First Impressions

Well, since I´ve been here before, I should really call this entry "second impressions." Guanajuato is a town of about 100,000 people about 4 hours north of Mexico City in the middle of the country. It was the home of the first Spanish mines during the 16th century, and because of that, it´s always been relatively rich. The State of Guanajuato was also the flashpoint for the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, so there are a lot of important historical sites regarding that, which I´ll write about at a later date.

The city is amazingly beautiful. It´s located in a huge ravine, the lowest street of which used to be the river that ran through the city. The river was diverted so that is passes below the city, and I read in this book that they raised all the buildings 30 feet in order to accommodate this. The city reminds me of San Francisco because everything is on a hill. There are so few flat places that they are all used for either plazas, or more normally, soccer fields. The streets wind up the hills, and there are for all practical purposes no maps of the city because some of the "roads" are really just footpaths. Also, because of the topography, the houses are all packed on top of each other, so when I´m lying on my bed, I often can´t tell where street noise is coming from: the house, people walking what seems like right next to my winder (which is on the second floor), the houses across the "street" (although it can hardly called that), or the houses to the back of the house, which are located across one of the house´s terraces. Noise just floats in.

The family I´m living with is very nice. It´s an older couple, Eduardo and Lucrecia, and their two adult sons, Carlos and Oscar, and Carlo´s wife and son. This shows one interesting thing about Guanajuato. Because this entire state has become so popular with retired Americans and Canadians, housing prices have risen considerably while salaries haven´t, so just like Barcelona, young people find it hard to move out of their parents house. Eduardo and Lucrecia have two other adult sons, who have moved out, one in Guanajuato, and another "far away" as Lucrecia said, which could mean Mexico City for all I know.

There´s another student who came in late last night, Arwin, from Australia, via Cuba. He´s about my age, and he´s taking some time off to travel around learning Spanish (sound familiar?). He goes to Spain after here. In my class, there´s an older man from Norway who also has a year off from work and is traveling around learning Spanish. I guess my idea isn´t that original, huh? Actually, I´m happy to meet other men in the same situation because it makes what I´m doing seem less strange.

Also in my class are two young women, one from Texas and one from Quebec. We all seem to be a similar levels, which is convenient. They definitely placed me in the correct level because, weirdly, we were talking today about exactly what we were talking about in my last week in Barcelona.

Being here but being able to speak much better Spanish is an interesting experience. Since I was here previously, I kind of know where things are, but since I can explain myself and what I´m doing, I´m a lot more adventurous. I figure if I get in a tough-situation, most probably getting lost, I can figure out how to find my way back.

The other big thing that´s happening in Guanajuato right now is this huge arts festival called Cervantino. It´s actually one of the reasons why I decided to come here in October. There are tons of different arts events happening every day until the 21st, and according to our teachers, during the weekends, the population can swell to 1 million, all crammed into the not very big central square. I´m going to try to see as much as possible. Every year, the festival has a country of honor from whom they invite their best acts. This year it´s China, and some of the Chinese acts look incredible. Last night, however, I went local: a concert by the University of Guanajuato orchestra. I had heard them last year in their normal venue, and they were excellent, and once again they were fantastic. They played a completely over-the-top sinfonia by Mahler, which included a soprano, mezzo-soprano, and an orchestra, and a part where some musicians play their music in the lobby. It was really great. While I was listening, I was thinking, how weird to be in Mexico, which a lot of American romanticize as this place of indigenous culture, listening to a German symphony, sung in German by Mexicans, with a completely multi-national orchestra (lots of blonds). It was great, and it´s really in the spirit of Cervantino.

So there will be a lot in this blog about the festival, I´m warning you now. Also, I´ll leave you with a great reading recommendation. Currently, I´m reading Tony Cohan´s "Mexican Days." He's an American living in San Miguel de Allende, about which he wrote a book in the 1980s or so. But this book is really about how Mexico has changed, and the limits of expatriotism. He also has a great description of Guanajuato. My favorite line from the book right now, and a sentiment that I had come to on my own (and the reason why I would probably never move permanently abroad), is: "Even among adventurous souls . . . who would always choose freedom over belonging, in the end it was often blood, family that drew them back."