The Life and Times of a 6'10" White Guy in Mexico Day 23

This day started off like many other days I had in this country. I get up at the ass crack of dawn and ride a public bus to school for jampacked with smelly mexicans for 55 minutes. And as soon as the bus gets completely full like its a burrito that's about to explode, all the Mexicans except for about 5 get off at the stop directly before my stop to go to work. Today was my spanish class final exam which I had studied for on the bus ride over. After the exam, I lifted weights, then went to the gas station to buy a beer for the long bus ride home. The bus rides home weren't that bad because Jose and Pablo and all those other smelly sonbitches haven't gotten off work yet, so the buses weren't that crowded. You might even see a mamacita or two on the ride home. Today is the day I would see something on the bus i will never forget. I was sitting at the back of the bus sipping on my corona when it appeared. It was the biggest one I had ever seen. i had saw some big ones in this country before, but never this big. I was awestruck. As this woman walked on the bus I could see it from all angles. It was amazing. It had to be the biggest ass in all of Central America. This woman was not even really fat but each ass cheek had its own area code. When she sat down she took up a whole row and actually got taller. I wish i had a picture, because it was truly a miricle of nature. When I got home, I am hungry as shit, so i ask my aunt Fabiola for my dinner. So when she throws a fried pepper on my plate as the main course, imagine my excitement. I have eaten a lot of bullshit since I have been in this country, but this bullshit took the cake. I am 6'10" and I used to be 245 lbs before I have to eat shit like ONE FRIED PEPPER for dinner. So I do what I do whenever I get pissed off in this country. I start rambling off cuss word after cuss word in english to Silvio. And I am cussing my aunt out to her face but she has NO IDEA what I am saying because she doesn't speak english. So I walk down the block to buy a sandwich and go the arcade to take out my frustration. When I get back there is a little fat pimple cladden mexican in the house who I have never seen before. It only take 5 minutes after I introduce myself for this kid to start talking shit. Another kid from the neighborhood named Nacho tells me that his name is Mutante which means mutant in spanish. After trading the obvious insults this assclown starts talking shit in English. And if there is one thing I can't stand, it is a Mexican talking shit in english. This little fat fuck asks me "Djou want a hotdog?" DO I WANT A HOTDOG! But I keep my calm because this is my mexican mother's house, and there will no brutalizing little fat kids in it. So me and Silvio wait and as soon as he steps out of the door and then we ambush him. But to my amazement the little fucker takes off faster than any fat kid has run before. I am in an all out sprint and Silvio has lightning quick Brazilian speed but deeply hidden beneath his rolls Mutante must have had a giant heart and superhuman fat kid speed. We chased him for two blocks in an all out sprint but the little fucker escaped, and we had to walk back exhausted. After being verbally abused and outrun by an overweight teenage dipshit, I decided to call it a night because tommorow we headed to Puerto Vallarta and I would need my energy.

