A City of Stone

It has been 8 hours since I landed in Guadalajara. The altitude is a few thousand meters higher than Houston so needless to say, my body is working to adjust. I noticed that I'm a bit tachycardic.

Weather

I remember I use to think that Houston was the hottest place on earth, but as of today, Guadalajara during midday has taken that throne. It's a good 95 degrees here during the day but it lacks the humidity so it's not stuffy. The sun out here, however, is no joke. If you stand out under the sun for an extended period of time - like 15 minutes - it will literally begin to hurt. Luckily, the town cools down drastically during the evening time. It was low 70's when I went swimming around 8:30 PM and drops down to the 50's during the night. Weird weather, but at least it's predictable. They say the daily afternoon summer rains are due in about a week. Hot showers. Fantastic.

People

As you no doubt have guessed, the people here are predominantly Mexican. Some are whities and some are darkies - is it still acceptable to use those words in a nonmalicious manner? The thing I noticed right away though, is the phenomenon of unabashed staring here. Perhaps it's the lack of Asian people around this area. I don't mind it most of the time, but when I get it from men with cutoff shirts and tattoos of the virgin on their jugular, well, let's just say that I'd have quite a career as a Soprano opera singer if I ever had to run from them down a dark alley. With that said, the majority of the people are incredibly nice. You can still detect that faint hint of small town neighborliness in the people that work here.

Food

I went to a Mexican Restaurant called La Tequila for dinner. The place has a contraption in front that looks like it could have, at one point, been used to distill the drink. Seeing the condition of it now, hopefully, that is no longer the case. The food, as you might have guessed, is fantastic. The servers make fresh salsa from a mortar and pestle right at your table and the chips are freshly fried. The bread had a ball of butter baked right into it, but somehow the ball of butter still held its shape? Some sort of Mexican culinary magic, no doubt. I ordered the Chicken Pablano Mole and the it was D-licious. The tortillas were freshly made from blue corn. Hands down the best Mexican food I have had in my life so far. Hopefully it only gets better from here. On a side note, we walked an hour back to the hotel so at least I'm getting plenty of exercise here - no accounting for the health of my lungs though, as our stroll was mostly through areas of active construction.

Floating on my back in the pool tonight, I noticed that the skies here are filled with stars. You can literally see hundreds if you stare long enough. I'm certain they're the same ones that we have back home - the constellations are the same, anyways - but I suppose it's been a while since I've taken the time to notice these beautiful things that are of little practical matter.