At 0510 I knocked on my housemates door.  No response.  I knocked again… still no response.  I started to wonder if he’d even come home last night.  I called out his name and he finally responded.  Good.  I went to my room and waited for him to get up… he didn’t get up.  Ah fuck it, I thought.  I’ll give it ten minutes and if he’s still not up I’ll try again.

10 minutes later, still nothing.  I went back to the door and knocked.  Nothing.  I knocked again and he responded verbally again.  I stood by the door, I considered whether I should be more insistent or should I give him another 5 minutes.  As I was contemplating my next move I heard some movement from his room.  I returned to my room because I didn’t want to appear too overbearing.

He appeared from his room looking very weary.  It was not a comforting look.  Before I could ask how much sleep he had had, he said “Fuck, I’m still drunk”.  Fucking great.  This is exactly what I need to hear.  I could have organised someone to take me yesterday but now?  Now I had no choice.  I would be getting a ride from a drunk man across the border.  This was not looking good.

“I can’t believe I’m still drunk”, he said.  I asked him what time he got to sleep and he said 0330; 2 hours ago.  I told him that, if he went to bed drunk two hours ago, it’s not that surprising he’s still drunk now.  He told me about his night of debauchery with his old friend.  It sounded like a pretty standard night out for my housemate.  I asked him if he was going to be able to do the drive.  I don’t know why I bothered to ask – I had no real other options and my housemate had been a proud drunk driver from way back, why would he feel he couldn’t make the grade now?

I just needed 30 minutes of good luck.  That was it – don’t die in the next 30 minutes of time with my housemate and I’d be home free.  We got in the car and took off, my housemate doing his usual late breaking at stop signs (which he does sober as well) and initially he did a sudden pull of the steering wheel because he thought the car was veering out of the lane, which it was, but not that badly.  His driving smoothed out and, with some additional warning from me about cars approaching, things were working fine.

We reached the car line for the border and it was backed up for about a kilometer.  My housemate decided we’d be better off walking across the border.  This worked well for me; there aren’t any laws about walking across the border drunk.  So we found a parking spot and took off again.

There was no cue to cross the border on foot.  We got to the immigration check very quickly.  My housemate got through ahead of me and started getting questioned by a customs official.  I threw my housemate the keys to unlock the padlock on my bag, if he needed to, he still had the hand-eye coordination to catch them, so that was a reassuring sign.  The lady who was checking my passport out asked a few questions but, probably because I told her I’d be returning to Australia soon, had very few suspicious sounding questions.  She asked if I had anything to declare and I said “not really, just some Mexican clothes – gorros, a couple of ponchos”. She was fine with this and told me to have a nice day.

I walked up to my housemate who was still talking to the customs guy.  The customs guy stopped and looked at me and said “Excuse me, I’m just talking to this gentleman”.  I had approached because it was my bag, and I thought that would be what most of the conversation was about, and I had all the info.  I guess not though, so I went outside and waited in Calexico for my housemate, praying nothing would go wrong.

The customs guy waived me back in.  I approached and they opened my carefully packed and busting at the seams bag.  He was pulling stuff out and eventually got to my bottle of tequila.  He asked what it was, and I told him what should have been plainly obvious.  He asked if I’d declared it to the lady.  I told him I hadn’t and he asked why.

“Because I thought I was allowed to take one bottle of alcohol across the border”, I said.

He asked if I had any other bottles and I told him no.  He peered at the box and asked how much alcohol it had, he seemed to just be looking for problems now, like he was unhappy that nothing was going wrong.  ”It’s 750mls”, I told him and he seemed Ok with this.  He handed me my bag and told me I was free to go.  I grumbled jokingly about the difficulty I’d had packing it.  I’d need everyone to help me get my stuff back in the bag.  The customs guy had dropped one of my ties on the ground and he apologised about it when I picked it up.

We got my bag re-packed and he didn’t check my other bag – he just took my word for it.  Which is fine, because I’d told the truth… but how would he have known?  Ah well, I’m no narco.  We walked across the border and my housemate started bitching about how dumb the customs guy was.  We went and bought my ticket and then I got my housemate some breakfast at Jack in the Box.

It was a great relief to leave without getting stuck in any shit and, I can confirm, my housemate got home safely, didn’t kill anyone while driving (this time) and slept it off.

That’s it folks.  I’m done.  I’ll make a post about LA sometime soon – but the point was to cover my time in LA.  So I’m done.  I’ll see you when I’m looking at you.

My last day was quite sedate.  I got up at 0700 after my harrowing night at El Nido and La Mosca and caught a ride with my housemate to the hospital.  He was supposed to be working 3 shifts today because they needed someone to fill in for other doctors.  This prospect had pleased my housemate because he felt he was becoming depressed and doing unhealthy things because he wasn’t working enough.  He also liked that it would help him pay off his substantial credit card debt.

I liked that he’d be working the night shift because it meant I’d have a quiet last night that I had more control of.  He’d be at work, out of trouble and then, as he’d planned, he’d come back at 0530 the next morning and take me across the border.  Perfect.

We got into the hospital and I went to theatre and hung out there.  I didn’t really go into any operations that day; I was supposed to meet my contact at 1100 for some reason unknown to me.  There were only a few operations on in the morning; an amputation of a diabetics gangrenous leg, which I had wanted to see, but was told to watch from outside as the room would be contaminated.  The leg had, among other bacteria, psuedomonas, which is a tricky bugger to treat.  There were some gastric sleeves being done, but I’d seen my fill of those.

I watched the leg get amputated and practiced my spanish with one of the nurses who was standing outside, handing surgical equipment into the theatre as it was needed.  I also spent time talking to my good friend Edgar.  He’d spent the morning asking me a lot of questions about english.  We’d discussed a lot of pronunciation issues that Mexican’s have and tried to work on them.  Issues like:

Duck vs. Dog
Tree vs. Three
Tuesday vs. Thursday
Bicker vs. Vicar

We didn’t actually discuss the last one, but I couldn’t remember the ‘b’ vs. ‘v’ issue we’d had.  In the average Mexican mouth, which I don’t mean to be offensive, I just mean that it would take an exceptionally conscientious Mexican to pronounce those words clearly, each of those words sounds the same.  In fact, not only do they sould the same when Mexican’s say them, they sound the same, to many Mexicans, when we say them.  I had to repeat the words four or five times for Edgar so he could really hear the difference, and I’m still not sure he got it.  It was fun though.

Edgar made plans to pick me up at 1900 to take me to some bar for my last night.  I went out to find my contact, who was not in their office.  Someone made some phone calls for me and told me to go and wait, my contact would be along soon.  I must had waited an hour and a half before they turned up.  Fortunately all sorts of people kept popping into the doctor’s lounge and having a chat.  It turns out they were doing this because there was supposed to be a party for me to say good bye.  This was delayed.  My contact had tried to organise a Kangaroo shaped cake for me, which would have been fun, but it didn’t come through.  Instead they ordered two big pizzas from Domino’s and two boxes of barbecued chicken wings.  For the longest time, I was the only person eating the pizza.  Everyone sat around chatting, but no-one would eat.

After that there was some paperwork to finalise and then I said good-bye.  I went from my contact’s office to the cafeteria to say good-bye to the staff their that had treated me so well.  I turned up and the girl at the counter said “¿Caldo tlalpeño?”, I thought she was talking about the recipe that I had been promised, so I agreed… it turned out she meant that they were serving it today.  I didn’t really need to eat, so I just asked for a small one; they brought me a big one anyway.  So I sat and chatted some more.

Once I’d finished up at the hospital I made my way home.  Once I got in, my housemate asked me if I wanted to go get drunk tonight.  I said no way, I needed to sleep.  My housemate was going out with a friend of his, who had come in from the town they both grew up in.  I was worried by the idea of my housemate going out and getting hammered, because it put my morning’s plans at risk.  Damn it! Why wasn’t he at work?

His friend, the one we went to the strip club with, had decided he needed to do a shift to get some more money and told my housemate to give him the shift.  I don’t know how that works, but their friendship comes across as a very big brother/little brother type of friendship.  The friend takes good care of my housemate and, I suppose, in return, sometimes my housemate must take a few hits.  This was one of those hits.

I told my housemate that I’d be going to some bar to drink tequila with my friend Edgar, I wouldn’t be out late though.  I thought about inviting him, but I didn’t really feel it was my place to do that.  It was Edgar’s car and Edgar’s idea, so I didn’t feel I had the right to rope others in.  I went out to wait on the street at 1900.  I told my housemate if Edgar didn’t show in 15 minutes, we’d go and get something to eat.  Edgar showed.  I went inside and said bye to my housemate and then took off.

Edgar told me we needed to go to his house first; he needed to drop some stuff off.  Edgar lived in a less well-to-do neighbourhood, but he had a pleasant house.  We went inside and he introduced me to his brother, who was there with his girlfriend.  He showed me his room and his guitar.  He offered me an oat-cookie.  I didn’t really want an oat-cookie, but I’d been feeling bad about giving Edgar the impression that there was a lot of Mexican things I didn’t like.  I had told him I wasn’t a fan of Horchata, I wasn’t crazy about a drink made from hibiscus flowers they called Jamaica, other things that I can’t really remember.  I looked at the cookies, they looked kind of like Anzac bikkies… but they’d been cooked too long and weren’t overly appetizing.  I took one and bit into it; it was dry and chewy.  Edgar looked at me expectantly.  He asked me what I thought.

“It’s good” I said, trying to sound as pleasantly surprised as possible to account for how skeptical my face probably looked before.  I decided to add a small negative to make the enthusiasm sound more legitimate (this is how you lie well, in my opinion).

“It’s a little dry, but yeah, I like it”.  Edgar was satisfied with my response and we moved on.  He gave me his guitar to play around with and so I did.  Fumbling with songs that I was trying to remember.  He asked if I could sing and play at the same time, which if you call what I can do singing and what I do playing… then yes.  So I gave that a shot and Edgar seemed suitably impressed.  I handed him the guitar and asked him to show me his chops.