The Life and Times of a 6'10" White Guy in Mexico Day 4

It's 6 a.m. and I think my water just broke. I am sitting in my bed balled up in pain and I don't even have the energy to move. After an hour sitting there on the verge of tears, I gather my strength and go to the bathroom. As you can imagine, it wasn't too pretty. The mexican cuisine had finally gotten the best of me. Thank god I had breakfast to look forward to. So at 7:30 I sit down at the table and Marie puts another lovely mexican breakfast on the table. I recognize the eggs, but there is something else on my plate that seems a little out of place. So I look up at Marie with my "what the fuck is this shit" glare and she just smiles back at me like shes doped up on smack. So I start eating this shit, I don't know what it is but as best I can describe it is corn flakes marinated in hot sauce. After about two bites I put my fork down and blankly stare at my plate. Marie noticed that I'm not eating her food, and if you have ever had a mexican mom you will understand that not eating their food is equivalent to telling an American mom to her food back and shove it up her ass. So she starts pestering me and asking if I'm not hungry, but I just tell her that I'm sick and leave out the fact that I don't have enough strength to eat this garbage that you call breakfast in your country. As soon as I say this Marie goes off walking and rambling Spanish that I can't understand. She comes back with some weeds from her garden and starts cooking them in a pot with water. So I go upstairs and get ready for school, visit the bathroom again, and when I get down Marie gives me some crazy yellow tea in a baby bottle. Apparently, this tea is supposed to make me feel better but I don't see it curing the ass flood that has already hit me twice this morning. I grab the tea and take to the bus stop where I will attempt to make it through a 50 minute bus ride without shitting myself. Luckily, bus 631 is there when we walk up, so I jump on, pay my 3.5 pesos and sit down. It didn't look very good, but that tea was fantastic. It burnt the fuck out of my mouth, but it was some excellent tea. But while I'm sitting here, some guy with a guitar walks on the bus, sees the sucker American with my baby bottle and Spanish dictionary, and decides to stand directly next to me and start playing and singing something that sounds like the spanish version of Hakuna Matata. I'm sick and in a bad mood, so I really dont want to pay for Enrique Clapton singing the blues directly in my ear. After two songs this guy realizes that he is playing a free concert, and gets off the bus. When we get to school I run to the bathroom and make it just in time. We didn't start school until tommorrow, but today was orientation. They put us in a classroom, show some video, then interview us one at a time. I talk to everyone else, and they tell me it was really easy, and they just asked personal questions. I go in there and almost immediately this woman starts asking me to compare US and Mexican business, and describe the benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement. I can't really remember what i said, but it probably didn't make sense. After this we tour the school and all the facilities, which were actually pretty nice. The we have a brunch, and after eating my donut, I go to the bathroom once again. I have take some immodium AD, but apparently this was something that this medicine had not seen before. After tthis, we piled into a van and drove to some city called Tlaquepaque or something like that. Basically, it was just another place where Mexicans sit around and sell artwork and other worthless shit. Still, you can never look at enough worthless shit so here we were. So I'm walking along, still in pain, and I actually see a painting that is not half bad. I ask the guy sitting on the bench how much it is in spanish and he tells me 200 pesos. I tell him no gracias and then magically he starts speakin freakin English. Just because he speaks English won't make me change my mind, so I start walking off so I don't lose the group. After, I tell him that I might come back, this son of a bitch calls me a "fucking liar" in English no less. I turn around but a member of my party grabs me before I do something stupid. We look at more crap for about an hour until we decide to go to the mall so we can look at slightly more expensive crap. The mall was no different than any other mall in America, it actually is nicer than most of the malls I remember going to. The food court was pretty good and I ended up getting a sandwich and some Dairy Queen since the throbbing in my guts had finally ceased. We eventually end up walking around until we go into one Italian fashion store where me and Silvio immediately sit on the couch inside while some sales clerk just stares at us the whole time like we are about to rob the place. While we are chillin' like villians, the rest of our party leaves the store and disappears. We find them and two girls try to convince us to to go to see the Stepford Wives. I have had enough of one of these girls for the rest of my life let alone the rest of the day, so I politely decline with a "Hell NO" So me and Silvio walk with our peace signs in the air, off into the Mexican sundown.

The Life and Times of a 6'10" White Guy in Mexico Day 3

I wake up, and I am so excited I almost piss myself. I am stoked because today I get to go to the Mexican ballet. I've been to Disney World. I've seen Jordan play. I have seen some of the most violent chick fights known to man. But nothing compares to the shear entertainment and beauty of the Mexican Folklore Ballet. My breakfast sucks just like every other breakfast, I would eat during my stay. But I don't care, Im going to the ballet. It might as well have been a donkey shit omelete, because it would have tasted fantastic no matter what it was. So we walk to the theater, which is only 2 blocks away from my house. I expect to see a huge line, but instead I see the USC group sitting down singing Elton John songs. This just doesn't seem right to me so I ask Bruce (the professor in charge of this trip) what the deal is? He tells me that the ballet is cancelled, but to me it sounds like he said Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Captain Kangaroo had been viciously murdered by terrorists. My lifelong dream of attending the Mexican Folklore Ballet had been crushed. So instead they take us to TlaquePlaque which is Mexico's largest free market of useless shit. I look at all this useless shit for 2 and a half hours and manage to buy some little ugly steel Don Quixote statue for 2 bucks and some flowers. So we go home, and I give the flowers to my mexican mom Mari because she has been really nice to me. No sooner than I display this potted plant, does this woman tackle me and start kissin my face all over exclaiming "Juani, Juani, muchas gracias." I spent the rest of the day walking around the neighborhood, trying to ponder how the fuck I got put in this situation. Why am I in this country?

