the trip. Along the way I got to see some pretty amazing sights and learnt more about two countries of which I knew very little to begin with. Anyway, here's the lowdown on Slovenia:

- Slovenia is not at all what I thought it would be like. I thought it would be like Czech, but in fact both the people and the country are more akin to the Austrians and the Germans than the Slavs. The country is far tidier and well kept, people are more respectful of rules and regulations, there's a great attention to detail and, as Yann mentioned to me on several occasions, the Slovenes physically resemble the Germans more than they do the Czechs (more on that later). Slovenia is also by far and away the most developed of the ex-communist countries (I wouldn't be surprised if it was more developed than even Greece or Portugal) and therefore should not be your first choice for a cheap holiday, as the prices are very similar to those in western Europe. Topographically it is also mainly hills, mountains and forests, which were quite beautiful as we drove through.

- Ljubljana is a pretty little city (barely bigger than Aberdeen with a quarter of a million inhabitants) that probably draws many comparisons with Venice (I won't compare it to Venice as I have never been there, although it is on my list...) due to the buildings and bridges by the river (the Ljubljanica). It has a ubiquitous castle on a hill which is worth a visit as well and the tourist information service is exemplary. All in all, for those of you with jobs, it makes a charming weekend break destination.

- I also learnt a few choice phrases, thanks to Mitja, that are apparently intelligible in Serbo-Croat as well: picko materno (peechko maternoh) and prokleto srane (prokletoh sranyeh). Although I can't remember exactly what they mean, they appeared to be in the local vernacular.

 

- And finally, and this one I really like, if you look closely,  Slovenia looks like a chicken. By that I mean the outline of the country brings to mind a chicken. And on that note I'll let you go off to consult your atlases.

Mice And Men

First off a big hello to Marko and Mitja, two very friendly police officers who we met in Maribor, but more about that later.

Plans. As Rabbie Burns once said, they often "gang a-glay" (I'm sure that my non-English readers are going to have fun looking that one up!) and it's no different for us. The original idea was to do Croatia and Slovenia. After a rather disheartening day at Bratislava coach station and the local internet cafe, where we were franticly looking up different possibilities and combinations of getting to Croatia and back, we are now well into Plan D. I won't bore you with all the various permutations of the other Plans, but suffice to say that one involved taking a coach from Bratislava to Budapest, staying the night (somewhere), getting the (very) early train to Zagreb and then, finally, getting a coach to the coast. Now we are taking the car to Ljubljana, hopefully leaving it there, and then going the rest of the way by bus.

All that hassle took up the best part of the day and so we left Bratislava at 5pm and drove through Austria to Slovenia. We didn't really have time to stop in Austria, but I must say, that when it comes to being environmentally friendly, our teutonic co-europeans put us Brits (and the French too) to shame. Just over from the Slovakian border there's a huge wind farm with probably more turbines than in the whole of the UK, even though we have a much greater potential for them. All we do is talk incessantly and bomb other countries, rather than doing something constructive. Then you've got all those bloody NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) who say "we're all in favour in principle, but here it would spoil the view / be too loud / insert excuse here." People have to realise that it's the least worst option and that doing nothing is NOT an option. Oh my god, I'm ranting again, so I'd better get back to the story.

So we get to Maribor (Slovenia's second city with a population of around 150 thousand) at 9pm, it's dark, it's raining and we haven't the foggiest idea as to where to stay. So we start asking around for youth hostels and campings (by the way, even though Czech and Slovenian are similar, and I can understand written Slovenian quite well, it's best to communicate in either English or German as most people speak one or the other). After about 1 hour of getting several different directions and getting hopelessly lost in the process, we were about to give up when we ran into two (slightly tipsy) guys coming out of an internet cafe. We thought we'd give it one last chance and asked them and they said: "yeah yeah yeah, no problems, we know the way. We drive there and you follow us, but first we got to bar and have a few drinks, OK?"

We promptly agreed (as we had nothing better to do, and so started our adventure with Mitja and Marko. We got the bar and had a beer and started talking. They turned out to be off-duty police officers and brothers as well and were very friendly. We finished our beers and they then drove us to the youth hostel, which in the meantime had shut for the night. That only left us with one option: to go to another bar. When we finally left the last bar (after 1am) Mitja drove us back to ours in his car. Even though he had clearly had a few, he said "no problems, I have a permit to drive drunk" and it seemed to be true because we passed several police cars and they all honked in acknowledgement. Upon returning to the car we could only really sleep there, which, looking positively on it, at least didn't cost us anything!

Anyway, must go now, as internet cafes in Slovenia are not as cheap as they are in Slovakia.