Edgar likes metal.  Edgar practices metal scales and riffs.  Edgar showed me some arpeggios that he made to build his speed and he also showed me how to cut the strings with the pick (he used a fat, hard plastic plectrum, which I never would use).  He was fast and good at what he did.  He also showed me he can play finger-picking styles (for when he’s in church).  I felt like a chump, but it’s not as though I’ve ever been a serious guitarist, so I’ll let myself off.  I asked Edgar if he could sing as well.  He declined, he said he didn’t like to sing.

While we were doing all this, Edgar brought out a bottle of orange liquid and offered me some.  He said it was good and that I should try it.  The bottle looked like something that bikers might drink from, but I was game to try anything.  He poured me some; I sniffed it and then took a sip.  It had a fruity flavour up-front, but not too sweet; you felt the alcohol evaporating in your mouth but there was no ‘hard liquor’ burn down your throat.  It was very pleasant.  I asked what it was made from and Edgar didn’t know.  We drank and played some more.

Eventually we left and got some hotdogs.  Edgar took me to this street vendor and told me they were the best hotdogs in Mexicali.  The sausages were cooked with a strip of bacon wrapped around them.  You added fried onions, a little bit of frijoles, mustard, mayonnaise and tomato sauce; they came with french fries too.  Edgar may have been right about the best hotdogs in Mexicali; they were pretty damn good.  It was more about the condiments than the meat itself, but it was a fine meal.

We never got to the tequila bar.  It hit about 2200 and Edgar dropped me home.  I went to bed and continued the story in the next post.

See you there.

What a last 24 hours.  Actually it was the end of yesterday/the early hours of this morning that made it worth talking about.  It’s my last day here in Mexicali.  Tomorrow I leave in the early hours of the morn; I’m ready.  I did a practice pack and my bags will take it, but they bulge.  I need to do a little bit of juggling, I think.

Anyway, last night my housemate failed to follow through on his “I’ll cook you traditional Hermosillo food” pledge.  I got home at 1730 and sat reading until 1845.  I had told myself – If he  isn’t here by 1900, I’m going out to get dinner; I was hungry.

True to form, he turned up with 15 minutes to spare and told me that he had talked to his friend and they decided that we should go out for dinner.  Fine.  I asked if we could leave right now, as I was hungry.  We went to a place called Kilos & Beer.  Their deal is they serve meals in half kilo and kilo serves and they have beer.

We arrived without my housemate’s friend.  I decided I’d wait for him to arrive before we ordered, that being the polite thing to do.  We drank Indio beer and talked until 2100 when I got fed up and asked where the fuck the friend was.  I ordered my meal – a fajita de rez con chipotle. The meat was, as always, perfectly cooked, but the presence of chipotle was seriously lacking, and the whole point was the chipotle.  I was displeased.

I had a few good conversations with some of the people working there and then, while having a good chat with some guy in the bathroom, my housemate told me that we were going.  His friend had been outside were they wanted him to pay 50 pesos to park and then pay 50 pesos to enter.  He had only turned up to tell us to go somewhere else, so he decided to go to the place and call us, telling us to go there too.  I skulled the rest of my beer and hopped in the car.  It was then my housemate told me where we were going; a strip club.

I’ve never been to a strip club before and, from what I had seen in movies and television shows, I didn’t really want to go either.  Two things lured me in though, one being that there had been so much talk about strip clubs while I had been here, it seemed a shame to leave without seeing what they were talking about.  The second force dragging me inside was the desire not to drag the evening down by making a big old scene.  I would go.  It would be fine.

The first club (you heard me) we went to was called Pido and they charged us a lot of money, by Mexican standards, for our beers.  80 pesos for two brews; assholes.  We met the friend who was sitting at a table right next to the dance floor, that was about 3 metres by 10 metres and had a gold pole at each end.

Some lady was dancing and she’d taken her top off to reveal her implants.  Her dancing was unenthusiastic, but she was getting money thrown on the dance floor anyway.  Men and women (there was a table of three men with girlfriends, all in their early 40′s and having a great time) were reaching out and groping the woman.  This was the first weird thing for me – I had heard that touching was strictly forbidden in strip-clubs.  I was waiting for some angry bouncer to crack skulls, but it never happened.  She was pushing their faces into her chest and kissing men on the cheek when they gave her money.  All the bills being thrown were US bills.  My housemate’s friend explained that they were all one dollar bills.

At the back of the club was a table of men that had a bunch of girls sitting with them and talking and drinking.  I don’t know what their deal was (rich businessmen, drug dealers, government officials, buck’s night) but they seemed to have the monopoly on the dancers.

There were big delays between the dancers.  Periods of quiet in a club where no-one would go for the ambience.  There were TV’s suspended from the roof everywhere showing the soccer – just in case you were bored of the showcase of flesh.

The table with the women on it were rowdy as hell.  The women were enjoying giving the girls dollars probably more than the men.  They’d give some money and then tell the girl to motorboat their man.  At one point the dancer decided that the woman should receive the special treatment, and idea that was meant with roars of laughter and discomfort by the woman.

When there was no-one on stage the men would jokingly push their girlfriends onto the stage, and they’d laugh and scramble back to their seat.  At one stage, during a break, a guy from across the dance floor leaned across and tried to pull one of the girls onto the floor.  She was not an oil painting, friends.  I was relieved it didn’t lead to anything more.

I actually started to wonder whether the table of men and ladies was a plant.  The women would chastise other tables when they weren’t throwing money at the dancer.  They were laughing and drinking a lot.  It seemed possible that the business would put a table like that there to show people how to enjoy themselves and that women could enjoy a show as well (which I don’t disagree with).

We saw three dancers while we were there, only the last one didn’t have implants.  All the dancing was dull and I couldn’t see any point to being there.  My housemate’s friend explained to me:

“In a strip club, all you look at is ass and tits.  If you start looking for a nice face, you’re in trouble.  Ass and tits, that is all.  Ass and tits.”

This mantra was problematic for me.  While I am a huge fan of every part of the female figure, the first thing I look at is the face.  That’s were I go to for the majority of information.  These girls were not attractive to me; they had plucked their eyebrows to within an inch of their life, they had plastic breasts and they lacked any sense of sensuality that I imagined might be required to make a place like that worth visiting.  My associates felt somewhat the same; they were annoyed that the men up the back were hogging all the best dancers.  The second dancer that came out had received little to no dollars from the crowd for her performance.  She looked like she was coming to the end of her dancing career, but you could only tell this by looking at her face, which I wasn’t supposed to be doing.

My table had decided we’d check out the other club and we’d leave as soon as I’d finished my beer.  This plan was delayed however because, during the third dance, in came what I hoped were heavily armed police officers.

Moving around the perimeter were men in tactical fatigues with black masks over their nose and mouth; they carried, what I think were, assault rifles with scopes.  My initial reaction was hey! The cops are here, but this changes to Christ, I hope they’re cops, otherwise we’re fucked. They divided the room into the men and the women.  The women, they didn’t bother searching.  They just sat on the other side of the room chatting while the men had to show ID and empty their pockets.

This was fucked I thought; I don’t need anything to go wrong here.  I put my wallet on the table, my camera, my phone and keys and looked at them wondering what the odds were that they would be “confiscated”.  I kept all my other things (credit card, booklet with US $380 dollars, keys to luggage locks) in my tourist belt.

The cops then proceeded to frisk us.  The first thing they found was the packet of tissues in my jacket pocket.  The cop stopped frisking me and said – what’s in there.  I pulled out my tissues and he recommenced the frisking.  Then he felt the strap to my tourist belt.  He said – what’s that.  I replied ahh, mi cinturon de turista. He told me to empty it completely.  So I did.  Everything was actually progressing very calmly.  My housemate was shitting himself.  He later told me he thought we were very close to dying.

My housemate’s friend told me the next day that there was a lot that was not good about the way they did their search: they didn’t introduce themselves, didn’t explain what they were doing there, were being unnecessarily intimidating.  Outside – their cars were not marked as police vehicles.  I joked lated that nothing was ever going to happen, the cops were on their best behaviour, because they had an international guest.  The guys laughed, but they were seriously shaken by the event.

A lot of Mexicans hate the police.  They tell me there are two types of cops in Mexico – the ones that are all menacing and the ones who just shoot everything.  All cops are fucking dumb, they tell me.  My housemate told me that he used to feel bad when he heard cops had been shot, and nowadays, when he hears about it, he thinks they deserve it.  Cops, to my housemate, are just another one of the “only thing”s he hates.

The cops left eventually and everyone rushed to the toilet.  It was unreasonable to keep us that long – we’d been drinking beer and it was cold.  Our bladders couldn’t take it.  They left with two people arrested; one customer and one of the staff – the guy whose job it was to collect the money thrown onto the dance floor at the end of the song.  My housemate’s friend chastised me – “it’s all your fault”, he said, “we were only still here because we were waiting for you to finish your beer.  We should be in the other club”.  The other club was the building next door, the fabled La Mosca.  I told my housemate’s friend that he shouldn’t worry; the cops were probably going to raid La Mosca too.  We sat down and watched as the girls filed back out and swarmed around the table up the back.  I don’t think anyone came out to dance while I finished my beer.

When we left Pido to go to La Mosca the cops cars were still there.  I had been right – they raided La Mosca.  My friends told me to hang back a moment and wait for the cops to leave the club before we entered.  As we approached, I noticed that the cover charge was 40 pesos.  The people at the door were being jovial and telling us everything was alright and to come on in.  They reduced the cover charge on account of the recent nasty business of police with big guns; no one wants the cops involved in their enjoyment of naked women.  They charged 50 pesos for all of us.

La Mosca had a different layout.  There was a dance floor in the middle with one gold pole and a ring suspended from the ceiling.  There were U-shaped tables with a depression filling the centre of the U – lower than the U-shape, which was to be our bench for drinks, but higher than the floor.  It turned out that this was so you could have a dancer in the centre of the U that you could watch while you drank.