The Life and Times of a 6'10" White Guy in Mexico Day 2

It felt great to sleep in, and as I woke up I was ready to explore my new home. I lived in a neighborhood called the colonials de la normal. It wasn't the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but it had a lot of character. The people in the area were very friendly, and it wasnt dangerous because there were always little kids hanging out and dancing and skateboarding. There were a lot of little stores, restaraunts, and arcades around so there was always something to do. I would go exploring all the time and find new things. This is the day I started to talk to my family and figure out who was who. Family is huge in Mexico, and we had a whole lot of family jampacked in our little casa. It took me almost my entire trip to figure out how all these people were related to each other and why they all stayed in our house. Here is a family tree describing the Mexican portion of our family.

Mari ++++++++++++++++++++ Paco
/''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' / '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''/
?¿?+++?¿?_____ Fabiola++??__ Chimo
`` /'''''''''''''/--------/''''''''''''''''/
Oliver _ Kati --- Christian _ Dese

Add to that three girls from California, and the three of us from USC, and you have one huge family of 14 people with only two toilets to shit in. Bathroom time became a huge conflict in this house, and because you don't flush your TP in Guadalajara, resulted in a smelly mess. Plus one of the bathrooms was way too small for a man of my stature to fit in, and there was ceramic death traps set up all over the place. I spent about 15 seconds in that bathroom before I broke something.

I wasn't here even a day before my 14 year old cousin Christian starts begging me to go play basketball with him. So, Silvio (Brazilian who goes to USC), Bach (another guy who goes to USC), Christian, and I go off to the park. We have to go to Gigante (spanish Kmart, they have actual Walmarts in Mexico) to buy a basketball because Christian can't find his. We get the ball, stop by the pet shop to look at the monkey, and continue our journey to the park. Everytime I walk through the streets it becomes a huge spectacle, so imagine what it would be like when I start playing basketball. Its really not even that fun for me because I am like Billy Madison playing dodgeball against the kindergardeners when I attempt to play basketball with the Mexicans. Its bad enough playing with scrubs in the U.S but in Mexico, they not only our scrubs, but scrubs who smell like they bathe in dog shit. So I carry our 3 on 3 team until they start triple teaming me (keep in mind that there are only 3 players on a team) and we get upset sending the opposing team running off though the park screaming like they just won the World Cup. Im tired as fuck so I don't even want to wait to play again and we walk home.

A couple of the girls from USC somehow manage to find our house number, and they call us, and come over so we can go out. We take the bus downtown, and as soon as we step on the bus it starts pouring. By the time we step out of the bus the streets of Guadalajara are flooded and we our stuck here in the middle of a river not knowing where the fuck we are. So we run to there appears to be peole at, and ask them where the bars are. They point at this street and tell us four blocks this way. By the time we get there we are soaked. We find a bar with this bald 5'5" guy at the door, and feeling that this man would easily take care of potential terrorist threats, we decide to enter. We walk up the stairs and they escort us to a table to begin the drinking festivities. I've been in places with paintings of Jesus before. Ive also been in places with paintings of naked women before. But this is the first place I've been into with these two images side by side. But I wasn't in this place to look at paintings, I was in this place to drink, and drink I did. After a few tequila concoctions, we all headed to the dance floor. I start dancing with this hot Mexican chick, as the girls I with get jealous and start grabbing my ass in an attempt to throw me off my game. I remain unfazed and continue to dance with this girl, but I do not talk to her. I can not talk with her because I am drunk and don't remember any spanish, except how to ask to go to the bathroom. Shortly thereafter, the male dance contest begins. I had already witnessed the female dance contest earlier that night, and I was not excited about entering this thing and winning the grand prize of being allowed to dance on the balcony by myself. Thats right, I would win the opportunity to dance on a balcony alone and show everybody how gay I would be for winning this dance contest. So what else would I do, but enter this ridiculous exhibition. In fact, I was the first one to enter. I ran up the steps and it would be minutes before someone else joined me. When it actually started there were like 8 guys in the contest, and because I was the first guy to run up the stairs, I had to go first. They start playing some terrible mexican song that I had never even heard before, and I had no idea how the hell I am supposed to dance to this shit. So I start doing the robot. I was eliminated in the first round, but I really felt like I was cheated. I do one hell of a robot, and I should have at least advanced for creativity. Everybody else did basically the same thing. Anyways, the rest of the night was much like earlier in the night: me getting drunk, dancing with that mexican girl, and speaking broken spanish. I had to get up early tommorrow morning to go to the ballet, so it was a relatively short night.