We were given a dancer in a red devil outfit.  She was cute in the face, probably because she didn’t look like she’d tried to change it with surgery.  In reality, she probably wasn’t that pretty, but she smiled and laughed a lot and when she did so, her eyes lit up.  She seemed genuine, and that went a long way.

My housemate’s behaviour had changed.  Later, his friend observed, that he’d turned a bit pale since the police encounter and he was more sexually aggressive with the girls.  The devil at our table had only just arrived and was facing my housemate’s friend and me when my housemate pushed her top down to reveal her breasts.  It seemed grotesque to me at the time, but she laughed and shook her chest for a second and then pulled her top back up.  I assumed that this was all acceptable behaviour for a Mexican strip-club.

My housemate’s friend also comment that my housemate was slapping the dancer’s asses a lot.  I guess my housemate’s friend didn’t know that my housemate really loved to do that to women.  He certainly tells me all the time. The devil hung around for a while at our table and another skinny, petite girl in a Catholic schoolgirl’s outfit turned up.  After a few minutes, my housemate’s friend disappeared with her.  I had been told that he frequently has sex with strippers, so I assumed that that was what that was about.

After a while our devil disappeared and came back in the shortest denim hotpants I’d ever seen.  I’d emphasize how short they were by saying that they were stripper short… but that seems a bit redundant here.  The outfit was topped off with a tight white top that covered only her chest.

She was the first girl we saw dance at La Mosca, by this time my housemate’s friend had returned.  I’d also been to the bathroom – a detail I’d have left out if, while I was standing at the urinal, a dancer hadn’t entered (the men’s) and walked right behind me and slapped my arse while I was peeing.  The urinals had a door at each end and seemed to double as a short-cut.  I couldn’t help but feel that it was all orchestrated (he’s in the toilet now, go and sexually harass him – he might pay you more), but I laughed and shook my head.  Shyness be damned – I’m not afraid to use urinals so do what you will, strippers.

The ex-devil girl was a truly good pole dancer.  She used the ring thing to do some very fast pivots and she also turned herself upside down, slipping her leg through the ring and then hanging momentarily.  I have no idea how she got her leg through the loop so effortlessly; it must have been a magician’s sleight of hand deal.  While we were looking at other things, she got her leg into the loop.

She worked the pole (ahem) well too.  Another upside down trick with one leg holding her in the air, she let the pressure off slightly and slid down to the floor.  Truly a talented move.  I wondered if she’d considered Cirque du soleil… perhaps she can only do her thing topless.  I don’t know.

She also danced to great to OK songs.  The White Stripes’ 7 Nation Army, Marylin Manson’s cover of Sweet Dreams and something else grungey.  She was such a cut above what we’d seen at the other club, I thought we’d just been at a bad club.

My housemate’s friend got a US $20 change for 20 US$1 and gave us one each for the next dancer.  I, apparently judging by the shame on my housemate’s friend’s face, wasted my dollar by simply putting it in the dancer’s pants… or whatever.  I’d seen TV shows, that was what I was supposed to do – right?  Wrong.  both my housemate and my friend showed my how I was meant to do it.  They faced away from the stage and then limboed their heads onto the bench surrounding the dance floor.  The dancer then lowered their crotch towards my friend’s faces.  I wondered how they’d be able to deposit the bill with their mouth but, when she was 10cm from their mouths, she took the money and instantly moved on.

I politely declined the next dollar I was offered.  I didn’t want to use the dollar in the right or the wrong way.

At some point my housemate’s friend disappeared with another dancer.  And then later, he walked off to a table away from us to chat with a dancer all alone.

It was about 0130 and my housemate was talking about getting tacos or hotdogs. . He’d let me choose – I chose hotdogs, then he went to a place that sold good tacos anyway.  He drove, after he said he wouldn’t and I berated him for it.  It wasn’t that far though.  When he finished his tacos and we went back to the car, he asked me if I wanted to drive.

I was not drunk; I’d been pacing my drinks.  His car had no license plates, so I figured that my lack of an international license was not the biggest issue here and my sobriety made it a much more attractive option.  I took the keys and proceeded to learn about changing gears with my right hand.

It was a short drive home and, once we’d gotten past the horrific business of finding reverse in the complete opposite direction of an Australian car, I drove very smoothly to our apartment.  I even indicated, which was probably excessive for Mexico.

That’ll do for now.  I’d meant to include what happened today (11 Feb), but I guess I’ll wait.  It’s getting really long.  I went to bed at 0200 and at 0650.  I’m tired now, but this is the first time today I’ve felt ragged.

I hope I’ll sleep well tonight, but Edgar has offered to take me to some tequila bar, and I can’t refuse tequila.

Shit it’s hard being me.

Paz.

P.S: My wife is fine and so is my little unborn child.  I’m calm and look forward to seeing my whole family in less than a week.

I’m a little pre-occupied right now.  I’ll get to why soon though, I don’t imagine this will be too long a post.

I didn’t go to Rustyc’s last night, I thought I should consume some of the left-over Chinese food.  I was a little worried about this though; when I got home I saw that it had been out on the table all day.  My housemate doesn’t have a clue about house related chores.  He tells me he moved out of home when he was 18, but everything about the way he lives suggests to my that his mum has looked after him for a long time (and this is coming from a guy whose mum has looked after him for a long time).

I thought I’d go to Rustyc’s tonight, but my housemate said he wanted to do a dinner of traditional Hermosillo food, which is where he is from.  I agreed to this, and hope to get to Rustyc’s on friday evening.  I’m partially expecting my housemate to forget about this, or just not come through.  Our house isn’t really set up for a proper meal cooking, so I have no idea how he will achieve this… and then, I suppose, is the issue of whether or not he can actually cook.

Anyway, I ate the Chinese food apprehensively.  One reason was because it had been out on the table all day and the other was because my housemate had told me that he’d gotten diarrhoea from eating the Chinese food.  I took that information on board but also kind of dismissed it because I decided that, maybe, he was a bit of a pussy when it came to Chinese food.

He left for the dentist at 1830 and went straight to work from there, so I had the house to myself.  I nutted out the rest of my report and finished the last bottle of tequila that I will drink in Mexicali.  Then, with nothing better to do, I went to bed at 2100.

At 2140 I received a message from my wife.  She told me that she was getting regular contractions and thought she might be going into labour.  She’s 35 weeks pregnant, the official due date being about 4 weeks after I return.  My other two kids came out about a week after their due date, so I had been fairly sure that premature delivery wasn’t going to be an issue.  What I have learnt in my lifetime though is that, whenever I make grand proclamations, it’s a sure-fire way to ensure the opposite happens.  If I believed in a god, I’d say they were trying to teach me something.

My wife told me not to worry (yet) and just continue on as planned; we’d discussed this event occurring before I left and had agreed that I should just go about business as usual unless she told me to do otherwise.  She’d organised for her brother to help her and someone is looking after my other two kids.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep to well last night.  On top of a lot of things to think about I was also experiencing the noisiest fucking night in Mexicali ever.  Fucking ambulances and police cars going up and down Justo Sierra.  Idiots calling to each other and hitting things at 0300.  God-damned club music on a Wednesday night/Thursday morning.  What was wrong with these people?

I somehow fell asleep and got in a few extra hours; sleeping with my phone by the bed.  Wondering if I should message my wife and deciding not to.  I reasoned: if she’s in labour – she won’t want to be bothered.  If everything is fine now – she’d have let me know.  So she was either in labour or still unsure of what was happening herself.  Either way, it would be best to leave the next move to her.  No need to add my worries to her troubles.

I got up 5 minutes before my alarm and went downstairs to turn on the water heater.  I hopped back in bed until the alarm went off.  Still no message.  What was going on in Australia?  I considered my options – do I go home early?  Do I stay and finish my time in Mexicali and then go home straight away?  Do I just ride it out here and believe that everything is under control at home?  I showered and went to the hospital, still thinking about this news.

As I was about 100m from the hospital, I received a message from my wife.  She told me the kids have someone looking after them, she’s in hospital and, after some morphine, the contractions have calmed down a lot.  She’s not dilated at all and her membranes are intact.  The hospital are observing her for the day and the morphine was to test the hypothesis that her uterus was just irritated.  I seriously hope that this is the case but, even if it is, she’ll have to take it easy from now on I think… except I don’t know how she’ll do that.

I imagine my uterus would be irritated too if i was 35 weeks pregnant and having to manage two kids on my own.  She did encourage me to go to Mexico though, she thought it would be good for my worldview or life experience or something like that.

Shit.  It’s only 6 days until I’m home, so… I guess that’s Ok.  She’ll tell me if I need to change my plans anyway.

So I’m just sitting in my usual computing spot waiting for my friedd to turn up so we can write his thing.  I have a lot of writing to do.  I went and said good-bye to the hospital owner and my contact.  I did this in-case they were, or I was, not around tomorrow.  The hospital owner was very polite and kind, as always, and my contact was asking me questions about how I had organised to get from here to LA; always looking out for me.  My contact also told me I had to write up some sort of report on how I found my time at the hospital. They want to use it like some sort of feedback form.  There’s no structured feedback questionnaire, so I just have to wing it.

Bah.  So much to do it seems, but my mind is elsewhere.  This is a drag.  2 more sleeps til I leave.

I finally went to China House last night, the food was about as expected.  I’m told it’s the best Chinese food in Mexicali.  It’s really not that special as far as I can tell.  They  did a decent shark fin soup and something tasty with strips of chicken breast, cooked in such a way that the outside was crispy and salty.  The rest was pretty standard fare; the sweet and sour chicken, which I didn’t order, my housemate asked for it to replace ‘something weird’, that he claimed to be afraid of, from our set menu.  The sweet and sour was below average, which is hard to imagine.

It was a big meal though, and we didn’t finish it.  It cost less than $30 for the two of us.  Afterwards we went to La Diablita or, we would have, except it was closed.  So we went to the bar at La Carniceria instead.  I introduced my housemate to the joys of Cucapá, and I introduced myself to the joys of Cucapá’s Chupacabra. It’s a solid pale ale with a beautifully deep honey colour and strong honey and fruity tones.  This is followed by an exceptional pale ale aftertaste.  It officially runs equal first for best Cucapá beer, sharing the top place with the Clásica.  We stayed there for a while, and then headed home.  It was a pleasant evening.

The next day I went to theatre and found a very small operation list.  I sat in on a TURP (Trans-urethral resection of the prostate); it is seriously un-fun to watch.  A camera gets inserted into the man’s urethra and then a loop that has a charge running through it is used to enlarge the portion of the urethra that runs through the prostate.  In case I need to spell out for you how this is done: The loop slices bits of prostatic urethra away.

All this occurs while saline solution flows into the bladder to keep the work area clear.  This creates an interesting effect with haemorrhaging blood vessels; plumes of bright red blood pour into the saline solution and the current pushes it into the bladder that you can see in the background.  You kind of feel like you’re watching a video of a cave-diver exploring a volcanic cavern.

All fantastic experiences must come to an end though, and after an hour-or-so of watching a prostate’s boundaries be redefined with an electric apple-corer, the procedure was finished.  As the camera is retracted through the very sensitive urethra, you watch as fragile capillaries burst due to the trauma and bleed under the epithelium.  That’ll turn into a painful bruise as soon as the anaesthetic wears off and he’ll have a hard time peeing for about a week.  I know this because I’ve had a similar procedure – a flexible cystoscopy.  It’s not fun.

I should also mention a couple of things, just to make all males unhappy about their near inevitable future date with this procedure: The patient is conscious during the procedure, there is no need for a general anaesthetic.  The local anaesthetic/lubricant they use to insert the camera mixes with the blood that trickles down the urethra and it starts to look like someone has smeared tomato sauce on the end of your penis.  Cool huh?

That child has been quietened/taken away.  What a relief.  I empathise with his position as a patient, but I couldn’t think worth a damn with all that noise.  I was actually doing real work until I couldn’t concentrate any longer.  I had to quit and come and write this tripe.

I’m going to have dinner at Rustyc’s Steak and Grill tonight.  I’m not going to lie: my desire to eat their is based purely on the name.  I keep thinking the ‘c’ is supposed to be an ‘e’… but then I’m not sure.  Should it be “Rustic’s” or an abbreviated version of “Rusty eye’s”, which I have no idea what that might be, but it still makes more sense to me.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

I’m still counting down the sleeps until I leave; now it sits at 3 sleeps. Somewhat concerning was the need to remind my housemate about his agreement to drop me at the Greyhound station.  I had to remind him when I was leaving and how I was going to achieve.  I will not let him fuck this up for me.  I’ll remind him every day if I have to.

Tonight should be fairly calm though.  He’ll be at work, I’ll get home from a, hopefully, pleasant dinner and retire to my room with as little conversation as possible.  Get some more work done on my report and have an early night.  Tomorrow i must remember to contact that surgeon about friday.  I will not fuck this up.

Oh yeah, and that’s the other thing.  My amigo who took me to La Rumorosa has asked me to help him write a formal letter to some Dean of a university in Aachen, Germany, where he wants to study biomedical engineering.  I’ve agreed to do that after surgery tomorrow, I have no idea if it’ll take a long time or what.  I tried to get a decent idea of what the letter would say but, so far, it seems to be that all he wants to say is:

Dear Sir,

I will send you the results of my English proficiency test in late April, because that is when the results will come in.  You have received everything else already.

Kind regards…

I doubt it will play out that simply, but you never know.

Paz.

I went to the university today and was shown around.  I sat in on an anatomy class where some students in their second semester presented a talk on the surface anatomy of the skull.  It was interesting to see them do their thing, and to remember doing similar things when I was in second year.

I got shown around the small campus (though it’s entirely for med students) and shown some of the toys they have.  People doing their surgical training get to play with a virtual reality laparoscopic device.  I got to have a go; it was cool, but not quite a decent replication.  The program itself was very fancy with how the physics acted on the virtual string/tube thing in real time.

I only sat in on one class and then, at about 1130, I got dropped back at the hospital.  I went and had lunch and then got some scrubs and went into theatre.  It’s a public holiday today, so there was no big operations happening.  One thing that happened at the university, that I must remember to act on, was that a surgeon invited me to attend a bit of vascular surgery; he’s going to create an arterio-venous fistula on friday.  I need to call him at midday on thursday to find out what hospital he’s doing it at and what time to be there.

But that’s later.  Today I was free to do whatever I wanted.  I went to the fancy liquor store.  It was my plan to purchase my tequila and go back to the hospital with it in my bag.  The problem was though, that when I tried to fit in in my bag, one of the boxes was too wide for my bag.  I didn’t want to go back to the hospital with my fine-ass tequila on display, so I walked it home.

I wasn’t too keen on this, but I didn’t have much of a choice.  When I got home my housemate had just got up; he’d worked a night shift.  I asked him if he was working tonight, and he said he wasn’t, so I have organised to, finally, go to the China House and, if time/mood permits we’ll check out La Diablita afterwards.

That’s all there is to say about today.  I suspect that, if something interesting happens tonight, I’ll tell you all about it later.

I just remembered though – I had some weird dreams last night.  There were about three, and I meant to write them down earlier, but didn’t.  Now I can only really remember two.  The first was a friend and me dressed as cowboys standing waist deep in beautiful blue water; we were trying to catch a giant crab with lassos.  This crab was about 20 metres tall and we were standing at the move of a medium sized cave.  We lassoed the crab and it started jumping up and down outside the cave.  It wouldn’t stop, it just jumped hundreds of metres in the air and crashed down over and over again.  Then someone advised us to pull it into the cave – because we couldn’t control it.  So we pulled it into the cave and it bashed it’s brains in because it wouldn’t stop jumping and kept smashing its head on the roof of the cave.  I think the person who advised us to pull it into the cave knew that would happen.

The second dream was kind of long.  Some famous lady (who had a specific name, that now escapes me) had a TV show that the network wanted to tone down.  Her show was full of swearing and aggressive behaviour, I think it was a sketch comedy show.  Anyway, she didn’t want to tone it down.  She wanted to bail out because she felt she had lost artistic freedom.  I was had some role in getting the show made and my boss told me it was my job to convince her not to quit.  The boss said – we’ll go for a ride; which I thought meant the boss, the star and me.

Next thing I know I’m being led into a Land Rover with the star’s agent and the star.  The boss had no intention of coming along.  This annoyed me a little; I felt out of my depth with the agent who I felt would be stubborn.  We drive around for a bit and get onto talking about the issue of toning down the show, and it looks like they’re going to walk away from it.  Suddenly I get some sort of inspiration, and I suggest that this whole “tone it down” thing will blow over.

I tell them that they should make the show without toning it down, film it and then edit it so the station finds it acceptable, then, when everything has calmed down – they can re-air it advertising it as “The version the network thought was too much for viewers” or release it as a DVD billed in the same fashion.  The star could even do a DVD commentary bitching about the restrictions the network wanted.

I felt that this was an ingenious solution to the problem; the star got to keep her integrity and would later have the show that she felt was what she wanted and the station got the show that it wanted to air.  I felt good about this inspired bit of bargaining.  Then the agent said that the only reason why the network was uncomfortable about what the star was doing was because of ‘this’.  He showed me a video on his mobile of dead bodies sliding down a smooth rock-face.  They’d all been shot to death and were leaving a trail of blood as they slowly slid down.  For some reason I knew that I had been involved in killing them, and I tried to pretend that what had happened to the was a tragedy.  I hoped that he couldn’t tell that I was lying… I tried to produce some tears.

So… how do you interpret that?

See you tomorrow.

This week will go quickly though.  People have plans for me.  An anaesthetist, the one who takes me to the general hospital wants to organise a dinner with some of the doctors and me.  I’m going to the university tomorrow to check things out there, I still need to go to China House and La Diablita which could honestly probably be done in one night – but my housemate isn’t home tonight and I still think his lady-friend is here… and I’ve decided that I really don’t like her.

I tried to buy my fancy tequilas on the way home from the hospital this evening.  I left at about 1810 and walked past the super cool liquor store only to find they were closed, which goes against everything I’ve learnt about Mexicali: stores are open til 2000 every night except, maybe, sunday.  It was a bit of a shame, but I’ll live; I’ve really been enjoying the walks home lately.  It’s about 20 degrees at 1830 and everything is calm, it’s a very pleasant walk.

This morning I was at the hospital by 0745, I would have got their earlier but I had to take out the rubbish and I finished the baked goods from La Montaña this morning.  I ate something that translates to “The Nun’s Pinch”… I’ve given you the translation because I can’t remember what the spanish was.  I was kind of like a strawberry lamington with icing holding two semi-circles of lamington together, but the sponge was more dry and biscuity and I don’t know if that’s because I left it overnight or that’s how it was meant to be.  The other thing I ate was… hard to describe, it was triangular in shape and looked like it should contain stewed apple but, instead, it contained some sort of sugary caramel with desiccated coconut or something.  I didn’t really enjoy it.  The two best things were the custard donut thing and the iced cinnamon bun thing – is that because they are familiar to me?  I don’t know.  They were good though, that’s all I need to tell you.

At the hospital, the first operation was at 0900, so I decided to catch up on the internetting I didn’t do the day before.  In case you didn’t know – I still don’t have the internet at my apartment, it’s now 12 days overdue and I believe they have forgotten about us.  Fortunately I have found it’s not that big a deal to carry the laptop to the hospital if I utilise the second smaller strap that hugs my backpack to my waist.  I haven’t had any trouble with neck pain since I started doing this.  It also makes me feel more secure – like a tighter grip on my bag will discourage muggings; don’t tell me otherwise, it’s a beautiful delusion.