The Life and Times of a 6'10" Guy in Mexico Day 1

July 9th 12:00 a.m.
I have to be at the airport in 5 and a half hours and everyone in my party is too drunk to drive me. Still, we continue to drink heavily.

3:oo a.m.
I can barely see, but the night is far from over, as we leave Pavlovs, we encounter a black man with a leaf blower in hand, some might describe him as a bum. At first we walk right past him, but after walking about halfway down the block I realize that this man said 15 dollars. Realizing that this deal on a high quality machinery was too good to pass up, I get my friends to throw in, and we walk back to the hype (a hype is a classification for a street vender for someone who is slightly higher on the social strata than a bum, because he is hustling something, usually stolen property). After seeing that this thing actually works, we give the hype the 15 bucks and walk off with our new toy. As we walk into Jungle Jims I am blowing everything in sight. I blow the security, I blow the 7 people inside, I blow the bartenders, I'm blowing all the cups over, I blow some girl directly in the face at close range, its like Hurricane Hugo has hit Jungle Jims. Even though I am causing massive chaos, I am still getting hooked up with free drinks because who is going to fuck with a guy with a power tool. After there was no further destruction to be done, we decide to leave to go terrorize other drinking establishments. So we walk down the street blowing everybody in sight, but as we near our destination, we run out of gas. When this happened, it seemed like the night had finally come to an end. We go to pita pit to get a snack, and I go back to get my luggage arriving just as my ride pulls up. The Fez drives me to the airport, and I stumble in and mumble to the desk clerk, Guuuadaaalajaaaaaaara.

I basically sleep the entire time of travel, except for the hour and a half I wasted by staying up to watch Jersey Girl on the plane ride to Guadalajara. When we get to Guadalajara we get to customs and I discover that while I was sleeping, I was supposed to fill out paperwork. So these people are asking me all these questions in Spanish, and I have no idea what is going on until some girl finally rescues me and gives me the forms and a pen. As we are leaving the airport, I meet my Spanish family, and we hug and do all that other crazy Mexican bullshit you do when you greet. As soon as I rest for one second, some mexican guy snatches my suitcase from me and starts walking off with it. I don't know if he's part of my family or just some random Mexican trying to jack my stuff. But I follow him because I have no idea where the fuck I am or where the fuck I am going. When we get to the car it turns out, that this guy wants money signaling to me that he is probably not a member of my party. So I give him all the money in my wallet which is something like 7 cents and get into the van. We drive around with this crazy mariachi shit playing, making random stops for who knows what, with everybody talking in Spanish. Then, Chimo, the driver and my spanish brother, says a word I finally understand: cerveza. I dont even want a cerveza because Im still feeling like shit from last night, but we stop at 3 different bodegas to buy different types of spanish beers, and everybody in the van starts drinking. Finally we get to the house, and choose rooms. There are 3 girls from California living in this house, and its a good thing there was because we would have no idea what to do if they werent there to explain things to us. They took us around the neighborhood and told us vital information like "don't eat tacos here, and buy your beer here." We would go out later that night to meet with the rest of the group of Californians. We would wait 45 minutes for a table for 25 people. I drank a lot of tequila that night, but not enough to get me to go out. I had too long of a day and was ready to finally go to bed.


TO BE CONTINUED