The 0900 operation started at 1045; it was a gastric bypass.  Before it happened I met up with the anaethetist that takes me to the general hospital and, although it wasn’t the weekend (which is the only time he works there), he was working there today.  He asked if I wanted to go, and I agreed but told him I wanted to see the operation first.  He said fine and told me to watch the operation, get some lunch and then head to the general hospital – just ask for him when I got there.  This all sounded good; I was sure the operation wouldn’t last too long.  I’d get to the hospital with plenty of time to see things.

The operation lasted until about 1330.  I went and choked down some lunch and, after I had realised that I didn’t remember exactly where the hospital was, I took some directions from the path lab staff on where it was.  They advised me not to walk because it was very far.  I knew it wasn’t too far, I remember when I left the hospital for the first time it was somewhere near La Cachanilla.  Time was pressing on though, I started walking to the hospital at 1400; carrying my scrubs from the private hospital because the general hospital wouldn’t have any for me.  I kept an eye out for a taxi because I thought that maybe it was further than I remembered but, as usual, when I needed a taxi there wasn’t one to be seen.

I made it past La Cachanilla when a taxi drove past and I flagged it down.  I asked how much to go to the general hospital and the driver told my it was a 35 peso minimum.  That seemed fair so I hopped it.  When he started driving, I looked up and saw that the general hospital wasn’t much farther away.  I felt a bit silly for wasting the taxi driver’s time but, I guess, he made his money for doing very little so he probably didn’t care that much.  He dropped me off on the other side of the road, I thanked him and headed for the entrance to urgencias that was guarded by… guards, of all things.

I explained to them that I was a medical student from Australia and I was there to see the anaesthetist.  This was a gamble, I thought, things didn’t really seem to be organised that well and I really didn’t know how I should be going about gaining entrance to the hospital.  The guard understood me though and told me to follow him while he went and asked someone else.  He came back to me and said everything was fine and to wait where I was.  After a minute or so, someone came and led me to the doctors’ ‘lounge’ where she would find me my doctor.

I recognised the lady who came to the door of the doctors’ ‘lounge’, but she didn’t seem to recognise me.  This was odd I thought because, part of the reason I felt compelled to go back to the hospital was because the doctor kept telling me that people were asking after me.  I had considered that this was the doctor telling me that the ladies were making enquiries about me, which wouldn’t really necessitate my return.  Then I thought that, maybe, people were asking about how I had handled their ‘scary’ public medicine.  I thought that if I didn’t go back, I’d be remembered as the Aussie who got freaked out by the reality of public medicine in Mexico.  I couldn’t have that – I had to return.

It turns out to be more the former, I think.  The doctor wasn’t there, he was having lunch, so I sat and chatted with a theatre nurse, who did remember me, and an anaesthetist registrar who also remembered me.  They were good to chat to, the reg knew english, but she let me hack away at my spanish.  I think it was because she was not feeling to good about her english which, as I recall was pretty good.  Everyone I have spoken to that had learnt english was fine at it – the worst is probably the hospital administrator, but between us we can nut out a conversation, and it’s fun.

The doctor came back from lunch and sent me of with the reg to watch a termination.  They brought the patient in to theatre and put her up on the bed.  The anaethetics reg asked if I wanted to do the intubation or administer the drugs.  I chose intubation, putting drugs into a line isn’t exactly a difficult skill to acquire.  I put the mask over the patient’s nose and mouth and watched the bag expand and contract as she breathed.  It was weird how calm and cheerful the patient was, this is before drugs were administered; even with wanted terminations patient’s are still usually nervous.

As all this is happening, the reg explains to me that abortions (not the PC term) are illegal in Mexico.  She left the information at that, which confused me greatly.  I needed more info – I asked: so who is performing this termination?  The patient did.  I looked down and noticed that, before anyone had touched her, there was blood between her legs.  More questions: how did she do it?  There are drugs that you can buy that will do it… they are illegal.  So who sells them?  Pharmacists.  Wait… what?  They’re illegal and pharmacists sell them?  Yes.  Why?  Can they be used in certain situations?  No, doctor’s can’t prescribe them; if you are raped an abortion is still illegal.  So if there is no legal indication for them, why do pharmacists sell them?  Misoprostil is a treatment for gastritis.  Really?

I don’t recall this being something we use for treatment of gastritis in Australia, but that doesn’t mean it ain’t so… I found it confusing.  It sounded like the indication for gastritis was there soley so they could legally have misoprostil sold in pharmacies to people who wanted to perform illegal terminations.  I had more questions, but I’ll just give you the answers to them: Apparently this happens a lot and, although it’s illegal, most people never face charges.  It’s a law that isn’t really enforced.  Women take the drug, miscarry with or without complications and life goes on (I’m sorry for that incredibly black, unintended pun).

This patient was one of the ones with complications, clearly.  She’d been bleeding since yesterday.  The doctor was examining her and, as it turned out, she wouldn’t need any assistance surgically.  She wouldn’t need to be intubated or drugged, so she was helped of the table and into a wheelchair and wheeled out.  The doctor showing me around collected me and took me out to urgencias and showed me some cases.  Then he introduced me to some staff members, all women.  The spanish was too fast for me to understand, but I was getting the gist.  The doctor was laughing a lot and invited me to sit down amongst them.  This one staff member kept talking a lot, and I think she was saying some fucked up things.  At one stage, while talking about me she said guapo which means handsome.  They asked me if I understood what was being said and I told them I knew what guapo was… everything else was a bit of a mystery.  At one stage the doctor said “no chanclas here, John” and then the talkative one said something that made his eyes nearly pop out; he asked me what the French word for ‘threesome’ was.

Somehow I got out of there.  It would have been nice to know what they were saying, but I’m not sure it would have provided me any more comfort.  I felt like the sole purpose of the doctor taking me back to the hospital was to subject me to this circus.  I don’t know whether he was trying to do me a favour or have a laugh… or both.  Next he took me to paediatrics emergencies.  As we walked past the door he said “Do you like paediatrics” and I replied “No, not really”.  Which is true, I don’t like seeing children in pain (I don’t like seeing adults in pain either, but I don’t feel as sorry for them).  He said “Come on, we’ll go in here” as though he hadn’t heard me at all.

The conversations wasn’t as scary as the urgencias staff conversation.  There was a 40 something nurse there that clearly liked having me around, but it was more a ‘handsome young lad’ thing… I think.  There were some other doctors there… all female (where are the dudes today?) and we had a bit of a conversation.  My doctor guide told them I could dance and then ordered me to show them.  I told them that the way I dance required a partner (true – nothing weird) and it turned out that one of the doctors did salsa which, although not the same as what I do, was close enough.  I showed them some stuff and they enjoyed it and my doctor guide started moaning five weeks you’ve been here and we haven’t found you anyone to dance with.  I had actually asked someone if there were any clubs that played big-band jazz when I got here and I was told there weren’t.  So, I guess, I tried.  It’s not my fault.

Nothing was happening in paeds emergency either.  We hung around for a bit and then my doctor guide said we’d head off.  We were heading to the exit when we passed a theatre room where someone was giving birth.  These rooms aren’t like Australian hospitals, as in, they aren’t at all private.  There are actually two beds next to each other where two women could be delivering at the same time.  My doctor guide saw it and said “Oh good, John, you watch this”.  Great, says I, I didn’t have a good time doing Ob/Gyn last year.  It had scarred me and I don’t enjoy it at all.

I watched as a doctor injected some local into the posterior wall of the vagina, preparing the patient for an episiotomy.  She didn’t look very pregnant at all; small baby bump, but it turns out she was 39 weeks along, so all good, I guess.  She didn’t seem to be in serious labour either.  I thought I’d be there until midnight, she was so calm.  The doctor snipped the episiotomy and I was amazed at how easy he made it look (though not fun, I’m sure).  She pushed some more and the doctor decided the episiotomy needed to be bigger.  Blood was happily flowing out onto the bed but no sign of baby yet.  The next push, however, revealed a head and with some more, very quiet, pushes out popped the baby.  I hung around while they checked the baby – he was turning a good colour and crying; everything was going to be fine.  The cord was snipped (obviously – can’t take a baby away without cutting the cord) and the doctor was putting tension on the remaining cord to remove the placenta.  Nothing more to see here, I thought and I went off to find my doctor.

He was in the doctors’ lounge and when I got there he was all ready to go.  He apologised for there being nothing happening at the hospital, and I told him it was fine.  He said he would give me a lift back to the hospital and as we were leaving he said:

If you ever want to find a sex freak, just come here.

I laughed and agreed, it certainly seemed that way.  I suggested that, perhaps, working in emergency here would send anyone insane.  He agreed and that was that.  Tomorrow will be another, less sexually aggressive, day.

On Saturday night, when I got home, my housemate asked me what I was up to.  I suggested China House for dinner, but that was a no go for him and his lady friend; they had plans to see a movie.  I asked them what was on and, among the options listed El Avispón Verde took my interest.  It was in 3D, which I’ve never experienced before aside from, y’know… reality.  Anyway, I didn’t think it was an idea for me to tag along, perhaps they wanted to be alone, whatever.  Perhaps they were going to see something crappy.  But, as it turns out, I was invited.  I made sure that we were going to see The Green Hornet because everything else sounded crap – including El Oso Yogi.  We were.  It was going to be in english too with spanish subtitles, because my housemate hates dubs.  He, quite rightly, says that the translations aren’t accurate enough and they ruin the film.

The Green Hornet was a lot of funny.  It was a funny film with some good action set pieces and Michel Gondry did a good job in a style that, as far as I’m aware, he’s not done before.  I can confirm that, comparing what was said to the subtitles: the translation isn’t exact.  Not that you could really translate some of the things that Seth Rogan said; he had a lot of phrases that aren’t even common in english, like “I’m rocking extreme balls here”… or something like that.  We all know what he means, but to translate that… I dunno.  A point to make though is – I don’t think the 3D really made the film better, or worse.  This film was made 3D in post-production which, I’ve heard, can produce some horrific results.  The 3D in this film gave depth to the scenes, but nothing that you couldn’t have figured out in the first place.  There were a couple of the set action pieces were glass was smashed and rained all down the screen that were kind of cool, but I definitely think 3D is just a pile of hype.  The only thing that really went nuts with the 3D was the end credits.

So that was cool.  The movie started at 2040 and we got home around 2340 because we had to pick up some cigarettes for my housemate’s lady friend, then drop her home (because she can’t take a shit while people are in the house) and then go back out to get a bottle opener because, apparently she wanted to drink some wine.  I was tired; I wanted to go to bed.  I had to ride with my housemate to get the bottle-opener on account of the female toilet clause.  When we got back, she was sitting on the steps.  She hadn’t been able to work the (admittedly difficult) locks.  I laughed because it was funny, but I don’t think she appreciated the humour.  She didn’t get any happier when I showed her what was required to make the keys work.  The way I see it is: she gave up; we told her what keys worked, keep fucking trying.  I don’t carry a set of fake keys for situations like this - they work. Meh, I don’t really like her much anyway.  She’s very high maintenance.  I finally got into bed, but it took me a while to fall asleep.

I woke up at 0600 for my trip to La Rumorosa, which was amazing.  I took a shit-heap of photos.  It’s hard to explain because it’s not like there aren’t mountains in Australia, but these mountains are different.  The top of La Rumorosa is 2km above sea level and, for some unknown reason, there is a little town up there.  Edgar, who kindly took me to see the mountains insisted we eat Tacos al vapor at Tacos Lalo.  These tacos are served up super-quick and are placed on two greasy maíz tortillas.  I think the second tortilla is for support… I dunno.  They were really tasty though.  I ate three (they were small) and had a cup of home made pineapple juice.  I was very suspect about drinking the juice (Edgar had tried to convince me to drink Horchata, which I don’t really like), it was kept in a big jar on the counter; it looked pretty dodgy.  But Edgar seemed keen for me to drink something not made by the Coca-Cola company, and I didn’t want Horchata so, Pineapple juice it was.

The first sip was a big surprise; it was very sweet.  I mentioned this to Edgar and he had no idea – he’d never drunk it (he’s an horchata man from way back).  I gave him a sip and he reeled back in horror.  He agreed that it was very sweet.  It also had chunks of crushed pineapple in it that got in the way of my straw.  We ate our food and discussed language issues; Edgar had learnt his new bit of translation today: hay means ‘There is’ or ‘There are’.  He was very pleased about this information and smiled and nodded every time the opportunity to use it came up in conversation.

After Tacos Lalo we went to La Montaña, a bakery on the top of La Rumorosa.  Edgar tells me that every time someone goes to La Rumorosa family members insist on them bringing something back from La Montaña.  He walked me through all the things in the bakery and advised my on what was good and what was not so good.  It was helpful, and his advice steered me towards a donut-like bun that was filled with custard.  It was absolutely delicious; the bread was fresh and moist and the custard was not overly sweet.  Beautiful.  Edgar paid for all this stuff, by-the-by, I tried to pay for things but he was having none of that.  He insisted that I was his guest and that was how it would be.

I realise I didn’t really describe what was so amazing about the mountains before, so I’ll try now.  Some parts of the mountains look like someone has dumped a pile of large rocks on top of each other and there’s nothing holding them together.  Other areas are like giant orange fence posts, all stacked askew.  It goes up and up and up and you get a view for miles.  You can look down into valleys in the mountain and see the shells of cars where they’ve fallen over the edge; before I left I was told that >90% of car crashes in La Rumorosa result in death.  There are white crosses stuck on rocks all the way up the mountain, even a little chapel at a resting spot.  I suppose, visually, what makes La Rumorosa so magnificent is the orange of the rocks against the clear, deep blue sky.  It’s amazing.

We got back at about 1130 and I invited Edgar in for a drink.  We had been talking about a lot of things on the way back.  Edgar had told me about some girl troubles he had a while back (apparently I’m just a sounding board for all Mexican dudes lady troubles).  Edgar has a steady girlfriend here, but he went to Montella for a year to study a year ago, or so.  He got another girlfriend while he was there who took photos of them when they went and did things and posted them on Facebook.  Naturally, Edgar’s steady girlfriend saw them (Edgar didn’t understand the tagging process on FB) and she got antsy.  Edgar didn’t understand what the problem was.

I thought I did… but with more info, I kind of don’t.  Edgar, it turns out, is a fairly stand-up Catholic.  That is to say – he’s a virgin because he’s never been married.  It gets more interesting because, the girl he was with in Montella was Paola.  Remember Paola?  She’s a ‘good girl’ too (I knew I was right to call it quits with her in my imagination).  So, although they were ‘going out’ it’s not like things got really heavy, so I say – forgive and forget.  I think that’s what his steady girlfriend did too.

We drank some tequila and I told Edgar to eat one of the Chokis biscuits and take a sip of tequila.  He was unsure about this, but I reassured him.  The tequila really enhances the flavour of the chocolate.  So he tried.  He nearly threw up – he hated it.  I was disappointed because, I think it’s great (it’s good with whiskey too, FYI).  He hung around until about 1200, but he had to go to church and I think he was serious, but it’s hard to tell; Edgar had delivered some pretty dead-pan sarcasm throughout the morning, so I couldn’t really tell when he was fucking with me or not.

He left and I organised some photos I’d taken for uploading until it was time to go to the Super Bowl Fiesta!  My housemate, lady friend and I hopped in the car around 1330 and headed for the consultants house that was hosting this shin-dig.  We finally found it after some backing and forthing and my housemate dropped me off and told me that it was a guys party – no chicks allowed, and he and his lady friend took off.  Ok.  I went on in and emptied the beers I’d bought into a big cooler.  There were a lot of the doctors there from the hospital and they were all getting their drink on.  Everyone was very friendly and I had a pretty damn good time.  There was a table with a lot of red wine and some very fine tequila on it that, it turned out, was for anyone who felt so inclined to drink it.  I didn’t make a scene, but I certainly took the time to try some Jose Cuervo especial – La Reserva de la famalia and Herradura reposado especial.

It wasn’t just a drink-fest it was a food-fest too.  They had organised pig and lamb to be slow roasted on a rack, some beef done with tender-loving care (I don’t know what they did, but it was good) and Paella de Mexicana which wasn’t that good; too salty.  I wandered from group of doctors to group of doctors, it was wierd, because finding something to talk about other than Australia, Mexicali and the differences between them, I didn’t have a lot of conversation to make.  I ended up chatting for a while with the wife of the doctor who was hosting the do.  She is a doctor too, but she’s also a Mexican wife.  I told her that I really liked her house and she was very happy to her that.  I got the impression that what a person thinks of your home is very important to people there.  It was true though – it was a very nice house.

The game took forever to begin.  There was a lot of preamble… I suppose like any finals event in Australia really, but eventually things kicked off and everyone took their seats.  The owner of the hospital had turned up before the game.  He spent his time up the back of the house chatting to the hospital coordinator.  The owner is a nice guy, but his presence felt wierd  – like he was only there to show that he was on the level with his employees.  He left when the game started.

Every time something ‘good’ happened in the game there was a lot of celebrating.  The majority of the people there seemed to be supporting The Steelers, but The Packers took an early lead.  The Steelers’ fans would jump in front of the TV when an interception or a sack or a touchdown (very few of those) was made by The Steelers and pull some sort of ‘Shot-putter’ pose.  They got very excited, but in the end – The Packers won.  I didn’t get to see the final quarter of the game; we had got up at half-time to throw a football around in the street.  I took the time to teach someone about the rules of rugby union (at their request) and then, at some point, after we had settled back down to the third quarter, I was intercepted on my way to getting a beer.  I talked to the hospital coordinator (who is a cool guy), we organised for me to go to the university on tuesday, and then I got stuck talking to a surgeon who teaches at the university about marsupials and monotremes (which I know are a sub-type of marsupial) and how Australia has them all, plus how Australia has so many venomous beasties.  This topic was this surgeon’s pet subject.  He really knew a lot of stuff; more than I did (which wouldn’t take much effort).  So I was still talking to him when the final scores came in and The Packers had won.

At some point in the second quarter, when The Packers were already in the lead by 14, I was asked who I thought would win.  I said The Packers, and felt like a bit of a chump because they already had the lead.  My answer wasn’t well liked by some but, obviously, well received by others.  I felt like referring them to this blog where I’d called it long before – Green Bay would win because their logo was better which would make for a more unified team.  Jeez – don’t they know anything about sport?

It became apparent that the surgeon talking to me about monotremes and prehistoric animals that inhabited Australia was drunk.  In fact, a lot of the senior doctors were drunk.  There was one surgeon who, being perfectly friendly talking to me, would stand too close and poke my chest when making a point.  It might have been intimidating if it wasn’t amusing at the same time.  All these fine, upstanding consultants getting throughly schickered – it was a sight to behold.

For some reason though, I started saying good-bye; it was around 1910.  I didn’t really want to go yet, I wanted more tequila but, I think, I started saying good-bye when someone said good-bye to me.  I got confused and thought it was time to go, so I started saying good-bye.  When I realised I didn’t have to go, I felt I had gone too far.  To stay now would be confusing to some and rude to those who I had said good-bye to.  They’d think I was trying to escape them.  No – I had to go.  I went to the street and said good-bye to the host’s son, a 2nd year medical student.  He asked how I was getting home and I told him I’d be walking.  He was shocked and insisted I let him give me a lift.  I told him it wasn’t necessary, but he wasn’t hearing it.  I asked him how much he’d had to drink, and suggested that it was safer to walk.  He stopped talking and thought about it, then admitted that that was a good argument to which he had no response.  He bid me good-night and I wandered off down the road.  It really wasn’t that far – a little bit further than my regular Soriana walk.  I got home in less than half an hour, wrote this and went to bed.

It had been a big day for me.

What’s up party people?  Not much?  Good.  It’s been a draining day, but you won’t believe me when I tell you.  You’ll think I’m some kind of spoilt knob… which may be true.  Never-the-less.

I got up at… I dunno, sometime, it’s not too important.  It was about 0730, I suppose.  My housemate had gone out last night around 2030 and, it appeared, hadn’t been home all night.  Where had he gone?  It was a mystery to me.  Perhaps he died in a car crash.  There were plenty of sirens last night.

I put my washing on for the week and decided to go in search of breakfast; coffee.  I thought about going to the store with the bad donuts, but remembered that the place we bought bread from two nights ago appeared to do meals as well.  The place was called Baguette and it wasn’t too far.  I could go and eat while my washing was on and then get back, hang it out, and get on with the rest of my day.  I needed to go to the hospital to talk to Edgar who was going to take me to La Rumorosa on monday.

I walked down to the place and bought a coffee and some hot cakes that were served with strawberries, banana and chopped walnuts in whipped cream along with maple syrup and butter.  All of the food was pretty damn average.  The coffee was so disappointing; when I get home, I’m going to murder a coffee… or two.  The stuff the hot cakes were served with weren’t able to make it not dry enough.  The maple syrup was cold and so it didn’t come out of the dispenser easily and the amount of fruit in the cream pile was not sufficient to make me feel like I was eating a fruity pile of pancakes.  It was a sad affair.  I finished eating and went on my way.

My walk to the hospital was briefly interrupted by my need to hang my stuff on the line.  I noticed that my housemate had been home while I was out, but he was nowhere to be seen again.  My walk to the hospital gave me time to think about the plan to travel home.  There’s a lot to figure out, mostly: how much tequila can I take with me?  In case you’re wondering, the answer is 2.25 litres, or 3 bottles of 750mLs.  This is disappointing information, but I guess I’ll work with what I have.  I’m also struggling with the question: will it all fit?

I arrive at the hospital and find Edgar.  He asks me what I’m doing there and I remind him that he told me to turn up today to organise the trip for monday.  He wouldn’t do it on friday because he needed to check a forecast to make sure it wouldn’t be snowing.  If it snowed, the roads would be closed.  Anyway, I came in to organise this.  He dithered about with the planning and then asked if I could do it on sunday instead, to which I agreed with the condition that I had to be back by 1200 for the Super Bowl party.  Edgar was a little reluctant about the whole idea due to the need to travel early to make it all work.  I offered him an out (out of politeness, I really didn’t want him to bail) but he stuck with it.  He agreed to pick me up at 0700 tomorrow to do La Rumorosa.  Great, that was sorted.

Next thing to do was check out the liquor store for top-notch tequilas.  I decided to put this off for a little while; last time I went they weren’t open.  I thought I’d wander downtown instead; see if I could find those mysterious clothing stores.

On my walk I passed a big liquor store so, naturally, I entered.  I was greeted by a young lady who asked if I wanted some help.  I asked her about all sorts of types of tequilas.  She recommended Cazadores but I wasn’t sure.  No-one else had mentioned it as a decent tequila.  We wandered around for a while, I asked a bunch of questions, including whether they sold Cucapá or Chupacabra.  They did not.  I browsed a little longer; tried some Cazadores – they had a tasting area for it, which she didn’t mention.  It tasted alright, but nothing amazing.  I left with more thoughts.

My walk downtown offered me nothing.  I wandered around trying to figure out my moves next saturday.  Considering the ways to make it as smooth a transition as possible.  I walked back towards the hospital, past which was the liquor store with the fancy booze.

When I got there I met the owner and he took me through my options.  I had a plan to buy two bottles of something (which I’m no longer sure I’ll be able to do).  We looked at some good stuff and I had some ideas about what to do.  Then I asked a sensible question – how much can I take across the border into the US.  The answer is: one bottle.  My heart sank.  This put a big dampener on my plans.  I’m still not sure how I’m going to make things work out.  I’m considering having a friend bring a bottle across… but this may not be possible.  I just don’t know.

With more stuff to think about, I returned to the hospital.  I looked up all the info about bringing alcohol back into Australia and found the 2.25L rule.  Which sounds about right, but I wish it was more.  I wanted to find info on how they would charge me if I brought back amounts in excess of that; maybe it’d be worth the extra cost – if it wasn’t too steep.  I can’t find that info though.  Drag.

So I’m stuck with all these thoughts. I need to do a practice pack I think.  I’m going to cram a lot into one bag and then think about how I’ll manage the other bag with things acquired in LA.

Tonight… I don’t know what I’m up to.  I’m going to try and pick up some beer on the way home for the party tomorrow and I’m thinking about trying out China House which is supposed to be a fair representation of high quality Chinese food in Mexicali.  I’m honestly not expecting it to be that great.  I think Mexicali may just be producing Chinese food that is less greasy than other areas of Mexico that has no experience in making it, but I’m prepared to be wrong.

That’s about it.  I don’t know what my housemate is up to.  I guess I’ll find out when I get home.

Hasta luego, hijos.

I think I mentioned before that I was starting to prepare for my trip to Los Angeles.  Well, today I booked my hotel.  I have a couple of options for the bus-ride; I’m going to try and get on the 0640 from Calexico.  Check-in at my hotel is at 1000, so if I can get to LA early, I may be able to make use of the day.  Check-out is at midday, and this makes me think that I wont be able to do much on the tuesday that I leave, so I want to try and get that extra day in there.

I actually went to Calexico last night with my housemate.  I got home from the hospital (and snapped two dogs hanging out of a window on the second floor of a building – hilarious, they think they’re people), and my housemate was awake (for a change).  He asked me what I was up to and I mentioned I was thinking about dinner, specifically pizza.  One thing lead to another (also involving me mentioning I wanted to find bus times out of Calexico) and my housemate decided that that settled it – we should go to Calexico.  I could check out the Greyhound bus schedule, we could get some duty free wine (because later we’d drink and eat some prosciutto he bought back from Spain) and we could get some pizza.  He asked me if I wanted to eat Pizza Hut – I told him to fuck off.  I wanted to try something that they considered good pizza; I’d actually wanted to eat in Mexicali, but I also had wanted to experience crossing the border as a day tripper.  My housemate told me that we’d find something good in Calexico. We hopped in his car and headed for the border.

As we approached the border, my housemate confessed he didn’t have the right papers to take his car into the US; we’d have to find somewhere to park and walk across.  So we did, that was fine.  Approaching the border crossing felt a bit like going to a train station, probably because to cross on foot you walk under the road crossing, into a white tiled subway station like area.  The walls are lined with stores that sell alcohol, cigarettes, medicine and crap no-one needs; it’s very crowded in there.  We move our way through and come to a line that leads up some steps.  We join it and talk shit for about 15 minutes and listening to the metallic clunking noise of people crossing through a rotating gate.

After we make it through the rotating gate we are still in a line.  This line is to walk into the immigration building where they check your passports.  I’m sure the whole process makes sense to the US, but it seems like a bit of a stupid design to me.  Ahead, above the exit doors, into the US, is a photo of Barack Obama and… the Vice President… whoever that is (that’d probably make for a good quiz question).  When I get to the migration desk they ask me what I’m going into the US for and I, kind of, forget.  I search my memory for why I’m going into Calexico and when I remember it comes out like this:

“I’m going to Calexico to get something to eat and… uh… also… to check Greyhound bus timetables for a trip to LA…” something occurs to me.

“…which I know I could look at online, but I don’t have an internet connection, so there you go.” The whole thing sounds weak to me and I imagine the migration lady pressing a red button under her desk.  Doesn’t everyone love Australians though?  She says:

“You’re going to LA?” I feel compelled to further explain.

“Yes, I’ll be heading there 2 saturdays from now, and then flying home to Australia.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m a medical student and I came to Mexico to study medicine.” I forgot that I was telling people I was there for a holiday – seems pointless now.

“You came here?” She has a condescending tone of voice and a facial expression to match.

“Yes.” I nod and smile, I am trying to defend the honour of fair Mexico.

“Do you like it here?”

“Yeah, it’s something different.” Fucking yanks; can’t think of any reason to go to Mexico except to exploit it’s cheap labour costs and flexible laws.  Pretty much a cunt move on their part if you ask me.  She looks at some things in my passport and lets me through.  She’s still confused by my life choices, so she questions my housemate about me.  She asks him if he’s my tour guide, and he explains that I’m just a friend.  She asks some other questions and he provides some other answers – he got through a lot quicker than I did; we are now both through and so we press on into Calexico.

First impressions of Calexico – I don’t like it; it sucks.  It’s like Mexicali, but busier and the roads seem slightly wider.  Everything looks the same, but somehow slightly different.  My housemate explains that even though we’ve crossed into the US, everyone here still speaks spanish.  We go to the Greyhound terminal and get my totally legitimate information.  It’s a disappointing trip because the number of trips are few and inconvenient.  God damn it.  Still, as I mentioned before, I’m getting used to the idea of the 0640 trip, as long as I can get a lift to the border, which I think I can.

We move on, looking about Calexico, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.  My housemate, as we walk down a big road admits that this is only his second time in Calexico and he has no idea where a pizza place is.  He assumed we’d just bump into one.  We pass a Pizza Hut and he asks me, again, if I want Pizza Hut.  I tell him again – no, I don’t want fucking Pizza Hut.  We keep moving.  It’s cold and nothing is presenting itself to us (why would it… seriously – why can’t he just tell me these things before we go?) so we about face and head back towards the border, stopping in a Pizza Hut on the way back.

After our Pizza Hut meal which, by the way, tastes exactly the same as in Australia (if you still live near a Pizza Hut) we press on, finding our way to the duty free store.  There’s a lot of cheap liquor in there – Patron tequila for $42 which, I shouldn’t have to tell you is incredibly cheap.  I need to do some research into the amount of alcohol I’m allowed to bring home.  We browse for a while, marveling at the cost of some perfumes and other things and then look at the wine section.  It’s poor; there’s only one brand of wine, and it’s not the brand we’ve been specifically told, by his doctor friend, to purchase.  It’s now that my housemate reveals to me that we’re going to go and have a drink and eat the prosciutto with his doctor friend.  I thought we were eating at our place.

We leave having bought nothing and return to Mexicali, which is much easier to do than get into the US.  You walk across the same section that the cars cross at – it’s all above ground and there are no checks.  The trip was pretty much a big waste of time; we went to Calexico to eat pizza hut.  Fucking great.  We get back to my housemate’s car and he starts making plans.  He does this by texting people while driving.  I tell him to stop doing it, the car is taking occasional swerves to the left and I get unnerved when there are so many stop signs and he’s looking at his phone while approaching the back of a stopped car.  He laughs and asks if I think he’s a bad driver.  I tell him yes and I think driving in Mexico is dangerous enough as it is.  He laughs and ignores me.  Fucking great.

He’s texting his doctor friend and ‘the other lady friend’.  It turns out she’s coming back tomorrow for some more (what I assume is) good lovin’.  His doctor friend tells him he can’t do the eating and drinking thing this evening because he has to look after his child while his wife is at work (they’re both doctors).  I suggest that this means we should just drink beer and tequila at our house and eat the prosciutto there.  He agrees with me, but drives past the turn off to our street.  I ask what we’re doing now and he tells me that we’re going to his doctor friend’s house.

We pull up outside and his wife’s car is still there.  My housemate laughs and says that he loves catching people out, then texts his friend saying “we’re outside your house”.  Shortly thereafter the doctor friend comes out and hops in the car (because it’s cold).  They have a chat and organise for us to pick up some provisions (tomato, bread and ‘the wine’) and come back at 2100.  We head off to do these things.  Our discussion, along the way, turns to women and my housemate’s issues with them.  He mentions again that he’s never met anyone that he felt he could trust and that he couldn’t marry anyone he didn’t trust (which is fair).  He progresses to talking about the first lady-friend and talks about marrying her and her child growing up to call him dad; he continues to mention that he won’t really be the little girl’s dad and that she’ll grow up to be hotter than her mum, he let’s my knowledge of him do the rest of the thinking and he laughs.  A little bit later he talks about how he misses his ex-girlfriend (the one he was engaged to), he says he should have married her, he fucked up by cheating on her and if they got back together he’d never do it again.  I laugh at this and question the honesty of the statement.  He defends the statement but I’m not buying it.  This guy cheats pathologically, it has nothing to do with how much he loves anyone.  It’s also part of the Mexican male psyche – cheating is Ok; why wouldn’t it be: every guy does it?

The conversation goes on to how he could never marry a woman who earnt more money or had a higher powered job than him.  I tell him that he has ego issues which makes him go quiet and change the subject.  He comes back to it later though, out of nowhere, and says that he didn’t like it, but it was true.  He does have ego issues.  I tell him it was more a comment on Mexican guys in general, and my housemate agrees, there’s a lot of machismo in the Mexican male’s personality; they’re so very proud that they don’t deal well with the smallest threat to their manliness (which is what makes up the majority of their personality, as they see it).  He talks about how, when he was going out with his doctor friend’s wife, she was always better at school than he was, and he couldn’t stand it; he hated her for it   He couldn’t think of a reason why she should want to be with him if he couldn’t outscore her in a test.

We go through the whole ‘she’s with you anyway, doesn’t that tell you something?’ talk, which he jumps on.  He says that that is what his brother used to tell him (he sounds like a smart guy).  Then, somehow, somewhere, we get onto talking about the third lady that’s a potential love interest: his doctor friend’s cousin.  He’s shown me photos – she’s very easy on the eyes.    The photos are of her in a bikini and they look semi professional.  Apparently she’s had a ‘boob job’ and some other work and her parents are loaded.  He talks about the idea of marrying her.  I tell him he needs to calm down.  We’ve been talking for half an hour and he’s mentioned wanting to marry three different girls; he needs to clear his head and figure out what he really wants.  He agrees and talks about his dreams of being rich.

Apparently that’s the Mexican dream – to be rich.  I mention that it kind of sounds like the ‘American dream’ – to be rich and famous.  I ask if that’s what all Mexican’s want – to be rich, and he says it is.  I tell him it sounds fucked up.  He is talking about how bad marriage can be, because his doctor friend and his wife argue about money and things all the time.  How can he get married when he can’t afford all these things?  We talk about how, maybe, that’s the problem, when two people get married, but their ultimate goal is to be rich – that will create problems (a lot of healing started that evening, I think).

The conversation turns to Mexican girls apparent propensity for getting plastic surgery.  I ask if that is every Mexican girls dream – to get a boob job.  He says, basically, yes.  There is a large perception that all your features need to be augmented and refined, if you can afford it.  It’s all fucked up.  My housemate  is fucked up.  A man with a whole bunch of regrets and loneliness and only notches on his bedpost to show for it.  He’s not learnt a damn thing though.

He talks about how he’s not really looking forward to his lady friend getting here; every time she comes he has to pay for everything – that’s what she expects.  He pays for her bus ride out, buys her meals and all that shit, and he gets laid in return.  I trot out the old line: “there’s no such thing as a free ride”, which I thought he’d appreciate, but he was too distracted (because he couldn’t have possibly found it unfunny).  We eventually collect everything we need and get to his friend’s house.  It was an enjoyable evening, but uneventful – I won’t go into it.  I will say though, thankfully no-one got drunk and we left around 1130 when his friend said we needed to go.  The ride home was safe and we (well… I) slept in peace.

I slept til 0700 (half an hour sleep in – yay!) and then did my usual thing.  The day didn’t feel as cold as the day before (I slept in two t-shirts, a hoody and a jacket, plus my gorro, PJ bottoms and socks).  I got to the hospital at 0800 and went into my first operation at 0900; another lap-sleeve.  The actual operation probably started at 0930 and it went til 1100 and, then, the most exciting part of my day happened: I had brunch.  Now it’s been a while since I’ve given you a proper meal description, so please, if you feel you are overdosing, take a break.  Don’t let it overwhelm you.

Caldo ‘Tlalpeño’

Does it deserve it’s own little title?  Yes.  It fucking does.  Caldo is a type of sopa, I’m not sure what it requires to be a caldo but anyway.  Tlalpeño was described to me by the counter girl (who has come to enjoy our moment together each day, where she gets to recommend a meal for me) as muy rico, among other things.  She was very keen to impress on me that it was a good damn meal.  It contained chickpeas, chicken, white onion and chipotle.

If you’ve never had chipotle then that’s something you need to go out and eat right now.  Not on it’s own though; it’s a smokey flavoured, dried chili.  It’s absolutely distinct in its flavour and it is owner to a beautiful flavour indeed.  I’d forgotten how good it tasted until I had my first mouthful.  It was delicious… I don’t know any other way to impress upon you how enjoyable the soup was.  Oh, well… maybe one way.

Juan Javier (whose name I love to say) sat down with me at my lonely table; the regular big table was chockers.  He pulled out a sad looking meal of fried egg-whites, steamed carrots and zucchini.  I looked at it and said “What are you? In training?”, he said he was and I told him that it was a shame, because this tlalpeño was awesome.  He laughed and asked me what I thought the best meal was that I’d had since I’d been here.  My reply was:

“Ahora mismo – es esto”

He laughed again, and I went on to describe some of the good stuff I’d had, but the point was that, tlalpeño was right up there with one of the most enjoyable things I’ve eaten in Mexico.  It has a flavour that gives you a warm hug.  There was a big chipotle that sat in my bowl reminding me of its presence in the soup.  The heat it produced was only mild though.  I’ll say it one more time and move on: dang good soup, y’all.  It’s sad that my two recipe books don’t contain Caldo Tlalpeño in them.  I’ll have to search the internet for it when I get home.  I will not live the rest of my life without eating this soup again.

I took longer than usual at lunch, because I was talking with Juan Javier (say it – it feels good), so it was nearly 1200 when I got back, which was when the lumbar laminectomy was supposed to start.  I put on my hair net, face mask and shoe protectors and jumped into theatre to find an empty room.  The operation would start at about 1300 simply due to delays.  While I waited I chatted to the nurses in spanish and, I must say, my spanish was flowing pretty easily; things really seem to be improving in that area exponentially.  Now if I could only understand people easily.  Things quietened down when the patient arrived, but then everyone left and it was just her and me, I felt a bit awkward so I said:

“No digo porque soy Australiano y mi español no es bueno”

She smiled and nodded and then we started talking as well.  Things kept going this way until the operation started – it was a bloody good time.  The operation itself though seemed long (although only really went for ~2.5 hours) and dull.  It was hard to see what was going on because it was all happening in a 10cm wide space, 10cm deep into the patients back.  There was a lot of diathermy and suctioning of blood and crap out of that space.  They did intermittent X-rays of the space when the surgeon drove some screws into the spine; he was fusing L5 and S1 together.  Occasionally he explained what they were doing, which was handy and, I guess, all up – I’m glad I have now seen one, so now I have and idea of what they involve.  It’s not a ‘showpiece’ sort of operation.  In that way – laparoscopic operations are good because you see exactly what the surgeon sees.  There should be more of those (I’m sure there will be in the future).

That’s about it for my day.  I arrived home to a quiet house, although I know they’re both here; they’ve been in their bedroom the whole time (about 2 hours now).  I’m going to hit up Dairy Queen soon I think.  I feel like some ice-dream.  I’ve been drinking tequila and writing this; I must say – I feel rather content.  And, for me, that’s what people should aspire to in life:

Not to be rich, but to be content. (Cue Full House theme music).

Now fuck off.